Date Like You Know What You're Doing (eBook)

Your DatePrep Guide

Michael Johnson (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
292 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
9781667871394 (ISBN)

Infos

A dating life that leads to a life-giving, lifelong marriage doesn't happen by accident. You need to know what you're doing. That's why I wrote this book to empower you to: •Discern God's will for your dating life. •Avoid heartbreak, rejection, and regret. •Date with confidence and clarity. •Win the war over sexual temptation. •Let your marriage hopes inspire, instead of impede your dating life. I believe you can accomplish all that and have a blast doing it. So let's dig in and learn how! 'Date Like You Know What You're Doing is a comprehensive guide to smart dating every Christian should read, study, and follow.' -John Van Epp, Ph. D., author of How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk 'This is an extraordinary book. We've heard that singles should 'kiss dating goodbye.' Michael and Julie (his bride of nearly thirty years) urge rather that we should 'kiss dumb dating goodbye.'' -Mark Coppenger, Ph. D., author of If Christianity Is So Good, Why Are Christians So Bad? 'Most people fumble and stumble their way through their dating years. Michael Johnson to the rescue. The insights and wisdom in this book can help you avoid some of the bruises and scars, and point you in the direction of a strong, healthy relationship.' -Bob Lepine, Author Love Like You Mean It and Build A Stronger Marriage 'It's insanely practical for scoping out and assessing potential dates and a future mate, as well as a great way to assess your own maturity and relationship potential.' -Lisa Anderson, Author of The Dating Manifesto & Host of 'The Boundless Show' 'Though the writing style is fun, this book is filled with enough 'zinger' nuggets of wisdom to transform your thinking about how to date.' -Gary Thomas, author of Sacred Marriage and The Sacred Search

Michael Johnson is the president and dean of Dating at Future Marriage University (FMU), a 501(c)(3) non-profit ministry co-founded with his wife, Julie. The mission of FMU is to empower students and young adults to grow spiritually and date wisely so they can marry well. To accomplish this, FMU offers love education (LoveEd for short) through classes, blog posts, videos, social media, and speaking engagements (and now this book). Michael has a blast sharing practical, Biblical truth on sex, dating, and relationships, to inspire and lead the wise individual to prepare for their future marriage like a successful career: intentionally, intelligently, and in advance. Michael and Julie have known marital bliss since 1993, raised five children together since 1995, and lived in the Nashville area since 2001. For more LoveEd resources, booking inquiries, or info about FMU, check out their website: FMUniversity.net

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A dating life that leads to a life-giving, lifelong marriage doesn't happen by accident. You need to know what you're doing. That's why I wrote this book to empower you to: Discern God's will for your dating life. Avoid heartbreak, rejection, and regret. Date with confidence and clarity. Win the war over sexual temptation. Let your marriage hopes to inspire your dating life. Is This Book for You?I'll never forget when I was in my early 20s and my mom gave me a marriage book for Christmas. Not a dating book, like this one, but a marriage book. And I didn't even have a girlfriend!"e;I get it, mom. You want grandkids."e;Regardless, I read it over Christmas vacation, and within thirty days I was dating the woman I eventually married. And I'm really glad I did. (Both read that book and married that girl!)But enough about me. How about you? Would you like to avoid heartbreak, rejection, and regret? Or beyond avoiding bad things, would you like to truly succeed in your dating life? And by "e;succeed,"e; I don't just mean eventually get married, but do so with great memories to look back on and an amazing future to look forward to?If you just answered that last question with a "e;Heck yeah,"e; then this is the book for you. Let's face it. Relationships are hard. And a dating relationship? It's like a long division problem you have to solve by hand. One wrong calculation and you're not coming up with the right answer. And discerning where you went wrong can be like trying to find a needle in a love shack or love in a haystack or whatever mixed metaphor you want to use. Should You Read This Book NOW?In hindsight, I realize I was given an incredible opportunity that one Christmas. That was the moment I began preparing for the most important earthly relationship in my entire life. And since I read that book at a time when I didn't have love chemicals flooding my brain (inhibiting clear thinking), and I didn't have a relationship to defend (persuading me to ignore wise counsel), I actually internalized much of what that book had to offer. I drank in the wisdom as if I somehow knew it might come in handy. And it did! Which is why after ten years of marriage, I sensed God asking me to go back and reread that book with the goal of figuring out how to trick other people into doing what my mom tricked me into doing. That led to the founding of our organization, Future Marriage University (FMU), and me writing this book for you. Will you begin dating the person you'll end up marrying within thirty days of reading this book? Or are you already dating them? Or maybe you've met them, but haven't begun dating? Perhaps they're a friend you've known for years but have never seen in "e;that way."e; Or on the other hand, you may very much see them in "e;that way,"e; but you've been friend-zoned. For now. I don't know those answers. What I do know is that I'm praying for the day when ten years after your wedding you remember this book, and you praise God you read it now. The Purpose of This BookSo, what's your dating story? Are you waiting for your dating life to begin? Are you enjoying the time of your dating life? Are you dating, but hating it? Or have you sworn off dating altogether?Wherever you are in your journey, I'd like to empower you to grow spiritually and date wisely so you can marry well. And don't be frightened by the "e;M-word."e; Marriage! Fear not! Unlike the book my mom gave me, this is a dating book, not a marriage book. However, as with any successful endeavor, you have to begin with the end in mind. The ultimate goal, if you will. So what do you want to be the ultimate goal of your dating life?How about this ultimate goal: a life-giving, lifelong marriage that blesses the world as much as it blesses the two of you. If that's a mission you can accept and get excited about, then you want to keep reading!

Textauszug

CHAPTER 1:
Do You Have a
License to Date?

