Guard your heart. This command comes from Proverbs 4:23 and it seems to be the golden rule in Christian dating. Christians like to think that if we withhold getting emotionally attached and spiritually intimate with someone of the opposite sex we will somehow save ourselves from the heartbreak of a failed romance and have more of ourselves to give to a future spouse.
But in protecting ourselves from the dangers of dating are we sabotaging the whole relationship process?
When you date someone the goal is to get to know them. And you don’t just want to know their favorite color and their hometown-- you want to know everything. You want intimacy and understanding. But Christians tend to set emotional boundaries on these things.
(And outside of marriage there will always be a gap between emotional and physical intimacy. The intimacy I refer to in this post is emotional. Boundaries concerning physical intimacy are a different matter which I talk about in my post on purity.)
Don’t share parts of your life story that are too personal. Don’t spend too much time alone. Don’t do bible studies together. We make all these boundaries for ourselves to postpone emotional intimacy until engagement or marriage when we can be sure this person can be trusted. But if we are not careful these boundaries for our hearts may become walls which will stifle all chances of authentic trust and vulnerability.
Perhaps there is a better way?
The Command in Context
First we must deal with how we are dangerously misinterpreting the biblical charge to guard our hearts. Before we can even consider applying this text to our dating lives, we must first understand what the biblical author is really saying.
The command to guard your heart comes from Proverbs 4 where Solomon is urging his son to seek wisdom. He says in verse 23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
Let’s be grammar nerds for a moment and pay attention to the adverb phrase immediately following the command: “for everything you do flows from it.” This phrase answers the question of reason: Why should I guard my heart? Because everything I do flows from it.
The rest of Proverbs 4 clarifies this for us, "Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left keep your foot from evil” (vv. 25-27). What a beautiful picture of a godly, wisdom-filled life!
This description goes so much deeper than dating, so when we make this verse only about protecting yourself from the opposite sex, we are limiting its impact on our lives. We are not just told to guard our hearts from something, but also toward something—toward wisdom in God. In him guarding your heart in dating takes on a new character.
When you are in a relationship with a believer and you are both seeking to live by the principles of Proverbs 4, you can pursue a life of vulnerability and begin to build God-sustained trust. For Solomon doesn't tell us to guard our hearts from one another! Instead he urges us to guard our hearts toward God and wisdom.
You see, when we say flatly, “Guard your heart,” we leave God entirely out of the equation. The command becomes works based and creates a battle between you and heartbreak, with your significant other tangled in between and God looking on helplessly. This battle is neither glorifies God nor serves your partner.
But if we say, “Guard your heart with wisdom that comes from God,” we are putting our trust in God to bring about a result. Instead of taking control to protect ourselves with rules and boundaries, we are allowing God to protect us even in our most vulnerable state.
Vulnerability in Context
A primary ingredient in any relationship is vulnerability. Vulnerability among believers is what helps us grow in intimacy with each other and with God. Emily Maynard says it perfectly in her article I Stopped Guarding My Heart, “All relationships invite our hearts to walk through disappointment and joy. The more intimate the relationship, the greater the capacity for both these things.” There are risks when you enter a relationship, yet when you stop being the primary guard of your heart and allow God to take care of your fragile life you will be safe.
Letting go of our lives through vulnerability is necessary to producing intimacy and healing.
Vulnerability in Action
Sometimes our stories have painful chapters we want to keep to ourselves. And our lack of trust is not entirely unjustified. Humans are scary. A lot of the hurt in your story was probably caused by another human being, so opening your heart to someone else who may hurt you does not seem very appealing.
Thankfully, we serve a God of healing. But he most often uses other people as his instruments in restoring our lives and healing will require humility.
When you remove your walls you are allowing God to work through someone else in ministering to you and preaching Christ to your wounds. We need to realize again and again that we cannot heal ourselves, but must ask God to work out redemption in our lives.
Sometimes you will be amazed at how well your significant other listens and loves you. Still, no matter how kind and loving boyfriend or girlfriend is, they are also flawed. There may be times when you spill your deep rooted passions and hidden wounds to your significant other and they do not respond how you wanted. Use this as another chance to let go of pride. All these worries you have been clinging to for so long may not be so huge after all.
When your partner does not respond in loving sympathy, it does not mean they do not love you and care deeply for you. They are just human! Additionally, the purpose of sharing was not to boost your self-esteem by making you comforted or pitied. The purpose of vulnerability is to offer your heart to another person because you love them and you want to be closer to them. In every type of relationship we should be seeking to die to our selfishness and offer ourselves up to others. Know that, even if the person doesn't fully understand, the action was needed for you to build a deeper bond and develop a trust. Strong trust only comes from steps of vulnerability that will test and strengthen. Your vulnerability is a victory, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Relationship in Action
Dating is fundamentally a series of excruciatingly awkward steps of vulnerability and trust. Sometimes these steps may feel like leaps into a void, and it can be petrifying to share one of our precious, scar-bearing secrets with another careless sinner. But trusting God to protect us is so necessary. Because we are not the ones with the ability to protect ourselves -- He is. And he requires us to stop holding on to our own hearts so that He can take hold of them.
Perhaps vulnerability is the safest place for us.
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”—C.S. Lewis
Further Reading:
"Guard Your Heart" Doesn't Mean Christians Can't Date
I Stopped Guarding My Heart TenYears Ago
What Guarding Your Heart Actually Means
When you date someone the goal is to get to know them. And you don’t just want to know their favorite color and their hometown-- you want to know everything. You want intimacy and understanding. But Christians tend to set emotional boundaries on these things.
(And outside of marriage there will always be a gap between emotional and physical intimacy. The intimacy I refer to in this post is emotional. Boundaries concerning physical intimacy are a different matter which I talk about in my post on purity.)
Don’t share parts of your life story that are too personal. Don’t spend too much time alone. Don’t do bible studies together. We make all these boundaries for ourselves to postpone emotional intimacy until engagement or marriage when we can be sure this person can be trusted. But if we are not careful these boundaries for our hearts may become walls which will stifle all chances of authentic trust and vulnerability.
Perhaps there is a better way?
First we must deal with how we are dangerously misinterpreting the biblical charge to guard our hearts. Before we can even consider applying this text to our dating lives, we must first understand what the biblical author is really saying.
The command to guard your heart comes from Proverbs 4 where Solomon is urging his son to seek wisdom. He says in verse 23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
Let’s be grammar nerds for a moment and pay attention to the adverb phrase immediately following the command: “for everything you do flows from it.” This phrase answers the question of reason: Why should I guard my heart? Because everything I do flows from it.
The rest of Proverbs 4 clarifies this for us, "Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left keep your foot from evil” (vv. 25-27). What a beautiful picture of a godly, wisdom-filled life!
This description goes so much deeper than dating, so when we make this verse only about protecting yourself from the opposite sex, we are limiting its impact on our lives. We are not just told to guard our hearts from something, but also toward something—toward wisdom in God. In him guarding your heart in dating takes on a new character.
When you are in a relationship with a believer and you are both seeking to live by the principles of Proverbs 4, you can pursue a life of vulnerability and begin to build God-sustained trust. For Solomon doesn't tell us to guard our hearts from one another! Instead he urges us to guard our hearts toward God and wisdom.
You see, when we say flatly, “Guard your heart,” we leave God entirely out of the equation. The command becomes works based and creates a battle between you and heartbreak, with your significant other tangled in between and God looking on helplessly. This battle is neither glorifies God nor serves your partner.
But if we say, “Guard your heart with wisdom that comes from God,” we are putting our trust in God to bring about a result. Instead of taking control to protect ourselves with rules and boundaries, we are allowing God to protect us even in our most vulnerable state.
Vulnerability in Context
A primary ingredient in any relationship is vulnerability. Vulnerability among believers is what helps us grow in intimacy with each other and with God. Emily Maynard says it perfectly in her article I Stopped Guarding My Heart, “All relationships invite our hearts to walk through disappointment and joy. The more intimate the relationship, the greater the capacity for both these things.” There are risks when you enter a relationship, yet when you stop being the primary guard of your heart and allow God to take care of your fragile life you will be safe.
Letting go of our lives through vulnerability is necessary to producing intimacy and healing.
Vulnerability in Action
Sometimes our stories have painful chapters we want to keep to ourselves. And our lack of trust is not entirely unjustified. Humans are scary. A lot of the hurt in your story was probably caused by another human being, so opening your heart to someone else who may hurt you does not seem very appealing.
Thankfully, we serve a God of healing. But he most often uses other people as his instruments in restoring our lives and healing will require humility.
When you remove your walls you are allowing God to work through someone else in ministering to you and preaching Christ to your wounds. We need to realize again and again that we cannot heal ourselves, but must ask God to work out redemption in our lives.Sometimes you will be amazed at how well your significant other listens and loves you. Still, no matter how kind and loving boyfriend or girlfriend is, they are also flawed. There may be times when you spill your deep rooted passions and hidden wounds to your significant other and they do not respond how you wanted. Use this as another chance to let go of pride. All these worries you have been clinging to for so long may not be so huge after all.
When your partner does not respond in loving sympathy, it does not mean they do not love you and care deeply for you. They are just human! Additionally, the purpose of sharing was not to boost your self-esteem by making you comforted or pitied. The purpose of vulnerability is to offer your heart to another person because you love them and you want to be closer to them. In every type of relationship we should be seeking to die to our selfishness and offer ourselves up to others. Know that, even if the person doesn't fully understand, the action was needed for you to build a deeper bond and develop a trust. Strong trust only comes from steps of vulnerability that will test and strengthen. Your vulnerability is a victory, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Relationship in Action
Dating is fundamentally a series of excruciatingly awkward steps of vulnerability and trust. Sometimes these steps may feel like leaps into a void, and it can be petrifying to share one of our precious, scar-bearing secrets with another careless sinner. But trusting God to protect us is so necessary. Because we are not the ones with the ability to protect ourselves -- He is. And he requires us to stop holding on to our own hearts so that He can take hold of them.
Perhaps vulnerability is the safest place for us.
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”—C.S. Lewis
"Guard Your Heart" Doesn't Mean Christians Can't Date
I Stopped Guarding My Heart TenYears Ago
What Guarding Your Heart Actually Means
No comments:
Post a Comment