Boy Meets Girl - Say Hello to Courtship (12 page)

Clear communication does not equal premature or inappropriate intimacy. During his courtship with Ginger, my friend Chuck consistently initiated what he called "Heart Checks." These were conversations in which he and Ginger talked about their expectations and concerns and their level of faith in the relationship. As the one doing the pursuing, Chuck knew he was responsible to be open about his feelings so that Ginger could have something to which to respond. This helped her to guard her heart and keep from being further along emotionally than Chuck was.

We have to be very careful that the words we say and the
way
we say them don't communicate more than we mean. Someone has said, "Don't write a check with your mouth that your body can't cash." In other words, "Don't promise more than you can back up with your actions."

Donna's relationship with Bill ended, but she's grateful for the way he cared for her by watching his words. "If he felt a conversation was heading towards a topic that wouldn't be helpful or was premature, he would reroute it," Donna says. "Once or twice he came back to me after we talked and apologized for something he had said that he didn't think was beneficial to me. I thought it was funny at the time, but now I realize it helped me guard against hoping prematurely that we'd get married."

As your relationship deepens and your confidence for marriage increases, you will want to begin discussing topics relevant to marriage. (We'll look at some of those questions in chapters 10 and 11.) But don't get ahead of yourselves. You still need to guard.

The Bible says, "An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips" (Proverbs 24:26). I guess that gives us an idea of just how good authentic communication can be. It's a lot of work, but it's worth the effort.

As you read this chapter, perhaps you realized that you're afraid of honest and authentic communication. It's okay to admit that. It's a risk to let another person see who you really are. What if they don't like what they see? What if they end the relationship as a result?

Let me encourage you to place your confidence in what God is doing. He is at work in your relationship. You don't need to be ruled by the fear of someone else's opinion of you.

It is possible that honest communication will lead one or both of you to see that the relationship shouldn't lead to marriage. The thought of that might hurt, but think of the alternative. Do you want the person you're courting to fall in love with something you aren't? Is it really honoring to God or loving to the other person to fake who you are or hide your true opinions and feelings? Imagine the much better possibility that as you trust God and communicate well, the person you're courting will fall in love with the real you.

You can't love what you don't know. You can't be truly loved if you're not truly known. And the only way to know and be known by another person is to communicate-openly, honestly, sincerely, humbly. So let's be courageous. We know what to do with our ears and our hearts and our lips.

Be Men, Would

Girls Be Ladies?

How to Embrace Your God-Given Role As a Man or Woman

Recently I came across a book entitled
The Passive Man's Guide to Seduction.
I don't recommend it. The book's basic premise is that women today want to be the aggressors in relationships-they want to make the decisions and call the shots. In effect, they want to be "the men." Thus, the most effective way for a man to seduce a woman is to sit back, be passive, and let her take charge.

How romantic.

This couch-potato vision of masculinity is just one example of the current confusion about the role of gender in romance and courtship. And it's not just a secular problem. Christians are mixed-up too.

My friend Mike was shocked when a Christian woman he was close to proposed to him. "You know I'd marry you," she told him one day.

"Do you want to get married?" she asked. "Look, I'll even

Mike shook his head in disbelief as he recounted the story. "She was serious!" he said. "Women aren't supposed to do that.. .are they?"

The truth is that we're not sure how to behave. Men don't know what it means to be a man, so we lazily do whatever is easiest. Women don't know what it means to be a woman, so they end up acting like men. Relating to the opposite sex can be confusing when you don't know what you're the opposite of.

A Genuine Question

So far we've been talking about how a man and woman can honor God as they make their way towards marriage. But before we can go any further in our discussion of courtship, we need to grapple with the deeper question of what it means to
be
a man or a woman. What did God have in mind when He made two sexes? What is His plan? And how should His purposes for manhood and womanhood inform the way we relate in courtship?

The title of this chapter is a genuine question: If boys would be men, would girls be ladies? In other words, are we willing to step on God's scales and measure ourselves by His definition of mature masculinity and femininity? Few things could be more important in a courtship. Before we can glorify God in our relationships with each other, we have to understand and embrace the unique roles God has assigned us as men and women.

A Cast in Rebellion

For many people, the idea that a Creator assigns roles is offensive. They don't want any person, any religion, or any God

The state of human sexuality today is like a play in which the cast is in rebellion against the playwright and his story. Imagine the chaos. The actors hate him. They reject their roles and mock the script. To show their contempt, some refuse even to read their lines. Other actors switch their roles and costumes to confuse the plot. Still others read their parts out of place, slur their lines, and lace them with obscenities.

