Approach? (On Godly Pursuing)

Purity. I can never exhaust discussion about it. What’s on my mind this time is actually thoughts about men approaching women in purity.

It may seem like somewhat of a misplaced topic. There’s only one other instance I can recall doing an entry about men. As in that case, I was inspired by discussions I had with others. Also as I mentioned there, I am of course not an authority on men – nor is it my role to be one. Rather, I’m simply sharing a few thoughts God brought to mind on this issue.

Some friends hosted an awesome co-ed dialogue this weekend about how men and women in the Body of Christ should relate to each other in both romantic relationships and friendships; as brothers and sisters in Christ. There were single and married people and a good, near-even mix of men and women (at least by the middle of the night, lol). One of exercises was for women and men to write down questions about dealing with the opposite sex. The men and women then split up and picked a couple questions the other sex wrote down to answer that we then discussed collectively.

One of the questions that a man posed, and the ladies decided to answer, was “what are the ‘signs’ that a woman is interested and wanting a man to ask her out?” I think this question raised some of the best conversation of the night. One of the issues both men and women contemplated as a result of that question is how men of God can truly approach women differently than men without Christ do. The dialogue brought out some thoughts I had long been contemplating, and also enlightened me on others. This entry is a culmination of them all.

The Misguided “Hunt” Principle

I think generally, in the Christian community, we have misled men on how –and when – to approach women.

How? I think we’ve encouraged men to be “hunters” but haven’t necessarily told them how to pursue women purposely. I know I’m not the first person to say that, but I do think proper pursuit has often been left out of instruction to Christian men on godly dating.

We’ve forgotten to tell men that they should seek God’s leading before they choose which women to date, not after they’ve started dating a woman. We tell women all the time to trust God for a husband, but often just tell men to go out looking. We are often reminded that “HE who finds a wife finds a good thing” (my paraphrase of the comment and the verse) or references to Bible stories such as “Rebekah did not find Isaac; Isaac found her.”

As I was reminded in the story of Isaac and Rebekah by a sermon I listened to, Isaac was not even the one who went out to “find” Rebekah: God used the servant of his father Abraham to bring her to him. In fact, just before they were introduced, Isaac was out in a field spending time with God, meditating. The Bible does not even indicate whether Isaac was at all aware that a servant was sent afar to find a wife for him. But we do know that God orchestrated the arrival of a godly woman for him.

I’m not saying that a man should just pray and not ask out any woman – but that he should do so at God’s leading. Romans 8:14 says: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” (NKJV) What is supposed to distinguish believers in Christ is that we don’t just act on sight alone in any circumstance; instead, we are guided by The Spirit.

A man being “led by the Spirit” in pursuing a woman requires a vision. Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.” The KJV uses the word “vision” in place of revelation. I think the NLT breaks it down some more: “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful.” Godly direction is necessary to keep us from making detrimental choices – and we thrive with it!

I believe a man should have a list of essential, God-centered characteristics that a woman should posses before dating (as should a woman for a man). I’ve shared how God helped me develop a godly list, so I won’t talk about lists in any more detail here.

In the Woods…

Rather than being led by the Spirit, even Christian men often approach dating as hunters looking to land whatever they see that is somehow in sphere or range. Quite often, even godly men will pick a woman to date not based on a vision, but a couple tidbits about her, number one that she’s cute and, for example, sings in the choir, leads a small group, or has a father in ministry. Or maybe even that she has a “great personality” (I’ve shared my opinion on the potential for personality to be a “false positive” before). But none of those things say much about a woman’s spiritual condition and character – two of the most important ingredients for a godly relationship. Yet we pretty much tell men to just shoot metaphorical darts and eventually the right woman, “the one,” will be the target hit.

If attractiveness, and maybe a tidbit here or there, is the basis for a Christian man pursuing a woman romantically, how is that any different from the world? In Hollywood films, a love story usually starts with a man seeing a beautiful woman and then pursing her, until they reach happily ever after. While a godly man should of course be attracted to a woman he dates, despite what some might say–in a godly pursuit, I believe a man should have much more than that to go on before asking out a woman.

Admittedly, “hunting” with the eyes works for some Christian men. We hear these stories, which, in my experience, tend to be from pastors or other men in ministry, about how a godly man set his sight on a woman at church or Christian college that every guy thought was smokin’ hot– although he knew little else about her. The man subsequently asked her out, she said yes, and she also ended up being the most godly woman on the planet. Then they got married, have had a child every 1.5 years for the last ten years, and every day of their marriage is reportedly steamier than the last.

