The Heart of the Matter

I'm still working on the topic of dating in my head. It's a hard topic for me, because I'm the kind of person who wants straight answers for everything. I want to know exactly what I'm supposed to do and when I'm supposed to do it. I want a bulleted outline complete with dates, times, and locations.

Last I checked, God hadn't emailed me an excel spreadsheet. So here I am, wrestling, or "hashing" as Heather would say, with this topic.

Mostly I just wrestle with myself in my head, but every now and then Heather comes in and adds her 2 cents (in my head). The voice of Heather is always welcome in my head, except when I am driving on I-45 between the 610 and the beltway. There are like 6 giant blow up items on stores and car dealerships on that stretch of road, and that's when the imaginary voice of Heather goes on a rant about how stupid blow up items are instead of sharing wisdom. Funny, but not helpful.

Anyway, I haven't come to any conclusions about there being just "the one" or not, but I have come to some conclusions on why it is so difficult for us and why we end up hurting ourselves and each other so often.

I think the heart of our issues with dating is just that, the heart.

Perhaps our problems with dating are merely symptoms of larger issues in our hearts.

Maybe our issues with dating stem from the fact that we are incredibly self-centered people, who find ourselves in relationships for all the wrong reasons.

What if our focus in our relationships was truly bringing the Lord glory and building up the other person? Would we even have dating issues if that was our goal, instead of making ourselves happy?

What if we truly served the person we were dating instead of demanding what we want?

I think the real problem with dating is that we can't get over ourselves. It has become about what we think we want, need, and deserve. Our culture drills this into us. It tells us all about how we deserve to be treated, what we should get, and how the other person should make us feel.

I hear all the time that you can tell where your focus is by where your time, your money, and your thoughts are. Man, even if I can manage to give away a little money every month and spend some time serving others, that last one gets me every time. I think about myself all day long.

So it's only natural that when I'm in a relationship with someone that I focus on how they're not meeting my expectations, or how they're not giving me enough attention, or how they're not making me feel special enough. Me. Me. Me.

Issues.

And that's just what they are - issues. At the end of the day I find myself worrying and struggling with all of my issues because I've spent my entire day thinking about myself.

When I do take my eyes off of myself and seek the Lord and when I spend my time serving and loving others, I suddenly find myself with a lot less issues. I find the Lord healing me and changing me, without me doing anything.

Love God, love others. So simple. If we could just get that down, I think we would have a lot less issues with dating, and a lot less issues in general for that matter.

So maybe the problem isn't "dating" itself, but us. I still don't have the answers to how dating should look, and probably it's a little different for everyone, but if our focus is on the Lord and loving others, I can't imagine us having nearly as many problems with it as we do now.

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."
-Matthew 6: 33

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
-2 Corinthians 4:18