Courtship & finding a partner

I hardly need, I think, to emphasize for the sake of those here who are single that what we are looking at today is the second most important decision that you will ever make in life. There is nothing which is going to so chart the course of your life. There is nothing which is going to be for your spiritual blessing or your spiritual detriment as much as, first of all, whether God intends you to be married, because this is not necessarily God has for everyone, and secondly, if God intends you to be married to whom God will link you in life.

So the importance of what we are looking at is hardly being exaggerated by giving an entire hour to this subject for the sake of those who are younger. But as I think I will point out as we go along, there is also an importance for parents in what we are looking at. And there's also an importance for those who are older in the assembly relative to the welfare of the young in the assembly in this issue of marriage.

So this is not just for those who are single, those who are looking, those who are eligible. There is before us in the scriptures we will look at and the principles we will seek to underline something that will have a bearing upon everyone here today. So this is not just for a select few.

So I want you to look then as we would use Genesis 24 as a framework for our thoughts. I want you to look, first of all, at a concern at the beginning, a concern at the beginning. What do I mean by that? I want you to see that this was a spiritual exercise that was begotten and that began in Abraham's heart for a partner for his son.

Let me just say, if you looked at this chapter and just took a panoramic view of it, there was prayer at the beginning, there was dependence throughout the matter of finding a partner, and it ends with worship. Now, if you can fit into that pattern, prayer at the beginning, dependence throughout, worship when God brings someone into your life, then it may be you have the partner God wants for you. Prayer, dependence, worship.

That's what marked this entire book, entire chapter, rather, the entire scene as the servant seeks to find a bride for Isaac. I want you to look, first of all, at the vital need for prayer. That's how this all begins, doesn't it? It begins with a man who is exercised and who's going to make it a matter of prayer before God.

And so the servant comes to the well and he brings his petition before God. Now, you might say, but that's the servant, that's not Isaac. We are just looking at principles that undergird and underscore how God brought people together.

So there is a vital need for prayer. Someone might say, you mean you've got to pray about a partner in life? Listen, if you don't pray about that, don't pray about that. The most important decision you'll make as a believer, then you're missing.

You're missing God's will for your life in everything. I am one of those who are old fashioned enough to believe that there is nothing too big to bring to God. He is not small and there is nothing too small to bring to God.

He is not too big for all our needs. So the big and the small in everything, Paul says, with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. So if you are old enough to understand what we are talking about today and you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, then it should be something you begin to pray about from the very first time that you begin to become aware that God may have a partner for me in life.

Make it a matter of prayer from the very, very outset. You see, because linked with the value of prayer is the vulnerability of emotions. It sometimes amazes me that this tremendous decision that we are making in life is made at a time when we are the most vulnerable.

You know what I mean, don't you, by that? Here you are in your late teens, early 20s, and everybody else has a partner. The people at school or university are talking about their dates and talking about their partners in life and talking about what they're doing. And you have no one.

Everyone wants to feel loved, special, appreciated, and there's no one. And so along comes someone who just gives you a little flattery, someone who just strokes you the right way and makes you feel like you're important. And before you know it, your emotions are involved.

And now you say, well, now maybe we should pray about whether this is the Lord's will. Now, I don't know if you've learned yet. If you haven't, you'll learn and learn in a very costly way that our hearts are still deceitful.

Once our emotions are involved in something, we can make black, white, white, black. We can make yes, no and no. Yes, we are Olympians, gold medalists in mental gymnastics, being able to play games with our minds and make ourselves think that something is right when it really is wrong.

The tremendous power of our emotions to color our thinking and change our thinking. And so there is the vital need and for prayer to garrison our hearts, to ask God to preserve us from being carried away with emotion if it's not his will. So there is a vital need for prayer.

There is a vulnerability of emotions, but there is also the value of waiting upon God. Young Christians sometimes ask, and I do not have the answer to it, but I'll give you what I have found is an answer that helps me. Young Christians sometimes ask if the will of God is so important.

If knowing God's mind and all of the details of life is is so valuable to me as a believer. Why is it so hard to find? Why is it so difficult at times? And I want to tell you, the gray hairs here amongst us will tell you the same thing even now. Yeah, the will of God can be very difficult to know even now for us.

