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Families who have tight unity among themselves understand unity’s value. And so do families ravaged by division. 

Maintaining family unity takes some skill, like conflict management, forgiveness, agreeing to disagree, patience and so forth. It may be that the most important factor is to understand and value unity. 

Jesus, God the Son who created the family and gave instructions for maintaining its integrity, told his disciples that, although He valued family members having peace with one another, it was for an even greater purpose that He came. 

Jesus’ mission was (and is) to deliver us from sin and reconcile us to God. If some family members accept Jesus while others reject Him, it presents a strong opportunity for division. 

Honoring father and mother stands near the apex of the most important commandments in the Law of Moses, yet Jesus supplanted it with the Law of Christ, which is simply to believe in Jesus Christ and follow His example of loving and forgiving others. 

So, if a person faces the choice between allegiance to parents, siblings or any other family member and God, they should choose God.

Christians shouldn’t be surprised when conflict arises within their family because they choose Christ while their opposing family member rejects Him.

The important thing – while they navigate the conflict and stand strong in their faith – is to be sure to love their adversarial family member, and to love them in a way that they understand their choice to follow Jesus increases, not decreases, the love they have for their family.

This can be tricky in a culture where people have the belief that love and disagreement cannot coexist. 

This is our opportunity. If we can get it across to family members with whom we disagree about the most  basic belief (how we view God and relate to Him) that we love them even when we differ in our worldview, we can actually be effective witnesses for the Lord to the people we love most.

Of course, our enemy sees an opportunity, too. He wants us divided and for God to be misunderstood, misrepresented and rejected.

So, as in all cases that involve the devil, spiritual warfare is the only way to victory. Spiritual warfare includes all of the following:

1. Prayer (pray for the person and your effectiveness in representing Jesus for them.)
2. God’s Word (Find, believe and confess in prayer the powerful relevant promises from Scripture.)
3. Jesus (Remember to never leave God out of the equation; the Holy Spirit indwelling believers provides whatever wisdom we need.)
4. Love (Communicating with and relating to family members without love will end in the opposite result from the one we want and God wants.)

So, don’t let the enemy surprise you; conflict is natural and is often a step on the journey to helping a family member find Jesus for themselves. Keep in mind the four ingredients above as you relate to unbelieving family members. And may you have success in leading your family from division to unity in Christ. 

“Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against.”
‭‭Luke‬ ‭12‬:‭51‬-‭52‬ ‭NLT‬‬

In case you’re a married person contemplating divorce, either you alone or you and your spouse, there are some things you need to know. 

If you’re facing a spouse threatening to end the marriage, these things could possibly help change their mind.  

1. Marriage was God’s idea. The first couple, God’s original humans, He made with the intention that they be together. After creating the first one, the man Adam, God declared that it wasn’t good; he was alone while all other animals had partners for procreating. Humans being his most prized creation, He certainly planned our continued existence to be eternal. 

God had more in mind for the human partnership than mere procreation. Remember that He made mankind in God’s triune image, which He accomplished, not by creating Adam (one) or even adding the woman to the man (two), but only by having close fellowship, Himself, with the couple – that’s three (God, husband and wife)!

God also took the woman from the man’s body part (his rib), something else He did only in the case of humans. Adam exclaimed, “Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone!” and God decreed that a man would leave his parents and cleave to his wife. 

2. Divorce damages those involved. When a couple divorces, they sever what God has joined together, as Jesus described. A divorced spouse is, for a time, a grieving ex-spouse. It’s been said that a divorced person has it harder than a widowed one because their ex-spouse is still alive, making it harder to have closure on the past marriage. 

Children of divorce take a hit, too. Lingering issues like feelings of abandonment and separation anxiety present challenges for children, even well into adulthood. 

I was forty years old when my parents divorced, and it had a strong emotional impact on me, even at that age. 

Good point, you may think, but how is this a reason God hates divorce? Well, if we know God we know He hates for His people, especially as children, to be damaged. It’s the work and will of the enemy that brings death , destruction and harm to people, and God hates the damage and the one who brings it. 

3. Divorce brings unnecessary financial challenge. Statistics and common sense both show that a divorced couple will have a tougher financial time than a married one. They have two households to maintain with the same income they had when they were together. And if they’re coparenting, they likely don’t coordinate and work in tandem as well as when they lived together in unity.  

