Dating & Courtship, Stephen Picklesimer [e textbook reader TXT] 📗

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Then, sit down and discuss with each other the reasons you generated. Either you will grow closer together, or doubts will arise and cause you to analyze and prepare more.
Of course, neither your relationship nor anyone else’s will ever be perfect. As we have discussed, you both have habits, good and bad, and you will have to continually remember to focus on the other person’s GOOD POINTS. But never forget the basic biblical principle, “He who thinks he stands, take heed lest [you] fall” (I Cor. 10:12), and choose to foresee the trouble in advance and to “hide yourself” (Prov. 22:3) if necessary. You owe each other no less!
Remember, love comes from God. He will trigger your minds to grow together if you allow Him. He will bring you together if it is His will—be patient and rely on Him.
When you are sure you are making the right choice, you are ready to officially begin the next step of your relationship together.
Conclusion –NOW THAT YOU ARE ENGAGED
Congratulations! You are engaged! Reaching this point means that you have just enjoyed a wonderful evening with your brand new fiancé(e). It was probably a romantic moment for both of you. You are exhilarated and happy beyond words. People are congratulating you. You are looking forward to the start of something wonderful.
This is an exciting time in your life—savor and enjoy it! A marvelous, dynamic relationship is underway.
But now what? What does engagement mean? Besides continuing to build on the things you have learned in this book, what final issues and matters should be discussed and addressed?
First, we need to understand exactly what happened at engagement. You have already decided you want to get married—that you want to spend the rest of your life with this person. Think of engagement in the following way: When an automobile transmission is shifted from “neutral” into “drive,” only then can the car begin to move forward, toward a specific destination. This is because the transmission has been “engaged”—put into gear. With a wedding engagement, you are now in gear, moving forward toward a destination—the ultimate “date”—that of your wedding day!
Of course, with the final decision to get married now having been made, you may not have actually established the precise time when you will get married, and engagement is the time to finalize planning when this will happen. Therefore, length of engagement is the first order of business for the newly engaged couple.
Length of Engagement
Many couples announce their engagement with no idea whatsoever when the wedding day should be. Some wait through a full year of engagement, thinking this is the right thing to do. A few go for several years—often waiting for college, military service or professional training to end—before committing to a date. Many settle on a period between six months and a year. Others pick three to six months. Still others opt for something between one week and one month, while some completely skip any engagement period.
What is best?
While the Bible does not address the exact length for a proper engagement, I have learned in my over thirty years of experience in the ministry that shorter engagements are a better alternative, for a variety of reasons. Let me explain.
Often, people become engaged on an emotional whim. (Hopefully, by now, the reader would not consider such a foolish course of action.) These do not counsel with a minister prior to engagement, and they certainly have not focused on or even considered the principles outlined in this book. Such engagements are the ones that often drag out one, two or three years while the couple figures out how to “get ready” for marriage.
If you have followed God’s way and honestly addressed all pertinent issues, you should be married within no more than six months of engagement. The most ideal time is probably about three to four months, with six weeks being a minimum. This latter timeframe should be the rare exception, because most weddings require at least this much time to find a hall, prepare and send invitations (allowing enough time for people who wish to attend to be able to do so), plan a honeymoon, find an apartment and plan a household, buy furniture, and a host of other things you can only address as they happen.
For some, the idea of even having guidelines for length of engagement is probably foreign. You may need to drop any resistance you have toward this issue, because these guidelines are necessary.
Here is the biggest reason:
Let me state again that, once engaged, you have made the commitment to get married. You now look into the other person’s eyes knowing that he or she will soon be your husband or wife. At this point, you will naturally grow closer in a special way. This means that the desire—the powerful urge—for physical intimacy will grow stronger. The longer you wait for the wedding date, the more you will force yourself to withhold what is natural. If you wait too long, you are asking yourself to fight what can be a losing battle.
Intimacy Before Marriage
Earlier, we discussed how necking and petting eventually lead to outright fornication—with virtually no exceptions. Long engagements also invite fornication—with virtually no exceptions!
God designed sexual intercourse to be the “glue” that binds husbands and wives together. The engaged couple will naturally be physically drawn closer. (Remember, the commitment has already been completed in the mind.) Once engaged—and this is certainly not the first time you will feel such an urge—you will want to embrace and be close to your future spouse.
But you must carefully draw the line, and not cross it prior to the honeymoon!
I have seen couples play every conceivable kind of “game” regarding how far they can go without full fornication. The human mind is God’s most amazing invention. When misused, its capacity to deceive itself, using every possible excuse to believe it is not, can be a wonder to behold!
