section (3) of Ch.9. (The Power of a Parent’s Blessing)

What’s So Wrong With the Current Dating System?

 Something is obviously wrong with a system that has roughlya 50 percent failure rate, but that is what our current dating system has produced. Nearly half of marriages today areending in divorce.

 For claritys sake, when I use the word dating I am talking about the strategy in which a young person spends time with people of the opposite gender in hopes of developing a boyfriend-girlfriend type of relationship with someone special. In this dating relationship the two parties intentionally developa mutually strong feeling of romantic love toward each other. This system is insufficient for managing romantic relationship and ultimately selecting amarriagepartner. Letmeexplain why.

Dating inverts God’s design.
God created people as three-part beings: spirit, soul, and body. The spirit should be subject to God, the soul (mind, will and emotions) subject to the spirit, and the body subject to the soul. In dating, people are usually first physically attracted to someone, then emotionally, then possibly spiritually. By focusing first on the physical, God’s order is inverted.

In con­trast, godly partnership allows the young person and the parents to first look for someone with godly character, then to consider emotional and physical attractiveness secondarily.

Dating focuses on self-gratification.
 The unconscious motive for dating usually sounds some­ thing like this: “I want someone who looks physically attrac­tive to me and makes me happy, someone I enjoy being with, who has interests similar to mine:’ The focus is on gratifying and pleasing self. In contrast, godly partnership would have the young person focus on blessing and serving someone else. The motive of relationship is self-sacrifice, not self-gratification.

 The goal here is to lay down one’s selfishness to serve another, not to use another to make oneself happy.
The idea is like a flea in search of a dog versus a recharge­-able battery for a cell phone. The flea’s goal is to take life from the dog.The battery’s job is to give life to the cellphone. When the dog can no longer provide life to the flea, the flea abandons that dog and looks for another. When the battery runs out of life, it returns to the recharger (Jesus Christ) to receive more life so it can provide more life to the phone.

Dating has no long-term goal.
 The primary purpose of dating is to “have fun.” When the fun is over, the relationship usually terminates.

Godly part­nership allows the heart to go out in romantic love only to a person who both the parents and child believe is a potential marriage partner sent from God. The goal of the romantic relationship is to head toward the covenant of marriage.

Dating is often emotionally damaging.
 When two fifteen-year-olds are dating, they do not usually have the goal of marriage in mind. They just want to have fun, but their hearts become fused together in romantic love for the duration of the relationship. This is like gluing two pieces of paper together. When one party no longer finds the other pleasing, the relationship breaks, but the hearts do not come apart the same way they went together. There is a ripping and tearing that cause significant emotional pain.
Each flea, I mean young person, then goes in search of another boyfriend or girlfriend to ease the emotional pain of the breakup. 

 Each time a breakup occurs, the person leaves a piece of his heart with that individual. Suppose this happensfive, eight or ten times before marriage .How much of the heart is really left to give to a spouse?

 The heart often is so wounded the person needs massive emotional healing just to get back to the place God intended him to be at the start of marriage. If that healing does not take place, imagine the turmoil that will ensue when two wounded fleas marry each other!
  In contrast, godly partnership seeks to reserve both the heart and body to be given only to the one God sends to be the marriage partner. In this strategy young people may spend lots of time together in groups, but they do not pair off as boy- friend/girlfriend and engage in romantic relationships with people they have no intention of marrying. The commitment of the son or daughter in this strategy is to preserve both the body and the heart (emotions) in wholeness and purity to be given only to a future husband or wife.

 A young woman I’ll call Sarah shared with me a powerful story. She was a Christian high school student who had been dating fairly regularly. One night she went out on a date to a movie with a young man. They kissed and hugged in the the­ ater, and she thought little of it until a few days later when she was reading Proverbs 31, which tells of the godly woman.
Verses 10-12 struck her in particular.

