Revelatory Dating
Revelatory Dating
We searched the Bible like many of you, looking for God’s ways in the romantic. There are no rules of dating in the Bible, but there are love stories for us to follow. The first one sets the standard for the other two.
The first love story was the union of Eve to Adam. From a macro view, we see Adam doing the work Our Father gave him to do, making the most of his time alone with God until God called on him to take a nap. When Our Father had finished fashioning him a companion, He presented her to him. God revealed Eve as Adam’s best-fitted companion. Adam’s response tells us she was a desire of his heart. The story of Isaac and Rebekah, along with Boaz and Ruth follow the same pattern of single adults making the most out of their time alone with God until God presented them with a best-fitted companion. None of them were disappointed with what God had put together. Is this why there are no dating principles in the Bible? Has God been expecting His revelation of a spouse to be sufficient for us?
Why not? He is our designer and all-knowing Father Who already gave us His best gift in Christ without us having to do a thing but receive Him. The Word tells us, “…how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:32
As young adults, Gary and I could not get passed this verse. It challenged who we were believing God to be for us and exposed the limits of our faith. What did these individuals have that made them so ready to receive whom God was presenting to them? I believe Ruth says it for everyone when she replies to her mother-in-law about why she would leave everything to follow her, “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” No one can say that after the losses she saw and personally experienced except she had come to love the God of Israel through them. At some point in her young life, she came to know that she knows God is good and worth giving up every selfish ambition to be where He is.
Gary and I did not experience American Dating together. We experienced Revelatory Dating. Up til the point of revelation, we enjoyed a friendship. Once the revelation was complete, where both have heard, we were free and full of love to receive one another as God’s best-fitted companion and begin to explore a dating romance unto marriage. The faith was challenging and the friendship was easy. The waiting was transforming and the dating was free of relational doubt, insecurities, and anxieties.
I get sad when I look across the horizon of the American Dating culture and watch people trying to fit themselves together, missing out on simple and pure friendships, and gaining in the rewards of being with God alone. God, our Perfect Father, in us and over us is watching us do this without listening to His lead. Oh, how His heart must ache as He already knows where this kind of self-reliant activity will lead you.
Review Romans 8:32 each time you begin to doubt God’s desire and ability to line you up with His best-fitted mate. Every time you find yourself trying to make things happen, remember it. When the pressure to “get yourself out there” comes knocking, rehearse it. And when loneliness wants to bury you add to it Psalm 84:11, “…no good thing will He withhold from those walk uprightly [righteous of which you are now in Christ].”
