Aiming For a Godly Marriage in the Dating Years

Hey, Jim Daly here. If you like the Focus on the Family broadcast and haven't grown tired of this voice just yet, you'll love my Refocus Podcast. On Refocus, I take a deeper dive with a respected thinker on different aspects of culture. I ask those hard questions that maybe they don't get that often, and I don't shy away from challenging topics to help you share God's grace, truth, and love with others.

So listen to Refocus with Jim Daly on your favorite streaming app today. And it is important to put boundaries in your dating and things like that, or in any relationship for that matter, because not only are you respecting yourself as a person, but you are saying you respect God. You respect his biblical standards. You respect the guidelines that he put in life for you to follow. And by that, you find the person who God wants you to really be with. You don't settle with less than God's best. That's Safa Gray describing how God has a better plan for dating and marriage than many couples can realize. And we'll explore this topic further today on Focus on the Family with your host, Jim Daly.

Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller. John, I think, I mean, our dating days, I think, are long gone. I mean, I date my wife still, and that's fun. But you know, dating in your early 20s, for example, that's a long time ago for me. But I get to see it through the eyes of my two 20-something boys. And it looks like dating is very different from what we used to experience.

Way different. I'm so glad you don't have to do that. Yeah, but you know, I'm talking to the guys, and they're going, yeah, we just kind of date in a group. You know, 10 or 12 of us go out. And I'm going, that's not a date. That's just going out with friends. No, no, it's like a group date. No, that's not a date. But it goes back and forth.

And you know, I think it's just very different. And I'm excited today, really, for the most part, for my own boys, to get this book into their hands so they could read this. And it's got some great content, Godly Dating 101, Discover the Truth About Relationships in a World That Constantly Lies.

That's a great title, by the way. And I am looking forward to talking about The Godly Way to Date. And people, I'm telling you, in your 20s, there are so many monumental decisions you're making, right? For the most part, usually in your 20s.

Maybe what university you might go to or vocational training you might do. And then the big one, Who Might I Marry? And then have a lifelong relationship with. Those are big decisions. They are. That's one of the reasons that we have our Boundless ministry. It's 25 years old now, and we've been helping younger singles prepare for marriage and for a life with a spouse. And it's a wonderful outreach that's been going for 25 years, 15 years of a podcast with Lisa Anderson, Boundless. And we really recommend people check that out. We do. Here's the bottom line for us.

We want to really inform you as to how God has a plan and purpose for your life. We believe that. I've lived that.

I have felt that from Him. And as I said, part of it is identifying who you might marry. Now sometimes we get a little criticism here at Focus on the Family that somehow we make an idol out of marriage and family. That's not our goal. We certainly want to lift it up because we believe God's best is in that, but we realize not everybody's going to get married.

But I believe most people will. And it's a good thing. God did say man should not be alone. And He made woman. And I think then He also said the two shall become one flesh. And that's our goal here. And I'm looking forward again to the conversation.

Yeah. And at the very opening of the show, we heard from Safa Gray, and she and her husband Tavares are here. And they're authors, speakers, and podcast hosts.

And they have a huge following on social media. We're so glad they've joined us today. And Jim, you mentioned the book title that we're covering today. It's called Godly Dating 101.

Discover the truth about relationships in a world that constantly lies. We'll encourage you to stop by the program notes for the details. Well, welcome to both of you. Glad to have you. Thank you for having us on.

Yeah, this is exciting. Now you guys are married. How long have you been married? December makes seven years.

Seven years. Okay, so you're not too far back there when you were doing this whole thing and dating and trying to figure it all out. Talk to me about the difference. I mean, your moms and dads must have had that experience like John and I had.

You know, it was pretty singular, linear. You see somebody you like at church maybe, and you ask them out for coffee. Never dinner first, John, just FYI.