The success in these instances, I believe, probably has more to do with God’s plan for the couple’s life than the approach in pursuing that the man took, and with the underlying vision the man may have had beyond the woman’s appearance. I don’t know what the statistics are, but, from what I’ve observed, people called to full-time ministry tend to get married earlier, and marriage is often seen as a necessity for ministry, which might make these stories in such contexts ripe for the happening (I did do a little digging and found this interesting blog post about pastors and marriage at least that supports my assertion).

But there are a lot of godly men who take that same “hunting” approach, but end up getting burned, and repeatedly at that. For example, a man sees some woman that looks good to him –especially in a “controlled” setting such as church, but the woman rejects him outright, and painfully so, or he finds out things about her in dating that he could have ruled out in friendship.

At some point, the lack of direction in pursuit takes a toll on a godly man, whether by him just getting sick of the whole dating thing and choosing to take a “hiatus,” however long, or in becoming even more desensitized to restraint in approaching women.

The result? A problematic paradigm that contradicts God’s design for the man as the pursuer - and affects godly women. While I talk about the man not taking any old risk, it is still a man’s job to take the right ones.

“FOB” and the Godly Man’s “Loss” Responsibility

There’s actually a concept we come across in the law that I thought about during our discussion of the man’s God-given role as the pursuer that I’ll share (although I think churches tend to get this part right, but don’t take it far enough in discussing what vision a man should have as he pursues). It’s not a legal concept per se, but it is relevant to legal issues involving contracts and accounting. It’s the buyer-seller concept of FOB (sometimes meaning “Free” or “Freight” On Board, or something else, depending on the region of the world and the type of transaction).

Anyway (and I’m getting to the relevant part), in one context, FOB Destination means that when a seller - say, a manufacturer of laptop computers, ships the goods (i.e., the laptops) to a buyer, such as Best Buy, if anything happens to the shipment while it’s in transit, before it is delivered to the buyer– for example, it falls off a ship or truck; gets burned or stolen, the seller is responsible for the cost of any such accident. In contrast, the buyer has no responsibility to pay for any loss (absent a contrary agreement with the seller). Thus, in an “FOB Destination” situation, the seller, not the buyer, bears the “risk of loss” – i.e., the cost of a failed shipment.

Likewise, God has designed it so that the man’s role as a leader of the family gives him that same kind of “FOB Destination” risk as the seller in pursuing a woman before marriage. He should be fully aware that rejection is always his risk to bear as the initiator – and even be prepared that it is likely to happen at least once. Further, there’s only so much of a “signal” a godly woman can give to a man to allay his fears about whether she is interested other than an open attitude (and chances are that if a woman is giving a man some “certainty” that she wants to date him that eliminates all risk in asking, it may not be the right woman to date!). Men of God just have to accept that the risk is their responsibility – and their reward!

Calculated Risk

At the same time, this should make men more discerning about the kind of risks they take in dating. Proverbs 4:23 - which is often used only for women in the relationship context - provides direction for men. It think it’s so good it needs to be stated in several versions that I think all help understand it better:

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. (NIV © 1984)

Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. (NKJV)

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. (ESV)

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. (NLT)

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (NIV © 2011)

When a man opens his heart to just any woman, especially as he often has to do in “hunting,” he can cause himself the kind of heartbreak that makes asking out godly women under the right circumstances a problem that it shouldn’t be. I do believe that even in instances where men don’t move when they could have God can still work in situations – but it makes them stickier than they ever had to be. When a man guards his heart from just any woman, he positions himself in a healthy place to move toward the right kind of woman according to God’s paradigm.

I know some women would disagree, but I think a good principle for a godly man is to hold off dating a woman he is interested in until he can, with good intention and avoidance of confusion to the woman, get to know her true character in friendship. I say it that way because there can be a tendency for a man to keep things undefined until he thinks he can be “absolutely certain” that the woman will date him when asked. In turn, his actions can end up appearing to give the woman mixed signals about his intentions.

But, in many, if not most, instances, before entering an exclusive dating relationship, there will probably never be a clear signal from God for a man that indicates a woman is near absolutely his wife (and there can never be complete certainty until “I Do” – e.g., even if all wedding plans are in place, a tragedy such as death could occur beforehand). I believe the point of the friendship phase is to find out compatibility and character, and to see if there are any characteristics that “rule out” the woman based on a man’s godly vision. A man has to trust that, if he takes this approach, God will direct him.

