Dating & Courtship - Stephen Picklesimer (english novels for students TXT) 📗

might be considered fools! However, few would admit that the choices they make are foolish, and fewer still would ever consider themselves to be fools.
Why? Because they ignore the signs of infatuation. Actually, they do not even see them, because they are caught up in the feelings of infatuation, which usually begins with a “crush” or “puppy love.” Tragically, parents often promote this, thinking childhood boyfriends and girlfriends are cute, and encourage pairing off, starting with young children. This is dangerous thinking, often ingrained into children beginning as early as kindergarten!
Infatuation can involve very powerful attraction. Never underestimate it. While it stirs up the emotions and feelings that make couples think they are in love, infatuation is nothing more than a starry-eyed experience—a romantic daydream. But, at this point in a relationship, it is nearly impossible to convince anyone of this. Reason and logic seem to magically disappear as people feel they are going through a wonderful, even divine, experience that will last forever.
Recognizing Infatuation
All of this understanding is of no use if one cannot recognize the beginnings of infatuation. How then can you know if you are becoming infatuated?
The biggest symptom of infatuation is an almost complete reliance on emotions—to the exclusion of almost everything else about a person—allowing these emotions to first lead, and then dictate, your actions. In the earliest stages of a relationship, ask yourself the following questions:
What is your major attraction to the person? If infatuated, your main interest will almost certainly be physical appearance. On the other hand, if you truly love the person, you will—among many other things—be interested in his or her total personality, and this will come to include the person’s character.
How did the attraction begin? While infatuation almost invariably happens quickly, love always develops more slowly. “Love at first sight” does not exist, and should more properly be called “lust (or infatuation) at first sight.” Anything of worth takes time. But, when it comes to one’s own life, most fail to see—let alone apply—this simple truth.
How consistent is your interest? Infatuation is like a rollercoaster ride—rising and falling, often on trivial events, fluctuating between high peaks of certainty and deep valleys of doubt. With love, one’s interest becomes deeper and more consistent with time. Infatuation involves feelings, comparable to hot and extreme, while love involves character, reflecting balance and temperance.
How do you see the other person? The infatuated live in a one-person world. Their attraction is like the earth’s attraction to the sun—their whole universe revolves around the other person. Seemingly nothing else matters, and both are completely wrapped in each other’s orbit—and this almost invariably turns to being wrapped around each other’s bodies.
During this stage of infatuation, many become blind, rendered almost completely unable to see anything wrong with the other person. While danger signals might be everywhere, the infatuated person does not recognize them—any of them. He tends to see what he wants to see rather than what he NEEDS to see. (Consider this: Studies reveal that no more than two percent of people counseling for marriage will even consider that they may be INCOMPATIBLE. Even fewer heed counsel urging them to actually break it off.)
Now ask: How do others see you? If you are infatuated, your parents and most of your friends will most likely not approve of your relationship. Their objectivity can allow them to see a range of potential difficulties, when the infatuated person often cannot see even the most obvious problems.
The Role of Emotions
Let’s repeat for emphasis: Emotion is the bedrock of infatuation. Do not misunderstand—emotions can be good, even wonderful, and certainly perfectly normal in the right circumstances. However, the emotionally immature are incapable of controlling emotions and, as a result, quickly become infatuated.
Obviously, physical maturity takes time—from birth to adolescence to adulthood. Also—and most generally recognize this—coming to mental maturity is a process, similarly involving much time. Yet, few realize the importance of emotional maturity.
Most think that “love” is an emotion that takes over a person. This is one reason why the counterfeit feels and looks so much like true love. This kind of “love” never lasts, because it is built on an improper foundation! This is not to say that an emotionally mature person suppresses emotions, but rather that he properly exercises them. As with anything of value, emotional maturity takes time and effort to acquire.
Let’s look realistically at what happens with such emotional “love.” Too often, it begins with a high that dominates and controls a person. Remember, however real they seem, these feelings will not last! If couples base their marriage on these emotions, the relationship will quickly crack under stress.
Many never come to recognize that marriage is much more MENTAL than emotional. As one well-known author has stated, people too often “think” with their hormones and sex organs instead of sound logic! Marriage (and dating) is a mental decision, something that should be objectively thought through over a period of time. But there is also a SPIRITUAL DIMENSION to those who seek God’s guidance in finding a suitable lifelong mate.
The real proof of emotional maturity is not whether one “falls in love” (becomes infatuated). The true test of maturity is how you handle situations, circumstances and relationships—what you choose to DO about them!
Falling in Love?