Okay, I'll remember that. Something subtle, a little talking to, and then boy, you go, ah, maybe this is the one. And you start dating a little bit and enthusiasm grows. Speak to how dating is occurring today. Yeah, I think there's just a lot of dynamics when it comes to dating.

It's not as easy as it was back then, from what I've heard. Especially with the pandemic and everything, it kind of has changed things a little bit. A lot of people are doing a lot more online with social media dating, so they kind of get to know each other in that aspect first. And then, you know, they might meet up and I feel as though it's a little bit more difficult because of the society we live in. And I think our society pushes a lot of me, me, me, and not a lot of when you date, you have to serve someone else. And it's all about me at the end of the day.

We live in an I this, I that, I this, everything is made up of that. And so it just becomes very difficult because we don't want to let ourselves go and allow ourselves to get to know the other person and to understand that it's serving. It's not about seeing what we can get out of this relationship necessarily. Relationships are bigger than that.

It's about serving the other person and ultimately, ultimately about serving Christ. And I think we've kind of strayed away from that in a sense. Absolutely. And I think, and I love social media, but I think, you know, just looking at other people's relationships on there and what that looks like. We have an idea of, okay, this is what I want. This is what it should look like.

We see their highlight reel. It just looks like a beautiful family. And that's what you want. But that's not marriage. It's not just about the pretty picture. That's why we're not getting married so we can. You know, when it comes to dating sites, that's something that's always bugged me a little bit because I was ahead of that. I got married before the dating sites were out there, but I followed them.

And I think it's efficient. I get that. People that are busy professionals and, you know, how do I get into the dating scene?

What can I do? And along comes these sites that say, fill out this profile and we'll find somebody who won't antagonize you very much because you'll be a good emotional match. I don't know if that's God's plan because I think marriage is about, you know, sanding down the rough edges, learning to become selfless, more like Christ. And I don't think, again, it's really about give me somebody, Lord, who will never irritate me. It's what we do. But I don't think that's God's plan.

Yes. And that goes along with what Safa was saying. I believe that I believe I grew up in an old school environment with the church I was in, with the parents I was in. And you heard a lot of, you know, Christians don't really date. You know, they just get married.

And it's just like, how does that work? You know, I mean, because my parents got saved way later in life. You know, they weren't as traditional as some people. But I felt like we grew up in an environment where they didn't say too much other than don't sin when you're in these environments.

Everybody just did group environments and just like that's not a date, you know. So now you're we're dealing with a generation of people who unfortunately, instead of having biblical advice, they're getting all of their advice from social media. Whereas now, instead of, like you're saying, having a relationship that helps you grow, helps you learn forgiveness, helps you learn patience and all these things. We're saying that person is not good enough for me because they didn't reach my level of perfection. And where did this level of perfection come from?

You know, from a social media post where somebody told you, OK, well, if they're not serving you, they're not good enough. And it's just like, all right, guys, pause. God didn't say any of this, you know, but we're getting the impression from social media on how to date. We're learning from Hollywood and all these things where they've got a great track record on, you know, being married for a lot of them, you know, been married for a whole 32 minutes. But they're telling you what a real relationship is. And it's like we can't allow Hollywood because that's when we go from relationship to relationship. Divorce rates start skyrocketing. Everyone is in bed with someone who they're not emotionally or spiritually in connection with, you know, through covenant. But they make me feel good or look good, you know, so I think our expectations of what relationships should look like are just simply unrealistic at the moment. Divorce, the proof's in the pudding.

So in your dating experience with Safa, you wanted to cook her a great Italian meal. I think this is right out of the book. And I think that's wonderful. But this went a little sideways. What happened?

All right. So so for what it's worth, let me give a background for the people who don't know. I grew up in a Jamaican home. We do not make lasagna in Jamaican families, you know, so anytime you ate it at school or wherever, you know, someone else made it. It was just like, oh, cool. You know, kind of like spaghetti.

You know, you're not thinking anything of it. So I was like, all right, babe, I'm making dinner. So I buy everything that I thought was required for lasagna. We start cooking.