This is a picture of the wicked and perverse generation in which Christians are called to shine like stars (Philippians 2:15). It's the generation of the "transgendered," in which men act like women and women act like men. And it's amidst this chaos that God wants his children to be faithful to the roles He has assigned us, even though the majority of humanity has abandoned them.

Just as a play is written by a playwright, the story of human history is written by God. The Bible teaches that our roles as male and female are part of the beautiful story God is telling.

Since God made us in His image, we reflect something of who He is (Genesis 1:27). Therefore, faithfulness to God's definition of manhood and womanhood is faithfulness to Him. Every scene we take part in-practicing biblical manhood and womanhood while single, in friendship with the opposite sex, in courtship, in marriage-is a chance to bring honor to the Playwright. In fact, the Bible tells us that the union of man and woman in marriage points to the climatic final scene-when Christ returns for His church, the bride He died to save (Ephesians 5:31-32).

This is why our roles as men and women matter. This is why we embrace our God-given differences and why we

The Roles Assigned in Eden

So what does God say it means to be man or woman? The Christian's first stop for the answer is the Genesis account of when God created the first man and woman. That is act 1 of

lis ,,

jfe,Gods story.

Jesus showed us that the Genesis account should be the foundation of our perspective of true manhood and womanhood. When He was questioned about marriage, He pointed his questioners back to Gods design: "Haven't you read.. .that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female'?" (Matthew 19:4). Paul did the same. When he wrote to the Ephesian church about how husbands and wives were to relate to each other, he referred his readers to God's original intention, which He revealed before sin entered the world (Ephesians 5:31).

From the first two chapters of the Bible we learn that Adam and Eve were created equal in God's sight. In our chauvinistic culture, in which women are often belittled and abused, this fact needs to be clearly stated. God made women totally equal to men in personhood, dignity, and worth. They are no less important or valuable to God.

Men and women were created equal, yet different. And the fact that we're different is wonderful. What a boring world it would be if the opposite sex weren't so mysterious, so puzzling, and at times so infuriatingly unlike us!

God didn't make us to duplicate each other, but to complement each other. The point here is not that Adam was better than Eve, just as God the Father is not "better" than God the Son. Father and Son are equal in essence, power, glory, and worth, but they have different roles; and the Son joyfully submits to the Father's will (1 Corinthians 15:28). So in marriage a husband and wife are equal, even though Scripture tells the wife to joyfully submit to her husband's leadership.

In his commentary on Genesis, Matthew Henry explained it beautifully: "Eve was not taken out of Adams's head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him."

In Ephesians 5:21-33, Paul says that the husband's leadership isn't to be tyrannical or cruel, but kind and loving. Men are called to love their wives sacrificially and selfiessly just like Jesus loves the church. Wives are instructed to follow their husbands just as the church obeys Christ. This is not mindless, joyless submission, but active participation and response to loving leadership.

Guess what? You don't have to wait until marriage to participate in the beautiful harmony of God's plan for the sexes. Marriage doesn't make you a man or woman-you already are one. And God wants you to practice mature masculinity or femininity right now.

In 1 Timothy
5:2,
Paul tells the single Timothy to treat younger women "as sisters, with absolute purity." Notice that he doesn't tell Timothy to treat younger women like "one of the guys." Timothy's masculinity is to be expressed in a unique way towards women: He is to view them as his sisters.

What this teaches us is that our gender roles are important
throughout
our lives. Before we're husbands and wives, we're brothers and sisters in Christ who rehearse together God's definition of masculinity and femininity. Gentlemen, we can practice tender, servant leadership
right now.
Ladies, you can practice responsive support to godly men in your life
today.
Side by side we can grow into the godly men and women God wants us to be.

Let's Be Men

First, I want to talk to the men. Men, we have our work cut out for us, and we need to take it very seriously What business do we have pursuing a relationship with a girl when we still haven't figured out what it means to be a man? We owe it to the women in our lives, our future wives, and to God to figure this out.

Elisabeth Elliot, a woman I deeply respect, wrote to her nephew Pete, "The world cries for men who are strong-strong in conviction, strong to lead, to stand, to suffer. I pray that you will be that kind of man-glad that God made you a man, glad