you choose Q: Is God concerned and involved in who we choose to marry?
Q: Is God concerned and involved in our choice of marriage? —Olabisi
A: Yes, God is concerned about who we choose to marry. The Bible clearly states that God wants us to marry someone of the opposite sex who shares our same faith (Matthew 19:4-6; 1 Corinthians 6:14-16). He desires for us to pick a mate whose primary allegiance is to…
you choose Q: should I leave my unbelieving partner? do I marry an unbeliever?
Q: I was raised a believer but left the faith in my teens, during which time I became involved in a sinful relationship. The difficulties arising from this relationship brought me back to Christ and I am a practicing Christian. My partner knows this and accepts this. My problem is that I have asked for forgiveness for the sins that…
prized
When I was a kid, my parents had a rule that I was not allowed to call guys. Considered provincial back then, the rule seems positively antiquated according to current societal norms. While I am not new to youth culture, I am increasingly perplexed and concerned at the level of aggressiveness I see in young women today. Because they’re desperate…
run for your life
I will probably never run a marathon. I know this because I ran a 5K race a few years ago, and I nearly passed out after the event. While the contestants ahead of me seemed to glide across the finish line, I approached it huffing and puffing, red- faced, and with burning lungs!
When Paul commands us to “run from…
samson's dating advice
Before I met and eventually married my husband, I tried online dating. The matchmaking service promised to weed through zillions of searching singles to find the most compatible matches. So I hunched over the keyboard and filled out the compatibility questionnaire. It took hours, but I was ready for some help on deciding whom to date.
Samson is infamous for…
letting go
Li Yue fell hard for Hou You Jing. They were from the same province, shared a love for badminton and western movies, and—as if by fate—met while working second shift at a microchip processor company in Shenzhen. Li Yue couldn’t stand to be apart from Hou You Jing, and she didn’t notice that her constant calls and weekend plans were…
July 19, 2010
From an ODJ community member: "I've experienced a number of unsuccessful dating relationships. Now, I'm feeling the pressure to get married from others and from within my own heart. What should I do?"
power isn't happiness
I recently watched Ghosts of Girlfriends’ Past. The movie (which is a loose adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol) is about a hedonistic, womanizing bachelor who despises the idea of love and marriage. The night before his younger brother’s wedding, he is visited by ghosts representing his past, present, and future girlfriends. By the next morning, he opens his broken…
hold on loosely
Recently, I stopped at a fast-food restaurant for a quick bite to eat. I placed my order at the drive- thru, picked up my beverage and chicken sandwich (minus the sauce), and was all set for an uneventful meal—or so I thought. A minute later, as I went to take a sip of my soft drink, the plastic lid on…
March 8, 2010
How have you been working on achieving and maintaining healthy relationships? What wisdom from God's Word has helped you in this quest?
loving others
It was such a dilemma—whether or not to marry the man who had proposed to me—that I agonized over what to do for nearly a year. During that time, I read dozens of relationship books, sought advice from counselors and pastors, and listened to scores of married friends explain how they “just knew” when faced with the same decision.
Ultimately,…
staying seated
The train car was packed with highly irritated people. We should have pulled into our station 4 hours earlier, but the train’s engine was stopped dead in a distant city. Exasperated, my husband and I cooked up a plan to get off the train, find a rental car agency, and drive the rest of the way home. We wanted to…
game over
Some Japanese girls are all ga-ga for boyfriends who don’t really exist. An online dating simulation game called “Webkare” allows girls to choose a virtual guy to pursue online. They work with other players and read a series of conversations to woo their online love until he finally returns their affection.
While romantic online games can be harmless, many of us…
drawing close
My 6-year-old son loves Magnetix. Unlike Legos, which are snapped together and pried apart,magnetized pieces that attract or repel make building easy. According to my son, his set will even jump out of its storage area and onto the floor without any assistance. Yeah, right . . .
When it comes to relationships, attraction is definitely not to be toyed…