You know it much better looking in a rearview mirror, looking back at life that God was guiding and directing. But sometimes when you come to those crossroads and you sweat and you're grown and you don't know what to do, why is it so difficult? One lesson I have learned is that the. Time waiting upon God for an answer.

Is as valuable as what the answer is now, and I can you get that that may seem very obtuse to some of you who are younger, but the time spent waiting upon God and the lessons learned waiting upon God are as valuable in our spiritual life as actually finding the answer to what I'm waiting upon God for. So there is value to waiting. Let me ask you something.

Do you think I know your response, but I want you just to think of it and to think of the implications of it for a moment. Do you think that if you really wait upon God for a partner in life? That God will have to give you second best. Do you think that somehow God will say, you know, because you waited and you didn't play the games that other people play to to maneuver and that somehow, well, you know, my will for you is going to be frustrated and I'll just have to give you second best, you know, cross off number one, the person I had in mind for you, and I'll just give you, you know, someone else who's not.

Do you think God is that kind of a God? Do you think that God is somehow limited because, you know, he needs our political maneuvering and our diplomacy? Now, I don't mean you should be a wallflower and just sit back and close the doors of your house, pull down the shutters and wait for someone to knock on the door. That's not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is this, that if you wait upon God for a partner in life, you will never get second best.

You'll never get second best from God in anything. God is not in the business of second best. The individual that commits their life to him and desires nothing but his will.

No good thing will he withhold. Listen, that's the kind of God we have. We have a God not only who is good, not the idea that we think of people, you know, that they can do good things.

Listen, firmly embed in your mind this tremendous spiritual reality that everything God does is good. Everything. Even when we don't recognize it, it doesn't come packaged with a little sticker that says good from God.

God is good. He will never give second best the the spiritual exercise which was displayed, the spiritual energy which was maintained. It didn't just start well and then Peter out good intentions at the beginning.

Well, you know, we'll start with prayer and hope that everything works out. Here was a man who was marked by confidence that God would answer a man that was marked by careful obedience to everything that was given him to do. This servant was not left.

He didn't leave things just a happenstance. Didn't leave things just to see if they would work out. Whatever was given him to do, he obeyed completely.

Let me just make this very practical, if you are looking for God's answer to prayer in your life. Now, I'm not trying to make this sound legalistic. But just be sure that if God has revealed his mind to you in some other area of your life.

That you've obeyed. In other words, if God is pointing out something in your life that needs correcting or a step that needs to be taken relative, whether it's the baptism, whether it's to your personal life, whether it's to the assembly, whether it's to a relationship you have, whatever it is, if God is making clear this is wrong in your life and needs correction. And all the time I'm asking, well, that's fine.

But I want to know your will over here. Listen, God's will is too valuable. God's will is too precious.

And if I am acting as though it's not that important in this area of my life, I have no right to expect him to reveal it in this area of my life. Careful obedience to all that is revealed. That is the teaching of Psalm 25.

You look at it sometime. Who will he teach them equally? Teach in judgment them equally. Teaches ways.

Speaks there of all ways of God are open to them that obey his commandments and keep his truth and so on. It is God's mind to reveal himself to those who are walking according to his truth. So the need then for careful obedience, complete dependence.

And we see as well, as we mentioned already, coveting his will for my life. Are you willing, you willing to allow God to make the choices of life for you? Now, that doesn't mean we are totally passive, but am I willing to have God make the choices of my life or do I want a hand in it? Now, when I say that, what I mean is this. This is years ago now, and I've told this before, so if you listen to tapes, you may have heard this somewhere along the way.

I apologize. There was a young man who I wasn't ministering most of the time, just it was in a personal conversation, a believer in another assembly. And he was bemoaning his single state to me and wondering why he wasn't married.

And the individual he had in mind didn't have any interest in him. And I said, well, have you ever told the Lord that you'd be willing to take whoever is his will to give you? He says, yes, but she has to be blonde. I said, no, no, no, no, no.

Wait a minute. Have you ever told the Lord you'll take whoever he has, but you don't understand she's got to be blonde to you willing to make allow God to make the full decision. Not, you know, I don't mean we have to say, well, you know, I've got to look for the ugliest.

I was going to use the word homeliest. That's good to you. It's bad with us.