4. Divorce weakens a couple for accomplishment.  In God’s economy, one puts a thousand to flight and two puts ten thousand to flight. The context of that scriptural principle is a Godly nation in warfare against an ungodly one. The interpretation is that when we’re unified in God’s way our effectiveness increases by a multiplier of ten, not two. The application to marriage versus divorce is that staying together makes us five times more effective than splitting up. The effective I’m referring to is in God’s bidding, and He wants us in all the strength He makes available to us. 

5. Divorce weakens a couple for protection. Another Biblical principle is that, since a three-stranded cord is very difficult to break, it behooves a couple to remain together and unified with God.  

6. Divorce brings forfeiture of opportunities and callings. Every married couple has opportunities God reserves just for them. And while they don’t lose everything when they become divorced, they do forfeit those accomplishments reserved by God specifically for them as a couple. 

7. Divorce removes the closest possible example for children to see a model marriage. Their parents’ marriage isn’t the only one they’ll witness, but it is the closest view possible of one, and it’s made up of the two people from whom they came. 

To be fair, two more things also need to be said.

1. If divorce is part of your story, do not accept condemnation for it. It isn’t the unforgiveable sin. If the divorce resulted from some sin or another, it’s in the past and however great the sin is, grace for forgiveness and redemption is even greater. 
2. Children can still thrive after divorce. While parents in a good marriage is ideal, God can still fill in all the void from loss, and if grandparents and others rally to offset the loss, which is often the case, the kids can even gain advantages in some ways. 

Bottom Line: God has better for us than divorce, and if we’ll walk with Him, He’ll lead us in His better way. He also still has goodness for those with divorce in their history and walking with Him will bring redemption. 

When we celebrate Christmas, we celebrate the newborn Savior. Around the events of the Savior’s birth, leading up to it, at the time of it and in the events that follow, we encounter a marriage. As unique as this married couple and their circumstances are, there are some lessons to be gleaned from the marriage of Mary and Joseph. 

First, Joseph and Mary, both made God the center of their marriage. Granted, they had little choice since God the Son was going to be literally growing up in their household. But they still offered some examples of giving God His rightful priority in their lives even before Jesus needed their assistance in His development. 

God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary with an outlandish announcement. Her response was exemplary. Even though she asked for an explanation of how it would come about that she would be pregnant and birth a child as a virgin, she ultimately – and immediately – submitted to God’s plan. Let it be to me according to Your word, she told the angel.

As for Joseph, his obedience was also key and his directive from God through a dream was as unheard of for an engaged bridegroom as Mary’s was for a bride. Yet his immediate, decisive and criticized obedience was the example he set for all men for all time to follow, including the men who are husbands in our day. 

To sum up this point, Mary and Joseph were obedient to the will of God even when His will was more than countercultural., as is almost always the case, but also counterintuitive. I didn’t even make sense on a sheer natural human level. Yet, they submitted to God. As we apply this lesson to our marriages, may the same be said of us.

The second lesson comes from Mary following the lead of her husband, Joseph. Remember one of the least popular commands in the New Testament is that wives submit to their husbands. Here’s Mary presenting a model for that command some fifty or sixty years before it was written. 

She literally followed her husband to Bethlehem for the Roman census even though she was in the most uncomfortable phase of being great with child. 

Later, we see her following Joseph to the pagan land of Egypt, trusting completely his interpretation of God’s message to him (in another dream). 

The principle set forth for a husband decades later in New Testament Scripture, as head of the wife, was to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Joseph risked his reputation (by marrying a pregnant girl) and process of establishing his livelihood (by taking a hiatus to Egypt for a time to protect his family). 

So, there we have it. The family of the first Christmas have more to offer us than the inspirational Nativity to beautifully decorate the season. Another gift they bring is a helpful picture of a Godly marriage. May we unwrap and enjoy. 

Merry Christmas!!

Knowledge and wisdom are two different things. Knowledge is the possession of accurate information, and wisdom is the skill of how to use knowledge. So, wisdom is the skill of applying knowledge to the various parts of our lives. 

Marriage is, itself, a skillset, one all of us married couples need to have. The marriage skillset is a set of five skills:

1. Communication. You won’t find any part of marriage that doesn’t depend on communication. A couple lacking in communication skills is bound to have trouble. 

Marriage requires unity – that the couple become one flesh. The Bible asks how two can walk together (as in walking through life in unity) unless they agree. The logical question is: how can two agree unless they effectively communicate? 

