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New relationships… (part 1)

Often people ask, “When is the right time for me to go out with someone? How do I know I’m ready?” Even if you’re not dating or not thinking about dating anyone soon, I think it’s still helpful to read the stuff below. These are just a collection of thoughts accumulated over the years from books and observations from others.

I think one must look at themselves carefully and evaluate themselves in terms of a few things: maturity, life stage, fullness in Jesus and a strong awareness of what you are like - good and bad.

Maturity and wisdom is something good to have and generally comes with age, or having a good older friend to keep you accountable or give you some guidance. Practical wisdom about what’s important, what’s trivial, what women are like, what men are like can be beneficial to know. Having close relationships with individuals of the same gender who will support you and be there to hear you out is very important. They may have similar experiences and be able to relate with some of what you will go through. Also, life isn’t just about finding and being with a partner, friends and family are also valuable and will be there (usually!) through the ups and downs of your romantic relationship.

Life stage can also be a factor - if you’re going out with someone but you’re in a stage where you’re busy at school or studying at uni - you may feel like you can’t spend as much time on your relationship as you like. Your mind is in a few places at once. Of course, this differs amongst individuals in terms of how you can balance your time, and how self-controlled and disciplined you are. But, if you’re nearing the age when you can consider marriage as an option, things are made a little easier and you have the financial and mental resources to put into your new relationship.

Fullness in Jesus is particularly important. A relationship with God and having Jesus to be the Lord of our lives means that all our needs for relationship are met. He also models for us how to behave in the best way in all our relationships. Imagine that we, as humans, have a hole inside of ourselves, and this hole is an emptiness or a need for relationship. When we try to fill that hole up with a relationship with another human being, it can never satisfy. Even when those around us try their best to love us unconditionally, because they are human and hence fallible and imperfect, they can never fully fill up our need for relationship or ‘completeness’.

Therefore, if you haven’t made Jesus your Lord, you may feel a need for a relationship or ‘completeness’. Some fill it up with career, with family, with material things, with career success, with a partner. These things are all ultimately unfulfilling, and may only offer temporary satisfaction. It is only through Jesus that we can be mature, complete and not lacking in anything. Once we are able to trust in Jesus to meet this need for a relationship, we can then freely and selflessly give to others. That is, we won’t be giving out of an expectation to receive stuff back to fill up our ‘hole’, rather we will be giving out of the fullness of our hearts, with Jesus Christ as Lord.

A strong awareness of what you are like: This is very important and takes a lot of humility. To be able to admit that you are not good at some things, that you take criticism too personally, or do not deal well with conflict, or avoid hard work; are very logical, very emotional, task-oriented, people-oriented, intellectual, instinctive, judging, extroverted or introverted - these are all very helpful to know, especially when relationships are going bad.

You see, when things are going well, we don’t stop to examine ourselves much because nothing seems to be going wrong. It’s only when things are bad that our character is demonstrated and our weaknesses are shown. There may be conflict in the form of disagreements, arguments, quarrelling. Knowing what ‘ticks you off’ or how your character contributes to how you deal with the bad times will be helpful in managing these difficulties without you getting caught up in reacting to the other person’s personality and response styles.

I’ll be following this up with a somewhat more practical article that applies some of these principles. Look out for Keith’s 2 cents on this topic as well.