I have even seen couples who profess to want to do things God’s way try to justify sexual relations during the engagement. One couple went so far as to do the following: Unable to control themselves, yet not wanting to experience pangs of guilt, they simply knelt down beside the bed, asked God to make them “husband and wife,” and declared themselves “married” by common law. They then proceeded to “sleep together”—except that their purpose was not to do much sleeping.
This couple then came to me, as their pastor, explaining what they had done, and asked me to officially solemnize their marriage with a wedding. I told them to go to a justice of the peace, since they were “already married.” Of course, they were not truly married in God’s sight, but had merely found a way to fornicate. Obviously, they knew that a marriage license had to be their next step.
Yet society, again, does not address the simple law of cause and effect that drives this and similar situations. Also, because of a lack of sexual fulfillment in vast numbers of marriages, as explained, many couples conclude that they should “test” each other before marriage, thinking this will help them avoid a sexually troubled marriage.
Unhappiness in marriage largely stems from a lack of closeness to God. Not directed by His love, people are selfish instead of selfless—they are driven by lust rather than love, which is real outgoing concern for others. Because their lives lack a VITAL DIMENSION—God—they cannot be truly sexually compatible.
Our book Sex – Its Unknown Dimension explains this in detail, and couples should take time to study certain chapters of this book together during the engagement. Both partners reaching the proper understanding of the true meaning and purpose of sex will not only help you build and develop a healthy sex life after marriage, it will help you avoid the pitfalls of sex prior to marriage!
In fact, God will only bless you if you do not permit intimacy to enter the relationship prior to marriage. Fornication effectively precludes God from the union, and no true minister of God would ever consider performing the wedding of a couple who are doing this.
There is another critical aspect of fornication that almost none understand.
The Bible states that this sin is unique, producing a special kind of emotional and psychological “scarring.” Here is how Paul put it: “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man does is without [outside] the body; but he that commits fornication sins against his own body” (I Cor. 6:18). Fornication impacts both the body and the mind in a way that no other sin can, and it does this in two distinct ways.
First, those who engage in it with anyone other than the one they will marry create memories of intimacy that should only bring one face to mind—his or her mate.
Second, those who understand this, but fornicate, thinking, “But I’m going to be married to this person,” still “sin against their body” in a way that Paul said is different than any other sin. Such couples, when engaged in sexual relations after marriage, will always remember the guilt they felt when they were first intimate. Many find it impossible, consciously or unconsciously, to separate this guilt from the sexual relations that, after marriage, are no longer sin. They have forever intermingled—MIXED—something that God said was good (Gen. 1:27, 31) with something that is bad.
Keep lust out of your relationship—during dating, courting and engagement—and flee every form of fornication!
However, a final point of clarification is necessary. What has been explained does not mean that you can never hug or kiss during the engagement period. On the contrary, this is certainly natural and, if done only occasionally, it can be good.
But be careful! However archaic this may seem in the modern world, embracing and kissing should remain brief, with both parties under full control. If you allow yourselves to lose control or push the limits, it will only lead you right back to the dangerous path toward fornication! It makes no difference if you are teenagers or an engaged couple who is three days from marriage, ANY form of sex before marriage—including petting and long, sexually-arousing embraces—is sin!
The Bible makes no distinction. Fornication is sin—and sin precludes God’s blessings (Jer. 5:25) and involvement in your life (Isa. 59:1-2).
Your Spiritual Life
Marriage presents more opportunities for spiritual growth than any other aspect of life. It is literally loaded with situations, circumstances, challenges, hurdles, obstacles—and trials!—to learn from. These will force you to recognize and address your weaknesses, to overcome them, and to develop character in a variety of ways.
But, while you are not yet married, you are laying a foundation during engagement for what should continue after marriage. Upon engagement, life will become more hectic, especially as events speed up prior to the wedding. Having initially sought God’s will in the relationship, but now, feeling placed together by God, and flushed with plans of building a life together, and with so many things to do before the wedding, engaged couples can easily slip into neglecting the most important aspect of their life—their SPIRITUAL CONDITION!
Do not neglect Bible study and prayer during this time. Continue to stay close to God, and He will continue to work things out for you, and probably a variety of unforeseen things will need to be worked out. Do not forget: “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Prov. 3:6).
Be careful not to make an idol of your fiancé. It is very easy to get so involved in the present that you neglect to remain focused on the BIG PICTURE. Remember to keep your priorities straight, realizing that, although your whole life is changing, it cannot suddenly revolve entirely around your spouse-to-be.
Reflect for a moment. If you allow your spouse to become