Most are familiar with the many clichés surrounding the idea of “falling in love.” Endless songs carry lyrics such as “just can’t help falling in love” or “I get a feeling I just can’t control…falling in love with you, baby.” Many movies depict couples falling in love at first sight, and novels and magazines are filled with this scenario. Even our everyday conversations often include such terms!
This is seen everywhere, and everyone, to a certain degree, accepts it as natural. But the truth is that one cannot “fall” into love! Real love is not something that happens by chance. It develops over time, based on the all-important foundation that the Creator has given us.
People do not fall in love, but rather they fall in LUST!
Falling in Lust!
Remember that human nature is naturally hostile toward God (recall Romans 8:7). This is because the arch-broadcaster is filled with vanity, jealousy, lust, envy and greed, and he instills these feelings within each human being. His way can be defined simply as the “get” way of life, and lust is a foundational building block of this way. Lust has purely selfish motives, and is concerned only with fulfilling its own desires and wants.
The advice offered by social programs, such as Planned Parenthood, which places little emphasis on abstinence or self-control, but rather only on being careful when one is sexually active, only serves to fuel this selfish desire. Teens wondering when to have sex have already been told by society (probably many times) to “always do what’s good for you—do what will help you enjoy your life—and fulfill your plans for the future.” This actually translates into “Thinking only about yourself.”
Here is what Christ inspired John to write: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (I John 2:16). John divides all that is in the world into the following THREE CATEGORIES: Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life! Pause and think for a moment. The three phrases in this passage, describing the world at large, sum up how so many people typically date, court and, consequently, get married!
One of the most powerful forces behind dating today is little more than the basic sex drive. While God did instill the sexual desire in human beings for a pure and holy purpose, the world, held captive by Satan’s influence, has turned this into lust. Sizing people up for sex has now become a common practice. For decades, “girl watching” and “boy watching” have been national pastimes. Millions routinely lust after men and women to whom they are not married.
Today, God’s most basic commands are routinely broken. Notice: “You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28). Throughout society, people are confronted—even BOMBARDED—with the temptation to lust.
Almighty God created sex. In the right setting, it is one of the most wonderful physical experiences that a man and a woman can share. Yet, Satan has twisted this God-designed pleasure, reducing it to a sinful act, practiced almost universally between virtual strangers. He has used sex to preoccupy young minds so that, in time, it destroys character and ruins any potential for a happy, wholesome, lifelong relationship between a husband and wife.
It is easy to understand what John meant by “lust of the eyes.” Today, people would think of this in terms of what is considered “hot” or “sexy.” Many discard their virginity after a night of “clubbing” (hopping from one singles’ bar to another) merely because someone seemed “sexy.”
Lust is deeply entrenched within human nature! Paul wrote, “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that you cannot do the things that you would” (Gal. 5:16-17). This describes the Christian’s everyday battle.
Understand! Those who seek to please God are not to fulfill the lust of the flesh. Yet, millions do this exact thing when dating, and do it almost non-stop. So few use even the most basic common sense—which tragically seems to be not very common anymore—but rather follow their hormones into wrong relationships!
A Simple Greek Lesson—Pornos
In today’s world, lust is the fuel for sex, and vice-versa, and the right use of sex in a happy marriage has become so perverted that virtually an entire generation no longer knows even the rudiments of right and wrong. Many simply do not understand that pre-marital sex is harmful—and is SIN—ruining otherwise potentially healthy relationships. Anything and everything goes as teens today practice sexual immorality on a grand scale!
Paul describes more thoroughly what people lust after: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like” (Gal. 5:19-21).
Many seem to understand how terribly destructive adultery is to marriages. But what about FORNICATION—a term rarely used anymore, and even more rarely understood? If you challenged someone with “You are committing fornication,” he or she would lampoon and ridicule you as “old-fashioned”—and that you need to “get real and grow up to the higher level of freedom that society has achieved today.”
What then is fornication? In the simplest terms, it is sexual relations outside marriage. Looking up the New Testament Greek word for “fornication” reveals an interesting point. This word is pornos—and the English word “pornography” is derived from it.
At least on the surface, society generally seems to admit that pornography is lewd and vile, and ruins lives. (Yet, ever-growing millions secretly view it.) But fornication is even more destructive! Incredibly, many now believe that it is good for a relationship, even helpful in learning whether a couple is “sexually compatible” before committing to marriage.
This is never the case! God designed sex to be within marriage. When sex occurs outside marriage, it destroys relationships—and ultimately the individuals involved!
Forms of Dating
There are numerous wrong forms of dating today. In addition, the vast majority of people seeking marriage partners lack quality social organizations and places from which to draw potential partners, as well as recognized social institutions that can