 An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels.The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.
                                             —EMPHASIS ADDED

Sarah told the Lord, “I want to be a godly woman as described here.” Then she heard the Holy Spirit ask her, “Socan the heart of your husband trust in you? Are you doing him good and not evil all the days of your life?”

She responded, “Lord, I don’t have a husband yet. Fm only sixteen/'
Back came the next question,“When does it say you should do him good and not evil?”

 Sarah read verse 12 again.“All the days of my life,”she mused. “I guess I am already in ‘all the days of my life?”
“Yes，”she heard the Lord reply.“So are you doing your husband good and not evil?”
“Lord,I don’tknow. I don'tknow whomy husband is.”
“I do,”the Lord replied.“Was that young man you went to the movies with your husband?”
“He’s a nice guy,”she said,“but I don't think I’d marry him.” “So he’s not your husband?” queried the Lord.
“No,he will not be my husband,” Sarah replied.
The Lord then told her, “Here’s how you can tell if you are doing your husband good and not evil. What if the man who will be your husband had accompanied you on the date and observed your behavior with the other young man? How do you think he would have felt?”
Interjecting her future husband into the image of last week’s date totally changed the picture. “He would have felt very betrayed and hurt, I suspect,” she replied.
“Why?”asked the Lord,
 “Because I gave someone else what should have been reserved for him,” she said. “I get it. My kisses and my heart actually don't belong to me.They belong to You, Lord,forYou to hold in trust until my wedding day, when I give my whole heart and body to my husband.”
 Sarah repented of treating her body as if it were hers to give away. She received God’s forgiveness and then heard the Lord tell her, “Your heart and body do belong to Me, but your father is the human agent I have charged with guarding your heart and your body until your wedding day. On your wedding day your father will transfer the responsibility to protect you to your husband?
With this revelation Sarah never went on another date.
A year and a half later she met the man who was to be her husband, and on their wedding day she was able to present
him with a healed, whole, pureheart. To see the fruit of this kind of commitment,you may want to check out this short video clip of a bride on her wedding day returning to her father the purity ring he gave her when he blessed her puberty and released her to become a woman : http://www.familyfoundation.com/index.php/dating15.

Dating is good preparation for divorce
 I have heard some people say they thought dating was good preparation for marriage. So the idea is that a relationship with no long-term goal, based on physical attraction and rooted in self-gratification, and that ends as soon as one person is no longer pleasing is good preparation for marriage? I think not! This is excellent preparation for divorce. This system teaches young people nothing about marriage, which is a lifelong commitment to God’s purpose through unconditional, selfsacrificial, convenant love. Godly partnership is much better preparation for marriage. It helps teach young people to deny self and seek to bless others first.

Dating leaves virtuous young women to reject and fend off lustful young men.
 God never designed a woman to do this.God has assigned a father the job of protecting his daughter’s heart and virginity. When a father is not involved, a daughter must do this for her­ self. Unfortunately, since God did not design women to do this, she must harden her heart in order to continually say, “NO, NO,NO,NO,NO!”Do you think that a woman's disposition to protect herself emotionally and sexually instantly disappears on her wedding night?

Of course not! This may negatively affect her sexual and emotional relationship in marriage for years.

 Godly partnership, on the other hand, entails the father protecting his daughter. He is the door through which anyyoung man must come. In this strategy the daughter has her dad screen any young man with romantic interest in her. The father will then grant or deny the young man access to his daughter’s time or heart. Because she doesn’t have to harden her heart and reject him herself, her heart can be soft and vulnerable when she gives it to her husband in marriage.

Dating usually does not involve the counsel and agreement of parents.
 As I mentioned earlier, young people are blinded to the potential negative qualities of the person in whom they have a romantic interest. They need the benefit of another set of objective eyes, which parents can provide. Part of the

consequence of this Windness is the near 50 percent divorce rate we now have in most Western countries. In contrast, partnership takes advantage of the parents’ insight This strategy allows romantic interest to develop between two parties only when both the parents and child are in agreement. The children commit in advance not to give their hearts to anyone until they and their parents are in agreement that the individualis a potential marriage partner sent from God.