Then now it's time to like, you know, put the stuff in the oven. And Safa is looking at me very confused. And she's she's like, babe, where's the lasagna? And I'm like, I'm making it.

Here it is. And she was just like, no, where's the lasagna? And I'm getting mad now because I'm like, I tell her I'm going to make her a meal. And she's over here doubting my skills. She doesn't understand that.

Maybe with some insight. I watch many episodes of Chef Ramsay, you know, so I know what I'm doing. You know, and she's she's like, that's not how you make lasagna. And I'm just like, what are you talking about? She was like, you didn't buy the lasagna noodles. And I was just like, lasagna noodles? What are lasagna noodles? I had no idea. You're making me feel so much better. I had no idea there was such thing as a lasagna noodle. You know, and then when I realized I was just like, well, we're going to make this work. Watch, you know, start putting it in the oven.

And it was just one sloppy mess. And she's, you know, the most patient human on the planet. So she's trying her best not to laugh at me or to get mad. But I know she was looking at me like this is an absolute joke, you know, so that that's when I realized this is really how relationships go. You know, whereas we think we know what we're doing until we get into it and you're missing so much. And it's like you can try to force it, make it work, but unfortunately will not come out the way you intended because you just didn't have the right expectation or you had the right desire, but you didn't come into it with the right tools. Yeah.

No, that's really good. Safa, explain why single adults need to start building now for a future of marriage. I think when I interact with some of my son's friends and all that, I think they have a desire, an idea about building for marriage.

But it's not forefront. You know, I got to kind of dig when they're over at the house and talk with them. Hey, yeah.

So who are you dating and what's going on? But speak to that idea that a single, if their desire is to marry, how they need to prepare. How do they need to get the ingredients to cook the meal of marriage? Right. I think marriage is probably the one of the biggest things in life that we need to prepare for.

It's huge. If we prepare for everything else, I mean, the meal, you know, trying to cook a meal, you can't just go and say I'm going to cook lasagna without the preparation part of it. You have to make sure that you've prepared your best to try and make that meal. School. You don't say I want to be a doctor and you just get up and go apply for a job at, you know, John Hopkins Hospital. They're not going to hire. You didn't prepare.

You didn't go to school. So much less a relationship, a marital relationship with your spouse. That is so very important. And it's so important to do so because, you know, as humans, we come with a lot of baggage. You know, we grew up in environments where products of our environments and I'm not saying everybody's environment is bad, but there are certain things you might not want to carry on to a marital relationship, especially when you start having kids and things like that. And so if you wait till that moment to decide marriage is already such a big step and it's a lot of work. Now you have your own baggage that you're bringing in because you didn't prepare. So you're bringing your baggage to this now and trying to prepare to have a godly marriage. It's not going to work because you didn't put the work in the effort to become the person God needs you to be so that you can have a successful marriage with someone else, because all of this is to glorify him at the end of the day. So just putting in those, you know, that time to if you realize there are some things you might not want to carry on in your marital relationship, you know, you have some bad habits or maybe you have some trauma from a previous relationship or from, you know, your family dynamic with your parents. Put in the work, you know, go to the counseling or be intentional about overcoming whatever it is that you need to become a successful spouse and be that person that God wants you to be. Well, you know, the interesting part of that is having the ability to assess what is not working in my life. Where are those things I need to talk about, think about, change usually starts with selfishness. And if you don't see it when you get married, you'll see it.

Yeah. And that's why I wanted to piggyback off what she was saying, because I think we we tackle a lot of the surface level things, whereas she mentioned school. Say you're trying to get married, so you're like, OK, I want to have finances. OK, great that you get your finances right. But you don't know how to steward money anyways.