You know, you don't have. No, that's not the idea is that just to allow God to make the decision. So then we've looked at the concern, which is the beginning.

I want you to think as well of conditions which are boundaries because there are boundaries. I don't see it over here that much over with us. If you're driving in the country, you'll pass areas where it'll say there'll be bills tacked up on top of tree on the sides of trees.

No hunting here. No hunting allowed. God has no hunting signs.

Not allowed to hunt there. There are fields that we never enter looking for a partner in life. It's not a matter of it's not it's not negotiable with God.

Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. It's not negotiable, not negotiable. It's not something God says.

We know you're a special Christian and I know you know, God says clearly, simply be not unequally yoked together. So there are fields we never enter. We don't even entertain the thought.

Don't even open your mind to that possibility. Clearly, God says boundary number one fields we never enter, but there are fields we enter at great risk. This is not a sense of pharisaicalism or spiritual superiority, but could I say there are fields that are at great risk? That is a believer who's not an assembly fellowship.

And you might say, well, that sounds awfully proud as though somehow you think you're better. No, it's not that at all. Not that at all.

It's a matter of spiritual energy, spiritual interest. It's a matter of devoting yourselves together or something. It's interesting.

If you go to Romans 16, I think it is where Paul is writing to the church at Rome. He speaks there about that. Notable couple, Aquila and Priscilla, six times mentioned in your New Testament, three times one's name is first, three times another name is first.

He says, who, for my sake, I have to just take the literal rendering here for a moment from me who, for my sake, have laid down their neck, not necks. Our Bible has necks. It's their neck.

They were one. They were so united in their exercise for the gospel and the assembly and spiritual things. They were seen as laying down their neck together.

For the sake of the gospel, their energies were melded together, united in seeking to further divine things. So here you are pouring your life into God's assembly. Here is your partner pouring his or her life into something else.

It's not going to work somewhere. There's got to be compromise somewhere. There can't be that unity that God would like to see in a marriage because you're both going different ways with with what really is the exercise of your hearts.

But there are fields which are especially dangerous, saved, baptized in the assembly. Does that mean everything is OK? It's especially dangerous. Because just because a person occupies a seat in the circle.

Does not necessarily mean that person is the one God has in mind for you as a partner. When Paul is dealing with the subject of marriage in First Corinthians, chapter seven, where he makes clear that for some marriage is not God's will for others, it is God's will. And as you come down that chapter with its various groupings of people, Paul says concerning a certain group that he encourages marriage, he says, but let them marry only in the Lord.

In the Lord. Now, what does that mean? So he said, well, doesn't that mean it just means being a Christian? That means far more than that. I hardly need tell an audience so well taught the two different expressions in Christ and in the Lord.

Every believer we meet, wherever they are, whatever their association, whatever their link, every believer is in Christ eternally and we are united with them in Christ. But the Spirit of God reserves that expression in the Lord, not now for a positional blessing that we all enjoy, but for bowing to the lordship of Christ. So as you think of a potential partner in life, there should not simply be the matter of that they are saved and baptized and in the assembly.

But is that person bowing to lordship claims in his life, in her life? We'll see why that is so important as we consider it. So then what about fields that are our green fields that are open to us as believers, as young people? Let me just talk then, if I can, not only about conditions which are boundaries, but of characteristics that beautify. Let me first of all say there is a great value in young people being together.

Great value. If there's anyone here that opens their home and has the young people in, opens their home at conferences, the young people, that is a tremendous service, tremendous blessing to the people of God. There is great danger in that one on one dating game that is played because everybody can put on a good act.

Everyone can, you know, be good for a few hours and look good. But sometimes in the in the society of a large number of people, people tend to be more themselves and let down their guard and you really get to know who they are. So then what are the characteristics that beautify a person? Let me first of all talk about personal ones.

Probably if we were just talking privately or informally, you would say, well, I would think the most important thing would be spirituality. Maybe so, but that's very hard to gauge. That's very hard to judge.

A lot of people can talk the language and act the act and genuine spirituality sometimes is hard to measure. I'm going to suggest to you that probably the most important thing to look for is a person's attitude. Now you say, can you show me that? I'm going to show you that from Genesis 24.

When the servant came to the well, he prayed. He asked for a sign. The sign he asked for was that the woman who first came to whom he asked, give me a drink.