If a man is seeking God’s direction and can’t rule out the possibility that a relationship with a woman could work out, but has solid reasons for why it could, I believe it becomes the man’s responsibility to take the chance by initiating a dating relationship.

Some relevant questions: A man doesn’t know if a woman will absolutely say yes to him? There’s not supposed to be a guarantee that she will. He’s not positive that he could see himself married to her? A “could marry,” based on a godly vision, may be the most that he can know without taking that step in faith. He doesn’t have all the answers about how much money he thinks he needs to earn to support a family in the event that the relationship does, in fact, lead to marriage? He can hand that fear over to God, and take any practical steps he can to prepare himself for the possibility of marriage. Colossians 1: 17 says, “He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together.” Proverbs 37: 4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” It’s amazing what God does when we recognize His sovereignty and seek him in our desires – including in dating!

Further, if a man approaches a godly woman in a godly way and it does not work out, he will most likely lose far less than in a more random hunt. He may still gain friendship with a sister in Christ – or at least godly insight for the next relationship! And with the right pursuit, the outcome of an unsuccessful relationship will certainly be much healthier than the “missed target” result that can come from just “hunting” based on looks and little else. And where a man is led by the Spirit, he has the ultimate security that God will not disappoint him. That’s yet another risk mitigator!

For The Ladies

How do women fit into the “search” puzzle? I think that in all friendships and dating relationships with men, we have to trust God’s sovereignty as well. As I’ve shared, I tend to believe that, based on scripture, absent some direction from God in a specific situation to the contrary, a woman should not be the one to declare the desire for a relationship (Lately, I heard the story of a missionary couple where the woman told the man I love you after an eight-year I-might-like-you-I might-not friendship and it worked out, but I tend to see those kinds of stories as the exception). I believe that a woman guarding her heart should mean that no matter how much she cares for a man, if he does not move the relationship in a romantic direction, she does not give her heart to him.

If a man never moves a relationship from friendship to romance, it most likely was not God’s will for it to happen. Part of trusting God’s sovereignty is knowing that we can only see what’s in front of us, while God sees all. We may think that some man is so right for us, but God may have someone -- or something – else in mind that we have yet to see.

At the same time, I don’t think it’s wrong for a woman to desire a particular relationship as long as her desire lines up with Scripture, and she gives it to God and follows His direction – including if He gives her a direction for the desire to change. I’ve listened to stories of couples who were in this situation, and God used the wait time to increase both people’s faith – and the man eventually recognized that God was leading him in the same direction that the woman desired. Sometimes we have a timetable for when things should happen, but God may have a certain work in man or woman before the relationship should happen (not that a man and woman become “more deserving” of a marriage by God working in them, but that God may have particular lessons to teach them in preparation for their union).

However, in these instances a woman also has to remain open to other potential husbands that God could bring her way – but she has to be responsive to men purposely as well – not in retaliation to man she may desire to date who has not spoken up, or because she thinks that she has to just “try other people” to see what will stick. As a man should be observing the character of any woman in friendship, so should a woman.

I think in the wait for marriage in any circumstance, it helps to remember that there are far worse fates than not being married by a certain time – i.e., marrying the wrong person (talk about prison)! I think that where a woman guards her heart, she can learn to navigate different situations with men and have the discernment of when to say yes to an opportunity to date a man, and when to say no (as a man should have trust in God’s sovereignty when a woman does, in fact, say no).

Also, ladies, our biggest concern for brothers (and sisters) in Christ should be encouraging them in their walks with God – not our personal desires. Often, male and female relationships get sticky because each is more concerned with his or her own relationship desires than God’s will for the other person. When we think about how we can encourage and spur each other on toward love and good deeds, God takes care of meeting any relationship desires that are in line with His will. Caring about a brother’s spiritual well-being first is how we keep our desires in check, and all relationships with the opposite sex on firm footing!

Conclusion

After writing way more than I anticipated, I am not even interested in ending with a cute conclusion to match my title as I often try to do – my head hurts! I guess the most I’ll say is that I think men and women of God need to have more conversations about how to associate with each other in a godly way. Hebrews 10: 24 tells us to consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. The following verse says that believers should continue to meet together for encouragement. With the state of male and female relationships in our society – and in The Body – men and women need this kind of productive, God-centered counsel from each other. I give my buddies an “A+!”