Relationships

5 Questions A Girl Should Ask

Recently, I read this article about questions that every guy should ask about his date.  It got me thinking – what are the questions every girl should ask? Here are five:

1) Does he truly love God? – Just like the author of the article states, this means more than just finding someone at church. There’s a difference between someone who says that they are a Christian, and someone who is a Christian. If “Christian” is a label and not a lifestyle than that is not someone who truly loves God. You need to ask – “Is God their number one priority – even over me?” This is critical for a lasting relationship that reflects God’s design.

2) Do I trust him? – And to really expand on that question, it’s “Do I trust him…with my life?” I had a friend who knew that she trusted her one-day husband because she would fall asleep in the car while he was driving. This was an indication to her that this was someone who she could trust her life with.  A relationship where you are constantly questioning the other person’s decision, isn’t a relationship that’s worth being in. You need to ask yourself “Would I want this person to make decisions about my life?” Because sooner or later, their decisions will affect your life.

3) Does he cherish me? – It’s easy these days to talk about love. The problem is that we say we love everything from peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the person that we’re married to. Because the definition of love has become so convoluted, I like to use the word cherish. Does the guy treasure you? Is he looking after your best interests? Does he care about you enough to tell you when you’re making a mistake or does he just let you do it? Your guy should want to protect you, to keep you from harm, because he recognizes that a woman who loves God is more precious than a rare jewel.

4) Where is he going? …and do I want to go there? Everyone is going somewhere. If you’re going to be in a relationship with this guy, than you’ll end up on the same path that he is. Is that a path you want to be on? We tend to think that those things will work themselves out as we are in a relationship, but they rarely do. If someone is walking a path (or if they aren’t walking anywhere), that says something about who that person is. Recognize that how he lives his life will inevitably influenced how your life is lived. Is he heading in a direction that you want to head?

5) Do I want to change him? – If you enter a relationship thinking “this is a great guy, except for X,Y, and Z”  – you have to wonder is that really the guy for you? People will change as relationships grow and time passes on, but if you’re starting a relationship with the idea that you want the person to be someone other than he is, than why don’t you find the guy that you want him to be instead? It’d be better to be like the movie Jerry Maguire in which Renee Zellweger’s character says about Jerry, “I love him for the man that he is and the man he wants to become.” It’s good for a guy to want to grow, and you should encourage that. But at the same time, you need to love him for who he is now, not the person you’re hoping to mold him into being.

I often tell people that, after my salvation in Christ, my husband is the best thing to happen to me.  While there are many reasons for this, a lot of them have to do with the fact that our relationship had the right answers to the above questions. I hope that more relationships can say the same.

What do you think? What other questions should you ask about your date?

 

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Relationships

The Lies of Compromise

It’s not easy being married. Don’t get me wrong, marriage is a wonderful gift from God, and a great marriage is an indescribable gift, but to day-in and day-out live the Ephesians 5 commands, takes a lot of work. Unfortunately, we have plenty of examples of the disintegration of marriage when the work doesn’t take place.

Awhile ago, I was reminded of this in a perhaps unconventional way. Although it embarrasses me a bit to admit it, I happen to catch a few minutes of The View and perhaps even more shameful, I heard some insight that actually made sense. While talking about a celebrity marriage that had been broken up by an affair, Elizabeth Hasselbeck stated that we are all just one choice away from experiencing a similar situation. Her point was that broken marriages don’t just happen in an instant, but they are the result of a thousand of individual choices that ultimately lead to a chasm in a relationship.

As I thought about this more, I pondered that if this was true, there also had to be some right choices that could regularly be made to prevent the relationship from being weakened. If our marriages are compromised by individual choices, than our marriages can also being strengthened by them.

One choice that we need to make is to invest in each other. I have seen many relationships falter because they believe the lie that the vows they exchanged are enough to keep the relationship strong. However, saying the vows once isn’t what ultimately matters. What matters is consistently living the vows each and every day. It’s not only acquiescing to take care of your spouse in sickness or in health, but it is actively looking for ways that you can do that. We should not simply state that we will love for richer or for poorer, but to purpose to demonstrate that love each and every day. I believe (although I can not statistically prove) that most marriages that collapse do not suffer a cardiac arrest, but that they are killed through a slow malaise that infects the fiber which binds them together. Investing in each other helps prevent that.

Also, couples need to be praying for one another. As I wrote about previously, this is more than just saying a general prayer for their well-being. While this is good, we also need to be praying purposefully for our significant other. I firmly believe that we are less likely to make intentional choices that will hurt someone if we are consistently petitioning our Heavenly Father for His best in their lives. If that is our prayer, we are going to want to be used as His instrument to accomplish that good; we won’t want to be a hurdle that inhibits it. Regularly and purposefully praying for our spouse helps us fight the lie that when have to look after ourselves. Instead, we are rightfully considering them as more important (See Phillipians 2:3).

Finally, we need to recognize the gift that marriage is – not only in our own lives – but in the lives of others. Throughout Scripture marriage is identified as a representation of Christ and the Church (For example, 2 Corinthians 11:2, Ephesians 5:22-33,  Revelations 19:7-9). Therefore, marriage has value in informing and shaping how others view our Savior, and our relationship with Him. Realizing this, and acknowledging that our marriages may help draw someone to God, will help us refute the lie that the marriage is only about two people. It is so much more than that. And when we recognize this, we will make choices that build our marriages rather than compromise them.

It’s a strange thing to write about marriage when someone could rightly say, “What do you know? You’ve only been married for two years. Come back and talk to me when you’ve been married for 40.” And I’m confident that in 38 years I will have a wealth of knowledge about marriage that I don’t currently have. But I’m also confident that the three truths above won’t have changed. And I hope that then, as well as now, I will be able to confidently say that all of them are true of me.

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