Communication is transferring what’s in one person’s heart into the heart of another. We can transfer our positive or negative contents to our spouse’s heart. If I’m bitter and resentful, that can be transferred, just as mercy and grace can be; it just depends what the contents of our heart are. Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Therefore, it behooves us to ensure that the contents of our heart are agape-love (see #5).

2. Money Management. Money problems is one of the top two reasons couples get a divorce. Chances are, one spouse will be better with money than the other. Still, that doesn’t mean one should be totally uninvolved. Most important is to determine roles and (you guessed it!) communicate what the roles are, through the process of making money decisions as you plan, carry out, and review financial operations.

3. Conflict Management. It’s inevitable that couples will have conflict. There are two perspectives and two personalities involved in everything a couple does. As important as it is to arrive at agreement, conflict resolution skills are often the deciding factor of whether agreement will be reached.

4. Sex & Romance. This is probably the most intriguing skill ; the problem is that it’s also the most misunderstood. Think of sex and romance this way. It’s like painting a house. It takes a whole lot of preparation to ever get to the point of applying the paint. There’s scraping, sanding, pressure washing, repairing, caulking and cleaning that happens first, and the prep work takes a lot longer than the actual painting. 

Sex and romance is the skill of connecting so intimately that we make a deep emotional, mental and spiritual-soulish connection as well as the physio-sexual one. In the house painting metaphor, the prep work addresses all the non-physio-sexual connections. It’s about caring, giving, sacrificing, prioritizing, respecting and serving, all for the benefit of the spouse, even without expecting anything in return. 

It’s even possible (It usually takes husbands a while to get this but typically is understood naturally by the wife. Husbands are like: who wants to have a prepped, unpainted house?) that the “preparation” (painting analogy, again) can be satisfying enough without sex. And most wives understand there’s such a thing as non-sexual physical affection. Here again, communicating about all this is important, as are resolving related conflict and keeping financial pressures at bay. 

5. Agape-love. This is the single most important skill to possess, in marriage and every other relationship. It’s the kind of love God has for us and that He’s imparted to us through Christ and the Holy Spirit that we might use it toward one another. There is no more important relationship for it than the husband-wife one.

Its description is found in 1 Corinthians 13, but suffice it to say that it’s the same thing as grace: unmerited favor, loving without expecting anything in return.

Without agape-love, none of the other marriage skills will really work. 

Want success in your marriage? Work on mastering these 5 skills.

We live in the Information Age. Or as some have called it, the Misinformation Age.

In a time that information is accessed at any moment by anyone with a hand sized gadget, which all adults carry, what information is it that we should seek (and find)? 

Knowledge and wisdom, Proverbs tells us, doesn’t even really begin until we have a reverential knowledge of God. So, there it is, the most important knowledge we can have is to know God, Himself. 

When it comes to physical and mental health, information is sufficient to the masses for us all to be experts if we’d choose to be. 

Well, I believe the most important knowledge to have concerning personal health is the knowledge of ourselves. As helpful as it is to know the science of the human body and the human psyche, it’s most important to know our own bodies and personalities. 

To know our own strengths and weaknesses, what things come natural to us and what things seem nearly impossible, allows us to effectively apply the scientific knowledge of health and fitness. 

To know God and ourselves well, then, are most important. Then, and only then, can we operate our lives in a truly healthy way. 

If we want to parent well, we must know our child well and our child’s Creator well. We must also teach our children to know God and themselves well. It’s the most important knowledge we can help them gain.

As we display for them an exemplary marriage, it will include similar knowledge; they’ll see that we know God so well that we place Him at the center of our marriage and family, and that we study, contemplate and learn our spouse so well that we know how to love them well and live with them in peace and love. 

So there it is. In this age when we can so easily access knowledge, the most important knowledge, knowledge even easier to access (It really always has been accessible by our very heart.) is knowing God. 

Proverbs is the treasury wherein God’s wisdom has been stored for us, and it’s wide open for all to access. Just one example is Proverbs 9:10. Make the withdrawal and enjoy its value in your parenting, marriage and personal life. 

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.  -Proverbs 9:10

“Lord, please do something to restore in us the joy we had when our kids were small.”  Clay and Julie McFarland were in their early fifties now. Their kids were all grown and on their own. The McFarlands loved each other and enjoyed their empty nest, but tonight as Clay led his wife in prayer something came out almost unintentionally; they’d reminisced fondly recently about what cherished times they’d had when the kids were small, but neither of them had really considered that they were unhappy or that anything was missing. “And please bless the kids and their spouses, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Clay and Julie’s prayer, even though it was a request Clay spoke almost without thought, got Heaven’s attention. A horde of angels gathered quickly and crowded around God’s throne, all curious as to how the Provider would respond to the prayer. 