Dating results in more marriages that parents choose not to bless.
 Children brought up in the dating system usually don't ask parents before they enter into a romantic relationship. They usually announce only their intention to marry. At this point itis too late for the parents to have any valid input. Consequently parents are placed in the awkward position of being asked to bless something they don’t approve of. In contrast, godly part­ nership involves the parents before any romantic relationship begins. In this strategy there is a much greater chance that the parents will bless the marriage, especially when it is implemented from the time of the blessing at puberty.

 I highly suggest that you consider teaching your children the partnership strategy of managing romantic interests and potential  marriage  relationships  from  the  time  of  puberty.
This will ensure the greatest chance that you will be able to bless your children when they marry.

WHAT If MY CHILD WANTS TO MARRY SOMEONE 
I DON’T APPROVE OF?

 Heartbroken parents frequently asked me what to do when their adult child has announced plans to marry someone they don’t think is right for him. They wonder if they should go ahead and bless the marriage even if they disapprove of the child’s choice. I believe the parents’ blessing is so powerful to facilitate a successful marriage that I would recommend blessing the union if it is not morally wrong or a violation of your conscience.

 However, I believe that it is incumbent upon parents to tell their adult child why they think he should not marry the person he has chosen. After sharing their concerns, the parents should then allow the child to make his choice withoutmanipulation or control. If he chooses to marry, then I believe it is best for the parents to bless the marriage and receive the child’s choice of a spouse.

 The caveat is this: “if it is not immoral or a violation of the parents" conscience” If the child has chosen to enter into a same-sex, incestuous, adulterous,orpolygamousmarriage, then it would not be possible for me as a parent to bless the marriage or attend the ceremony. Such a marriage is not only unwise and distasteful but also morally wrong. As a parent you can bless a son or daughter who is making an unwise choice or one with which you don’t agree. But you cannot violate your moral convictions and bless a child’s sinful or immoral choice.

 I know a couple i’ll call Sam and Sharon. They were faced with this very dilemma with their son, John. When John was a senior in high school, he had an adulterous affair with his youth pastor’s wife. They ended the relationship soon after it was discovered；and John eventually spent a year out of the city. Yet when he returned to the city, the youth pastor’s wife divorced her husband and began seeing John. Sam and Sharon were appalled, and they counseled their son to end the relationship.

 He refused,and a short time later he announced tha the was going to marry this woman. He wanted his parents to attend the wedding, but Sam and Sharon were ingreat tur­moil. They loved their son, but they were convinced that John’s marriage to the youth pastor’s former wife would constitute adultery according to Mark 10:12 and Luke 16:18. After much prayer and many sleepless nights, Sam and Sharon concluded that they could neither Wess John in his marriage nor attend a ceremony celebrating his adultery.

 It broke Sam’s heart to tell his son this news,but he and Sharon could not violate their own consciences.Sam made it

clear to John that he and Sharon loved him deeply and accepted him as their son no matter what choices he made, but they could not attend his wedding. Sam and Sharon continued to maintain are lationship with John. Then about two years

later John went to his father for counsel during a very difficult time in his marriage. In that meeting John thanked his father for standing for what he believed even at the risk of jeopardizing their relationship, and for continuing to love and accept himdespitehischoices,Johnacknowledgedthathis parents had been right all along. He now saw his choices from God’s perspective and was humbled and repentant.

 In the case of Sam and Sharon, not attending the wedding and not violating their conscience was the best way to the best way to minister to their son at that time. However,if a marriage is not immoral, after lovingly sharing your concerns with your adult child, it is better for you to bless your childchoice, even though you disagree with it, than to withhold your blessing. If them arriage is immoral, you cannot bless the union or the child and retain a clear conscience before God.