Would you like to know how to date and 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.
Worse Than the Wrong Goal
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.”
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 must learn how to wisely guard your own heart, as well as the hearts of those you date. We accomplish this by keeping our hearts in the hands of our God, even while we seek His will in risking our heart by loving others, particularly by loving someone enough to enter an exclusive dating relationship.
If you would like an entire book filled with the kind of practical, Biblical wisdom on sex, dating, and relationships you just finished reading, you can get it NOW! The above post is an excerpt from Date Like You Know What You’re Doing: Your DatePrep Guide. Here are other excerpts from the same book.
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 Date Like You Know What You’re Doing 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.
Want to Succeed in Dating?
Learn more about dating in video form! This video featured our FMUniversity YouTube channel introduces several different LoveEd series on dating.