“Your curiosity is a bit misguided.” God addressed the host encircling His throne, all kneeling in reverence. “Your question should not be how I will answer, although you will soon see. No, your real question should be why Clay made such a request. And the answer is that I, by my Spirit, incited it, Myself. As you know, I sometimes place in the heart of humans a desire for the very thing I want to give them.

The angels shifted around, adjusting wings and limbs to allow space for one another, as God continued informing them. “Now Clay and Julie know almost nothing about any of this. They are both sensitive to my Spirit, so as I introduced the thought, Clay spoke it in prayer immediately, and Julie agreed with an amen almost before she knew it but never regretting it.”

The Lord’s voice was booming and had been resounding throughout the throne room. However, He lowered it to pique the angels’ interest as He continued offering the privilege of hearing Him speak. “As you know, this is not always the way I work; I often have them process ideas mentally, sometimes so thoroughly that it takes weeks or months of earth-human time. But this time, in My sovereignty, I did it this way.”

The door opened and two majestic angelic beings entered, spread their wings and hovered low as they made their way to the throne. The angel ranks split to form an aisle before the throne and the two great angels, Michael and Gabriel, landed in their approach, kneeling before the Almighty, the Lord of Hosts. “Speaking of earth-human time, from this time until nine of their months have passed, they will receive their answer. They will receive their answer in the flesh, that is.” Then, God reached down and touched the heads of Michael and Gabriel.

“Michael and Gabriel will be dispatched in three earth-human months to support the McFarlands’ receiving the news of their coming grandchild.”

One of the angels, not Michael or Gabriel, asked the Almighty a question all wanted Him to answer. “Lord Most High, is this another of the wonderful traps you have designed for humans?”

“Yes,” the Holy One answered, “Clay and Julie will be trapped by the love one can have only for children. They will be helpless against its manacles. Their joy will skyrocket each time they see the little one, even when the little one has grown into the adult human I plan for them to be.”

The angels erupted in praise, lauding and honoring the Creator with their heavenly voices. 

On earth, Clay and Julie were joyful indeed. They were ecstatic at the announcement the child’s parents made, Michael and Gabriel standing guard against any opposition that may come. When the child was born, they were beside themselves, happy for the parents but happier still for themselves; they were grandparents now.

Just according to the Lord’s plan, they never escaped the grandparent trap. They spent their remaining years overjoyed at every phase of the child’s life. And that was the first of nine grandchildren the McFarlands were blessed to enjoy. Over the years, their awareness grew. They were increasingly aware that they were trapped. They never got free from the trap. They never did want to. Why would they. It was a trap God uses to give couples great love and joy. God has used it for thousands of years. It’s the Grandparent Trap. Enjoy, all you Clays and Julies out there!

Proverbs 14:1 tells us that a wise woman builds her home and a foolish woman tears hers down. 

I see a principle there that applies to more than just the women of their houses. A broader application can be made to all people. House can represent a person’s life. The real point is that wisdom and foolishness are like night and day, good and evil, light and darkness; their ways are opposite, as are their outcomes. 

An example of a foolish person tearing down their house and an example of a wise one building theirs come from the same story, two spouses, one operating out of foolishness and the other out of wisdom. The story is fascinating and replete with lessons for the wise. It’s found in 2^nd Samuel 25. 

David and the several hundred men loyal to him are on the run from Saul. They need food when David learns of the wealthy Nabal having a sheep-shearing event. Since David and his men had provided protection and sustenance for Nabal’s laborers some time recently, David thinks Nabal a likely source of food for his men. But Nabal foolishly denies David’s request, responding with insults instead of generosity. (The Hebrew meaning of Nabal is fool, and he lives up to his name very well.)

Conversely, Nabal’s beautiful wife, Abigail, is wise enough for the both of them. Upon hearing how Nabal has treated David, she hurries to make amends. David is on his way to retaliate against Nabal when Abigail intercepts him, showering him with honorable words, delicious food and an apology on behalf of her husband. 

Long story short, Nabal soon dies in his folly and David wins Abigail as his bride and eventual queen. 

Nabal foolishly destroyed his household and life while his wise and wonderful wife used wisdom to preserve for herself the best life Israel had to offer a woman at the time. 