So even if you did get a lot of money, it can still be a huge problem in your relationship if you don't handle your money properly. Or we tell someone, well, you want your spiritual life to be a good foundation, but they think that means going to church. And it's like, no, it takes more than attendance, you know, in order to grow spiritually. So I think a lot of times we enter into relationships and we we just tackle what surface level we don't realize when you get married. That's when your spouse and you are going to realize there's a lot into inside of you, you know.

Right. That will be exposed. You know, the more that you guys communicate, the more that you guys go through trials, the more that you guys get exposed to different issues. You really see, oh, man, I really had to fix that and I didn't notice, you know, because I didn't establish whatever that was. And I think that's part of the problem.

I think it may be maturity is part of it, but in your 20s again and maybe early 30s, you're just not assessing yourself very critically because I'm pretty good. But you do you kind of mask those things. You think you're pretty solid. I do go to church. I do pray. I do seek the Lord. And those are all good things. But there is stuff in there guaranteed because we're all sinners saved by grace. Right.

Yeah. We're talking today on Focus on the Family with Tavares and Safa Gray. And they have a really great resource, Godly Dating 101. Discover the truth about relationships in a world that constantly lies.

Order a copy of the book when you call 800 the letter A and the word family 800-232-6459 or check the program notes for the links and details. You also mentioned a term in the book called something like cutoff game. What's the cutoff game? Well, I like these sports analogy. That's worse. That's worse. But a lot of times people are saying, well, if you're not feeding me, you know, or you're not doing what I need you to do in my life, then they'll cut you off. Whereas you upset me.

You frustrate me. Well, I don't like how the connection is going right now. So I'll just remove you from my life. And while it's necessary that God wants you to cut certain relationships, I think it's unhealthy when we say I'm just cut off someone because you're not doing what I want you to do in my life. And a lot of time relationships are going to provoke you, provoke you to good works is what the Bible tells us. You know, it's going to cause you to to notice things about yourself. God is going to place people.

Iron sharpens iron. That's not a easy process. It's probably going to hurt sometimes.

It's probably going to be frustrating at times. But if we remove people from our life every time we're just not happy, then we don't realize that we're allowing ourselves to become God because it's just like, when did we get to the point where someone had to be perfect in order to approach us? Like, if God doesn't even do that to us, then who made you the person to say you're not going to forgive the way God is willing to forgive you?

And if God has never cut me off, I don't believe it's right for me to get in a relationship and say, I'll cut you off if you don't make me happy today. That's emotions guiding you rather than the Holy Spirit. Yeah.

Kind of in that same direction is this expression that you had in the book about beautiful distractions. Right. You know that you need to be cautious of counterfeit Christians. Yes. Now, man, everybody goes, what is that? A counterfeit Christian.

But describe it. Yeah. So I've been trying to do a great emphasis on separating what it means to simply go to church and loving God. And I think a lot of people attend services. They have not committed to Jesus in any point.

You know what? I'll give you Sunday. That's fine. But emotionally, I'm still going to do whatever I want the rest of the week. And I think a lot of times we get into relationships and it's like, God sent me a godly spouse. So now you're looking around for people who are serving, people are doing all these things. And then, well, God, you're taking too long.

So I'm just going to find somebody who's in the building, you know? And it's like, well, you don't realize that you haven't seen any fruit. And if you're not seeing godly fruit, then you're just dating someone because they have the church mask on, the church persona. Whereas a lot of people, they attend church and we think everyone in church believes the same thing as us. You know, and truth be told, a lot of people go to church because it's a hobby for them.

Oh, my parents did it. You know, so I'll go. You know, whereas you're not necessary. And I'm not saying this from the perspective that we need to examine that person's life. Well, I don't think Jim has been praying this week, so I don't think he's really that safe.

No, no, no. Maybe he's been busy and overwhelmed and we need to talk to him and see if everything is OK. But I think it's times where we don't realize that a person is not where they are spiritually and their bio just says it on social media. Because you can you can say you love God all you want. But if if my actions are never going to line up, if the way I carry myself and present myself, the way I treat people is never going to line up. Jesus said, you know, who are my disciples by how they love others, not by how many services they attend, not by, you know, what their social media tells them.