Our culture tends to approach dating a lot like learning to ride a bike. It’s a rite of passage. It’s part of growing up. And frankly, if you ever want to learn, you have to just get out there and try it.

Scrapes and bruises are considered normal and are expected to heal in time. And if you fall? You get back up and try again.

Actually, in practice, dating is treated even more casually than learning to ride a bike. After all, any parent letting little Bobby mount a bicycle without a helmet today could have a team of child service agents swarm in with a sting operation within minutes.

In contrast, with dating there is nothing like a helmet to guard your head, nothing like training wheels to keep you steady, and no one with you or even watching you in case you fall. The way dating is practiced in our culture, you’re sent on your way with almost no instruction, completely on your own, and largely unprotected. Does this sound like a winning plan for dating success?

The Cold Hard Reality of Dating

To be accurate, dating is far more like learning to drive a car than learning to ride a bike.

It is a rite of passage, but it is also dangerous because you’re not merely risking your knees and elbows when you fall. Instead, when you’re dating, you’re putting your heart out there to potentially be bruised and battered. Many feel negative dating experiences leave their heart feeling “totaled.”

In addition to greater danger, there’s greater difficulty. Far from a bike ride in the park, negotiating a dating relationship can be as complicated as navigating rush hour traffic on an eight-lane highway. Blindfolded.

In short, like learning to drive a car, dating is both a dangerous and complicated endeavor. That’s why it’s not so easy to just get back up again after you fall out of love (or someone falls out of love with you). A broken heart isn’t equivalent to a skinned knee. It takes more than a Band-aid.

So in a way, you could say you ought to have to obtain a license before you date. But you don’t. You just jump behind the wheel and start driving. However, dating without a license (i.e., without any training or understanding of what you’re doing) is directionless at best and dangerous at worst.

Do You Know Where You Want Your
Dating Life to Take You?

Think back in time to your last family road trip with the parental units. I’m going to guess your parents (and maybe even you) knew the following before you ever left town:

• Where you were going
• How you were going to get there
• Where you were going to stay
• What you might do while you were there
• How your vacation would be funded

In light of that, let me ask you this: “When it comes to dating, do you know where you’re going?”

For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand?
Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. —Luke 14:28-32 NASB

Isn’t your future marriage a bigger deal than a family road trip? Don’t you want to build something through your dating life that you can complete, and which will stand the test of time? Isn’t it as important for you to succeed in marriage as it would be for a king to succeed in war?

If so, then where would you like your dating life to take you?

• Into a relationship with a significant other?
• Into a relationship with a “roommate with benefits”?
• All the way to marriage? Any marriage? What kind of marriage?

Don’t date directionless! If you want a successful dating life, you have to know where you want your dating life to take you.

What’s Really at Stake When You Date?

According to scripture, King Solomon was the wisest man to ever live (other than the God-man, Jesus).

God gave Solomon a once-in-a-lifetime genie-in-a-bottle offer: “Ask whatever you wish.”

And Solomon answered, “Wisdom, please.”

And God said (loosely translated), “You got it, Solo. And because I’m so pleased with your request, I’m giving you wealth and fame to go with it.”

But do you know what happened to Solomon in his later years?

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David
his father. —1 King 11:1-4 ESV (emphasis mine)

The “heart” is mentioned five times in these four verses, with three of those references revealing how the women whom Solomon loved “turned his heart away” from the Lord. According to Strong’s Concordance, the Hebrew word for “heart” in this passage has a broad meaning encompassing the “inner man, mind, will, heart, soul, understanding.”1

Have you thought about how precious your heart is? As your blood-pumping organ is essential to life, so your metaphorical heart is the central core of who you are:

• Your feelings (including all your hopes and fears, joys and regrets)
• Your will (including all your desires and convictions)
• Your intellect (including all your thoughts and questions)

Your heart—that is what you risk every time you date. Even when you’re thinking, What the hay. I’ll just give this person a chance. No one can predict when they will fall in love. No one.

Do you think risking your heart is a small thing? Apparently, the wisest man in the world once thought the same. However, true to God’s warning, when Solomon chose to give his heart to women who did not follow the God of scriptures, bad things happened. Really bad things. And not just for Solomon, but for the entire nation of Israel.

Think you have your heart in hand? You can’t forget you also risk the heart of everyone you date as well. Aren’t their hearts as precious as yours? Then let me encourage you to date accordingly.

What It Means to “Guard Your Heart”

Bottom line, your heart is a treasure to God. Far more precious than it ever will be to anyone you date or marry because God is our Creator who formed your heart, knows your heart, and died (literally) to win your heart for your good and His glory. This is why God commands us in Proverbs 4:23 to guard our heart.

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

This passage is commonly interpreted to mean God doesn’t want us to risk wounding our heart. And following this line of thinking, many avoid dating seriously or even dating at all, while others wait for supernatural signs or words from God they believe will keep them from ever getting hurt in the dating process.

However, trying to protect your heart from all hurt is not only the wrong goal, it’s an unfeasible goal for anyone who sets out to love like Jesus. As C.S. Lewis states so clearly in The Four Loves …

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”2

Instead of trying to protect your heart from hurt, the writer of Proverbs is encouraging us to protect our heart from needless hurt; the kind of hurt we invite on ourselves by living foolishly. The kind of hurt King Solomon endured. Consider the three verses which precede verse 23 in Proverbs 4:

My son, pay attention to what I say; turn your ear to my words.
Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart;
for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s
whole body. (NIV)

The goal is not to avoid vulnerability but stupidity. Bottom line: If you want a successful dating life, you...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 6.12.2022
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Partnerschaft / Sexualität
• ISBN-13: 9781667871394 / 9781667871394