Take-aways abound. Here are three, all from Proverbs, the writings of David’s future son, King Solomon (Please read the entire 25^th chapter of 2 Samuel in the Bible, as I don’t have space here to include it.):

1. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Proverbs 15:1) When we choose how to respond to people, what is our choice? The Holy Spirit’s guidance will nearly always be to use gentleness. 

2. A gift in secret pacifies anger (Proverbs 21:14) A primary difference between Nabal’s response and Abigail’s is that he was stingy and she was generous. Because of Nabal’s presumed nastiness toward his wife, she had to give her gifts to David in secret. The wise couple will be in unity in their resource management, agreeing to be as generous as they can be and acting in concert in their giving. 

3. A virtuous wife who can find? (Proverbs 31:10) This is pretty messed up, but this proverb was written by the son of the woman with whom Abigail’s future husband would have an affair. Nevertheless, Abigail did act virtuously concerning David and Nabal, and as the proverb indicates, such a virtuous wife was rare indeed. The two questions for us are: do we act virtuously? And do we recognize the virtues that our spouse possesses? 

Please consider these 3 things in the building of your house and the prevention of its destruction.

What if we parented the way Jesus lived as Messiah? Consider His approach to preparing His church to function in the world. He did the following, and we can apply these lessons to our parenting life:

1. He set an extremely high bar. God’s people were already failing miserably at keeping the Law. Add to that the requirements of tradition piled on by religious leaders, and it becomes an essentially impossible standard to meet. Then Jesus step onto the stage and ratchets it up a few more notches. You’ve heard it said (Law of Moses plus added traditions)…but I say to you…Whenever you read those words from Jesus, you know what’s coming. Outward behavior isn’t enough; God cares about your thought life, what happens in your heart. 

I remember my mother teaching me from a very young age that God was with me at the heart level. She imparted wisdom to me with whispers like, “Ask God what He thinks about it,” and “God is your closest friend, so talk to Him.” A childhood of consistent comments like those prepared me for a close walk with God, once I returned from my rebellious, prodigal years. As I think now, that training laid the foundation of my relationship with God and may have been the most important discipleship lesson anyone ever taught me.

2. He taught grace. Grace would officially be established at the cross, where Jesus paid our sin debt so we could receive forgiveness and eternal life. But He introduced grace in the years of ministry before His crucifixion. Brilliantly setting an adulterous woman free from her accusers, revealing to an outcast woman on the outskirts of Sychar and healing a man born blind, whose blindness the culture assumed was the result of sin, are just three examples of the foreign concept called grace that Jesus exemplified for us, His followers. 

It’s counterintuitive to most parents that we should show grace to our kids. We have to prepare our children to face the consequences of their actions, motivating them to make wise choices whose consequences will be favorable; how do we do that by letting them off the hook? Well, first, grace is not devoid of reaping what we sow (Galatians 6:7). Also, New Covenant grace includes God disciplining His children, chastising those He loves (Hebrews 12:6). The important thing for parents is to always teach kids that acts of discipline have the purpose of helping them grow up to be good and wise adults, that spankings and such are carried out because we love them and want them to be the person God wants them to be. 

3. He set the example of sacrifice. If anyone was unsure of whether Jesus laid down His life willingly, the resurrection should’ve cleared that up. Overcoming death in the grave proved that He could’ve prevented death from occurring in the first place. There was a reason He was crucified. It wasn’t because He had no choice, but because it was necessary, willed and prophesied for God’s system of justice to be satisfied as He extended mercy through His Son. Everything about the Messiah was sacrificial – that He came to earth, becoming human, that He was laid in a manger as a newborn, that He was despised by Jews, rejected by religious leaders and tortured by the Roman government. Ultimately, His final breaths were obedient acts of sacrifice for all who would believe in Him. 

Anyone who’s been in the parenting game very long at all knows that it’s a life of sacrifice. Mothers endure pain as they carry and as they birth the child. Then, sleep is lost, personal preferences are given up and the sacrifice of work and provision become the order of the day. So, parents unwilling to sacrifice are deemed irresponsible on some level. When we struggle to sacrifice willingly, we parents can follow Jesus’ example of compassionate sacrifice for our children whom we love. 

There are three of the ways Jesus’ ministry can help us with parenting. I’m sure there are many others, but these can help us today. 

I hope you find them helpful.

I knew a man growing up who showed to his community something completely different from what his family saw in their private home life. His wife and children saw and felt his abusive explosions of anger almost every time he became pressurized inside his fragile heart. They still wear some of those scars today. 