Like, how do you treat people? And that's really going to determine is this person producing fruit? You know, so when we want to know if we're going to date someone, don't just date them because they're in church, because you want to make sure that your children, if you're going to be discipling them, the person you marry needs to be on the same page. Yes.

So true. I remember Jean told me a story, you know, about her dating time. And she was telling me this guy from church had come up and said, God told me that we're supposed to get married. You know that line, right?

We heard that one. So you probably get this a lot, especially if, you know, you're a beautiful woman. And it was so good because she said, I just said, well, when God tells me, I'll let you know.

Which is a great, soft way of saying he's not talking to me the way he's talking to you about this situation. But let me when I look at the data, you're starting to see, you know, 20 somethings are experiencing a lot of anxiety and some depression, suicidal ideation, all those things. But that increase in anxiety concerns me because as we talk about the importance of picking the right godly person, that can panic some people because they get wrapped up in how do I know it's the perfect person? And I don't think unless you hear an audible voice from the Lord, you're going to know. I mean, there are pieces. It's part of spiritual discernment.

It's all this stuff that is not emphatic. You're not going to get a note from God saying, you know, Safa is the person you need to marry, Tavares. And, you know, you just don't get that. But speak to that idea of anxiety that there's one person out there.

You've got to locate them and they'll be the most godly partner you could ever have, spouse you could ever have. That can create a lot of anxiety in some people. And that's not what you're saying. Right. I think we put that such an unrealistic expectation to put that on. I don't think God has like, I guess, a quote unquote soul mate for each of us.

There's just this one perfect person that is just particularly for me and I can't be with anybody else. It's like a romantic idea, but it's not godly. Exactly. I think we put God in a box just even, you know, assuming that that could be the case. And I think that's where we we mess up a lot because I think God can use anybody.

You know, I genuinely believe that. And I think that we should allow just remove that whole mentality of there's this one specific person for me. And I think that we should just as a single person focus on God, focus on serving other people and allow, you know, these relationships to blossom in our lives naturally. And then you'll connect with people that you've never noticed or never even thought because that's how Tavares and I ended up together.

I mean, I can't I can't necessarily say that, you know, Tavares checked off every single thing on this list of, OK, this is my perfect person that I that God wants me for. But we were friends for years. We were friends for years. And and it just somehow happened that, you know, I started seeing things in him and God was revealing to me that maybe this is a person that you can grow with, that you can serve me with.

And, you know, he didn't check off every little box off of my little list because I think if had I stuck to that, I would have never ended up married. And yeah, I was going to say one thing that Jean and I always felt is that we were at a similar place in our relationships with the Lord. And that did give us a certain confidence. I mean, one of us wasn't out ahead. One of us wasn't behind.

We would talk about that. And I think we felt a lot of comfort spiritually that we saw the world very similarly through the lens of being Christian and wanting to live the word. And even in our marriage, as we grew, we were very compatible that way. We grew in the same directions with the same discernment. That's comforting. Yeah, I'm sure you guys felt that way, too. Absolutely.

Yeah. So I believe that when it was around that time when I was thinking, well, I've known her for so many years. I'm attracted to her. I know her characteristics.

You know, I'm like, this is the type of woman that I know I want to marry. You know, so I prayed about it, talked to people about it. But the biggest thing I was trying to focus on was, OK, when I'm looking at all the women that are out there, how do they help me spiritually? How do they help me with what I believe God has called me to? Because I've known since I was a child, God is going to use you to teach.

God is going to use you to preach. And I cannot just date anyone. You know, so I made it harder to choose who I was going to be with because I'm just like, yeah, I mean, she looks nice in my arms. But what do you bring to the table other than, you know, beauty?

