Trains wrecks. There’s nothing like seeing one coming and people not doing all they can to prevent it. Although this can cover a lot of ground, being that this month’s theme is focused on prevention, I want this post to center around being in unhealthy dating relationships.
Here’s what’s inspired it (at least this time-LOL). I have a friend who was recently telling me about two people who go to his church who, up until recently, were engaged. Awh. Isn’t that sweet? Um, let’s hit some of the stats first.
They are young. (Have you ever read the success stats of folks who get married under 25?)
They live together.
They are sexually active.
The guy doesn’t have a steady job.
The families are not in agreement.
Oh and one more thing: He’s a porn addict.
When my friend said that he asked them “Are you sure you want to do this?” the young woman’s response was “Why is everything asking us that?” (OK, let’s not try and be Romeo and Juliet since it didn’t go well for them. If no one is in agreement with your situation, that’s a red flag). However, what actually tripped me out more was that when my friend approached the pastor who was planning on marrying them, he basically said that he was going to perform the ceremony and then hope for the best.
Um. What?
I’ll tell you what. As someone who is a marriage life coach (with a concentration on restoring and reconciling divorced couples), I continue to be amazed by and disappointed in how irresponsible a lot of counselors and folks in leadership seem to be when it comes to something as serious (SERIOUS) as marriage. Marriage is a spiritual union created by God (Genesis 2:18-25). And since it is so spiritual, we have to remember what the Word says here: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (I Corinthians 2:14-NKJV)
My point? We wouldn’t tell two crack heads to hurry up and get married. Why? Because they are not in their right minds to do something of that magnitude. Along the same lines, why would we tell two sexually active people, one of which is a porn addict, that they need to get married either? The solution for sexual brokenness is not marriage. It’s sexual sobriety. (Tweet This!)
In fact, just ask any healthy married couple something that they weren’t thoroughly prepared for and I’m willing to be they’ll tell you that they didn’t realize just how much of a responsibility marriage is. The next thing they may say is that they wish that had been more spiritually mature beforehand.
Marriage is not meant to “fix” a relationship. (Tweet This!)
Marriage is designed to GLORIFY God by being a human reflection of covenant on earth.
So, if you know a sexually broken couple who are dating or even engaged, do them a favor and encourage them to spend some time a part so that they can get whole as single people (James 1:4) before ever joining themselves to another.
We’ve got plenty of spouses who write us daily wishing that someone had cared enough to do that for them.
After all, you know what they say: An ounce of prevention…
Marriage Ain’t Fixing What’s Broken by XXXchurch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.