Before You Date
There are a couple of things that you need to have nailed down
before you start to date so that you can know who you want to
date. If you don't have these things figured out you very likely
will end up dating and/or marrying the wrong person.
What? Are you saying that there is only one person that I can
marry?
We'll leave that issue for another time but I do want to talk
today about the two things that you need to figure out first.
1. Your Master 2. Your Mission 3. Your Date/Mate Who is going to
be Lord of u your life? Some of you are kidding yourselves in
thinking that Jesus is Lord of your life when you know that you
really make the decisions mostly without consulting God at all
or really even caring what he would have you to do in a certain
situation.
Others of you have made other people the Lord of your life. You
may make decisions to please others when really you need to be
making decisions that are right for you and not for your
mom/dad/best friend/boss etc.
When you have settled the mastur question in your life. (If you
are a Christian I am hoping the master question has been settled
for you, although I know that often it is not). Once you have
that settled you are free to move on to the next section.
What is your mission in life? This has been a growing issue in
the past few years. It seems that more and more people are told
that they can do more and more so they can't settle on doing
anything. My brother likes to say, "Somebody lied to you."
Hopefully you had people in your life telling you the truth
about what you are good and what you are not so good at. Telling
a person whose singing causes dog's to cover their ears and
children to cry that they have talent doesn't help them. You
make think that in the short term you are helping their self
esteem but in reality you are only causing them harm.
I am seeing so many 20 somethings who can't figure out what they
want to do with their lives because they don't know who they
are. Start by asking those that know you well a few thought
provoking questions.
1. What do you think that I do well?
2. What could you see me doing in life?
3. What do you think that God created me to do on this earth?
Ask yourself some questions. What have you had success at in
life? What do you enjoy doing? What gets your juices flowing,
either ticked off or really excited? These may be some of the
clues as to what God has for you.
As you walk further down this road of introspection your view of
what God could have for you to do will become more focused. Like
the light of a flashlight that gets smaller as you twist the
head, your target area that your life is heading should become
smaller as you learn more of who God created you to be.
Once you have down your Master and your Mission it is much
easier to figure out who your date. Obviously, there is no harm
in going on date with someone who isn't compatible with your
mission but you probably don't want to go on many dates with
someone that is heading in a different direction than you are.
So your three biggest decisions in life are usually made in the
20 something years. Hopefully making them in the right order
will help you to walk successfully through life.