So I'm just like, well, I see a beautiful woman that brings something more to the table, you know, than her beauty. You know, so that was something I started to pray about because I believe a lot of times we don't focus on where God is taking us. A lot of people look at where God has them currently or where they are currently. I won't say God has them there, because sometimes people are, you know, emotionally and mentally, you know, operating in dysfunctional habits. So they choose someone who allows their dysfunction to feel normal.

You know, so it's a toxic, you know, environment they grew up in, maybe. So when you choose someone, you know, who repeats that cycle, you don't view it as a problem. You just view it as something that I'm accustomed to.

This is normal. You know, so when you when you feel as though God is calling you to do things for his kingdom, when you do feel as though God is calling you closer to his presence, you want to choose someone who's bringing you closer to his presence. Or when I'm stumbling, you have someone that is able to tell you, hey, we're not doing that, you know.

And if you don't have that type of relationship, then you may end up married, but it won't be a godly relationship. And that's what we're really trying to start for. Well, I hope people are feeling what we're talking about. It's exciting to me, even as a father of 20-somethings, that someone in that generation, I would put you young, that you guys are helping young couples think about this, young singles think about these things, and to really equip them for something far bigger. When you just mentioned right there about what you were looking for to complement your spiritual gifts, man, I didn't have the presence of mind to be talking to the Lord about that in my 20s, so that's really cool. I mean, I think the Lord just made up for my inadequacy to provide Gene to me, but, okay, we got a D student here, let's make sure we give him the homework. But this is awesome, and you don't have to struggle. I mean, this is one of the most critical things for 20-somethings and 30-somethings to be thinking about.

Don't suffer in silence. Get ahold of this great book, Godly Dating 101, Discover the Truth About Relationships in a World That Constantly Lies. And believe me, if you're a parent, like John and I, you guys are parents too, but older parents of people that are in that dating phase, get a copy and gently talk about it. I mean, this is one of those taboo subjects for parents.

How's your dating life? I occasionally will ask that with the boys, but I tread carefully. And in regards to that, you know, one thing I try to tell a lot of parents is that, because they may be a little reluctant, oh, do I get this in my kid? I don't try to tell parents to be overly involved in, you know, but you want to tell them, you have to teach your kids principles, because truth be told, we can tell them what to do. But if they don't know the principle behind it, then they're just following what mom and dad said. So now if I teach my kid principles that are godly, that way they may never see me around them, but then they'll think twice before they go do something or start a relationship. You know, so it's good to teach them to build their principles. And for so many parents, they need a tool to get going, and this is a great tool.

It is, yeah. Contact us today, donate as you can, either a monthly gift or a one-time gift of any amount to support the work of Focus on the Family. Help us make broadcasts like this and podcasts like Boundless and so much more to help you and your family. Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family, and when you donate, ask for your copy of Godly Dating 101 to discover the truth about relationships in a world that constantly lies.

We'll have all the details about how to get in touch, donate, and get the book in the show notes. And we really hope that single adults who are watching and listening right now are going to dial into our Boundless website and podcast because, Jim, that has such a great track record. It's 25 years now this month, and we are so grateful for Lisa Anderson and the team for reaching out to 20, 30-somethings to help them pursue faith and relationships in a godly way.

Donate today and help us make Boundless possible. Your gifts enable us to have that team to create the content to reach out to people in this age demographic and to help strengthen them for a godly life throughout their adulthood. Tavares and Safa, thank you so much for being with us. This was a great discussion. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us, it was a pleasure. And thank you for joining us today as well. We hope you have a great weekend with your family and your church community as well.

And plan to join us on Monday. We'll have a powerful story of gender confusion and one woman's discovery of her God-given femininity. And I rejected my own mother despite her best efforts to mother me. She loves me, she did her best, but I rejected her growing up. I looked at her and I thought, you know what, you're emotional, you're weak, you're not strong like Dad.

And I just thought, I want nothing to do with the world of woman. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. We'll talk with you, pray with you, and help you find out which program will work best. That's 1-866-875-2915.