That man’s life was worse than an iceberg; an iceberg is of the same integrity below the service as above it. If a ship’s captain sees ice in Arctic waters, he knows there’s more ice than he sees. He’ll assume there’s danger and adjust his course. Oh, that the Titanic’s captain had possessed such wisdom. 

Icebergs, as I’ve stated, not only reveal the same substance that is hidden. They also reveal only a small portion of the whole of it. So, what we see is a small sample of its fullness. 

Let’s apply this to marriage. First, a sample is an exact representation of something. To show publicly something different from the actual marriage is hypocritical; it presents a lie. If a marriage is hypocritical in this way, it lacks an essential ingredient, the couple’s respect for each other and each one’s self-respect. As Paul wrote to Timothy, it’s vital, even in this age of grace, in which forgiveness and agape-love are abundant, that we maintain a clear conscience; anything less messes with our sense of self-worth and self-confidence, both of which contribute to a vibrant marriage. 

The second fact about samples is that they’re very small compared to the whole. Again, an iceberg shows a very small percentage of the entire chunk of ice. The rest is hidden.

Hidden things have a prominent place in Scripture. Colossians tells us that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ (Colossians 2:3). Exactly one chapter later (Colossians 3:3), it states that we, Christians are hidden with God in Christ. Consider, also, that David hid God’s Word in his heart to prevent his sinning, that Jesus taught of a treasure hidden in a field (representing salvation) and a pearl of great price (representing us whom God saved) was hidden in the sea, and we can easily surmise that God cares about what is unseen by mankind.

To take this to a practical level for married couples, please consider these suggestions:

1. Let the quality of your behind-closed-doors-life be consistent with what you show your community. If your private life is worse than your publicly displayed one, match them up, not by adjusting the public life downward in Godliness, but by bringing up the quality of the private display. The result will be all the many benefits of a Godly life, including the reaping of good seed sown. 
2. Don’t fall for the trap of attempting to pridefully impress the world. Let your below-the surface far exceed what’s above it, in terms of admirable qualities and blessings bestowed, things like earthly wealth, accomplishments and accolades. The temptation can be over-showing God’s blessing, intending it to be for His glory. While it’s a balance that requires the Spirit’s leading, be sure to err on the side of humility and sharing private blessing with those in your inner circle. 

In short, maintain an iceberg marriage.

The word picture for preposterous is very clear. 

Dissecting the word into parts, pre means before; post means after, so the word meaning is all about order, and when this word is used it means things are out of order. What is meant to be before is after and what is meant to be after is before. 

The expression getting the cart before the horse is a perfect analogy for being preposterous. 

The suffix erous means to have the quality of, but in this case, we can transliterate it; in other words, we can use its sound to capture its meaning, kind of like an onomatopoeia. 

So, preposterous is such an accurate description of the world culture of our era that we could say out-of-order are us. (kinda like Toys R Us).

When it comes to relationships, the order of things is very important to God, especially in the man-woman romantic relationship. 

The problem with our culture, as has been the case with most every culture in human history, is that men and woman attracted to each other get things out of order.

Sex comes, too often, before the other aspects of the relationship. Friendship, partnership in endeavors, family support, emotional intimacy, commitment and marital covenant are better ordered before sex, yet couples often have sex before some or all of the other aspects.

We’ve heard some people described as being like an onion; they have to be accessed one layer at a time. Well, I think every romantic relationship is like an onion; it has to be navigated one layer at a time; and having sex prematurely not only gets things out of the order God intended, but sacrifices some of the most important parts of the romance process. 

So, here’s the advice of a sixty-three-year-old romantic who experienced virtually every challenge of single life and landed in a fulfilling marriage of now thirty-eight years:

1. Become friends first. Friendship is the best foundation for a romantic relationship and it serves as the lifeblood of a long-term marriage.
2. Experience some non-sexual endeavors together, projects – short-term and long-term – that require you to work together, learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses and rely on each other for success. The emotional bond you build will be very strong. 
3. This one may be third on the list, but it’s first in importance. Make God the center of your relationship. As you both draw near to Him, you’ll find that you two are also very close as a couple in the best way.
4. Commit to not having sex until you’re married. This may be old-fashioned and countercultural, but it’s the desire of the ancient of Days (that’s God), and His way always works best. (Doing things His way is what it means to be holy, especially when it starkly contrasts with the ways of the culture.)

Dare to navigate the romantic process in the right order in a culture full of preposterous relationships.