Dating Assignments For Singles

Dating Assignments For Singles

 

The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is Proverbs 22:7 The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.

 

Commit now to becoming someone that can keep their commitments later.  Here are two very specific single people assignments so that when you make a commitment later, you’ll actually be able to keep your promise. 

1.      Ladies, don’t dress like a commodity, and don’t put up with being treated like one.  When you are dating, if you get in the habit of being treated like a commodity, your husband is going to do the same thing after marriage.  If he dated you like a commodity, then he is going to treat you like a commodity.  Have no tolerance for this.  A fisherman determines what to bait his hook with by what he is fishing for.  If you fish with your body, then you are going to catch body snatcher every single time. 

2.     Get out of debt.  We don’t recommend that people get married until they get out of debt.  You can get out of debt a lot quicker as a single person than as a married person.  If you are a single person who has so poorly managed your finances that you have debt, when you get married, that’s a behavior that you are carrying into marriage.  If he loves you, then he will move in with Momma to get out of debt in order to marry you. 

Marriage was not designed to solve any problems.  In marriage, generally the great things get better, and the bad things get worse.  If you have a bad habit now, then you will have a bad habit and be married.  If you drink too much now, then you will drink too much then.  If you have a prescription addiction thing, a gambling problem, a porn problem, a shopping problem, a can’t stay out of debt problem, then it’s just going to get worse except someone will know.  To prepare to be able to look at somebody and say that I’m going to honor and cherish you, you are going to be the priority of my life, I’m never going to do anything to hurt you or harm this relationship, then break your bad habits now.  You already know what they are. 

 

Three more assignments are coming next week.  Have a great week!-David Vining

Dealing With The Past

Dealing With The Past

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is Proverbs 14:8 The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception.

 

The second part of Proverbs 14:8 says that the folly of fools is deception.  That in and of itself doesn’t make a lot of sense but when you contrast it with this little proverb, here is the point.  Prudent people are constantly examining their ways, patterns, habits, behaviors, trends and flow of their life.  The fool, on the other hand, doesn’t pay attention to these things.  He thinks that regardless of my current habits or how my life has usually gone, somehow I think that I’m going to end up at a place where nothing that I am currently doing points me in that direction.  Somehow good things are going to magically happen. 

 

The simple believe anything.  I’ve got to warn you that when you fall in love you will believe anything and lose your mind.  The guy comes to her and says, “I know this and this and this is wrong with me, but if you will marry me, I will change.”  The prudent give thought to their steps.  When you look at a person’s steps you can tell where they are going.  Words, promises and commitments are almost meaningless.  It’s the past that is the best indicator of where a person is headed and where they will probably end up.  That’s true of who you date, and that’s true of who you are.  The past people choose trumps the commitments that they make.  When you look at your life and when you examine the life of the people that you are dating, the question is where have they been, and where are they headed.  The past is a better indicator than a promise. 

 

Commit now to becoming someone that can keep their commitments later.  You need to address your unresolved childhood issues.  If you attempt to build intimacy with a person before you’ve done the hard work of becoming a whole and healthy person, every relationship will be an attempt to complete that hole in your heart.  The number one thing that you can do is to become whole and healthy.  For most of you that means turning around and facing and addressing issues from your childhood.  If you don’t do this, those unresolved issues will be taken out on your spouse.  It is enormously important that you take care of this.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Promises or Preparation

Promises or Preparation

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is in the excerpt.

Every single Saturday couples take vows to get married that they can’t keep even though they mean well.  They overlooked a principle that all of us understand in every other realm of life, but when it comes to relationships we don’t think it is true.  Promises are no substitute for preparation.  If you’ve ever entered a long distance race you know all about this.  It’s one thing to sign up for a race, but it’s another thing to prepare for it.  If you are not prepared, then it’s a waste of time to promise that you will finish.  What determines whether or not you finish a long distance race is not the promise, but it’s whether or not you are prepared.  Everybody understands that, but when it comes to relationships people think, “I can promise my way past my lack of preparation.”  Just because you say “I do,” doesn’t make you able or capable, but it only makes you accountable.  When you are accountable for something that you are not capable of doing, you become miserable.  A lack of preparation cannot be trumped by a promise. 

I want you to prepare to commit so that when you make a commitment, you will be highly unlikely to marry someone that has also not prepared to commit themselves.  Your life will be moving in such a specific direction that anyone whose life is not moving in that same direction will be in such conflict with your values and way of life that you won’t be interested.  Perhaps they won’t be interested in you either.

A prudent person is a person that understands that all of life is connected.  What happened yesterday impacts tomorrow.  What I am doing today will eventually become my past, and it will show up in my future.  The wisest man that ever lived, Solomon, says in Proverbs 14:8 that the wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways.  Ways are behaviors, patterns, habits, and trends, and they are what makes us predictable.  The wise person gives thought to how they do and manage things.  The prudent person knows that the best indicator of my future behavior is my past behavior.  If I want to know where I’m actually going to be all I have to do is look back at where I have been and see what direction I’m headed in.   The prudent person pays attention not to commitments and promises, but they pay attention to their past.

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining