Christian Forums

As a guy who has been an adult single and then as a "single again" type person and now happily married I thought that since I am kinda older and had some experience with good relationships and learned hard core from my bad ones that I would share some stuff about picking the right relationships to engage into.

I know that Non-Christians can appear to be so very attractive to us...but success is very rare in these kinds of relationships. At the tops of the list is that Christians are centered on others instead of being self serving. Not that we do it all of the time...we all have issues with being perfect. But at our core is the desire to be this way...it is a mindset that we all carry about us.

With that being said I am going to offer up this website that I have found to be rather truthful and accurate with evaluating whether or not the person you are dating is finding the relationship as rewarding as you are finding it to be.

It talks about intimacy. (Not the physical kind...that is reserved for marriage)
But emotional and values intimacy...much much more intimate than physical ever thought about being...and potentially more damaging.

http://smalley.cc/the-five-levels-of-intimacy-2

In this day and age people have "the tail wagging the dog" so to speak. They seem to value the physical over their hearts. We Christians value just the opposite. Our hearts are supreme...our identity in Christ comes straight from here. So valuing your boyfriend/girlfriend's heart is going to be of utmost importance.

Read the link carefully.  Granted his imagined conversational lines are way too hokey for some of us but they do get the gist of the conversations correct and are good examples in that respect.

evaluate the conversations you have with your significant other.

*If you are at a deeper level than your significant other than there is trouble brewing.

*If one of the two of you is not valuing the other's heart the same way or placing a high, high value on it...again trouble is brewing.

*If you two are not gaining ground as far as going deeper and deeper with your heart sharing...someone else who gets into the same intimacy level as you are at can steal away the heart of your significant other. Some couples go years and years at level four without ever getting to the fifth level...and one day a flirtatious person comes along and...massive issues.

*Not everyone is going to know their own heart...so evaluate everyone a little different...but be mindful of whom you are giving your heart to. These hearts are more precious to most of us than our bodies ever were...they are the "keys to the kingdom" so to speak.