And she in turn not only gives me a drink, but but pours for my camels as well. Let that be the one that God would have for my master's son. Why that particular sign? Couldn't he have said that the woman that first comes, that she'd be attractive, that she'd be pleasant, that, you know, why that particular sign? I have only seen a camel a few times, so I'm not an expert, but notoriously, you know how much camels drink, don't you? And it said he had 10 camels.

Well, now you start thinking about drawing water for 10 camels. We're not talking about turning on the, what do you call it, the tap or the faucet here. We're talking about pulling water up out of a well and pouring for them, going back again, pouring and pouring and pouring.

What's he testing? Is this the princess who needs to be waited on hand and foot? Or is this a woman who has a spirit of care for others? A woman whose attitude is such that she's willing to be a help, willing to put herself out for others, and then he tests her hospitality and it's there as well. See, what he's looking at is what kind of woman is this? What's her character like? So what he's looking for is he puts her through all these tests to see what kind of woman she is. Isn't it interesting as well that we don't have time to look at it? The song of songs, I would take not to, um, take anything away from the delightful analogy that is found in the song of songs of Christ and his bride, but I would take it as a literal romance between Solomon and the Shulamite.

What does she say? He brought me into his bank winning house and his banner over me was love. What does she appreciate about him? His attitude towards her. He's really proud of me.

Now I'm using pride in the right sense. You'll understand not as a fruit, not as a work of the flesh. He really, he really thinks a lot of me.

He's displaying me before his friends. He really finds delight in me and he's, he's making it clear to everybody. This is the object of my love.

No one else. Attitude. What is that person's attitude towards their parents? What's that person's attitude towards the overseers in the assembly? What's their attitude to the word of God? You see, because if they will not bow to the word of God while you're courting, what's going to control your marriage? What's going to determine what kind of spouse you're going to have if the word of God will not control that individual? What's their attitude? But there was more as well.

You'll notice there was the, um, not just the personal, there is the spiritual as well. There should be aspirations which are similar, similar desires. Now that comes down into some very, very basic things.

It would be wrong if in your soul is a burning desire to serve God in a foreign country and you marry a person and never tell them about that. And then suddenly you're married and you're beginning to start life and looking for direction. And suddenly you say, you know what I've always wanted to do is to be a missionary.

What I've always wanted to do is move to another country. And you never told me that there should be similar spiritual aspirations in life. Could I just touch briefly and carefully on the moral as well? It says she was a virgin.

Now, let me just be very careful here. God is not holding people accountable for, in this sense, for what occurred before conversion. We're not talking here even about, and I'm not trying to minimize its significance, even about something that occurred as a moral lapse in a person's life when they were young.

But this should be the bent of a person's life to be marked by a moral character because you don't have to be guilty of things which require discipline. To have your morals called into question. God's standard is high.

God intends there to be morality. So don't become known as someone who runs from girl to girl, from partner to partner that, you know, this relationship starts and it's broken and you go to another and another. God wants a person of a high moral caliber.

She was a virgin, but you know, this is where there was the physical. I can't be nice. She was a damsel fair to look upon, it says.

So there's nothing wrong with looking for someone who is pleasing and pleasant. But let me just slip a word of caution in. Three times over, Samson fell because all he was concerned about was the physical.

That's all that appealed to him was just the physical. Let me also tell you that sometimes the ordinary girls of teenage years blossom into some of the most lovely women of adulthood. And you could have the most attractive man or woman as your spouse.

But it is remarkable how quickly they will become ugly in your eyes. If you find behind that fair exterior is a character which is rotten, you'll allow that word. I hope it's not too strong a word for a British audience, a character which is far less than it ought to be.

So be careful with just appearance. But don't discount it either. There is likewise a need for cultural accord.

And I know this is a very sensitive subject. Let me preface it by saying there is nothing in the word of God that forbids interracial, intercultural marriages of any kind. There's nothing in the word of God that forbids that.

But there is need for care for the more differences that you bring into a relationship, the more potential, the more potential areas of conflict can arise. For example, I think this is a very obvious one. You take a woman who has gone through university and professional training and now she marries someone who has never even finished.

We would call it high school. I'm not sure what you would call it here, but secondary school dropped out early. Just an individual who not able to earn much of a living, just manual labor.

And now they're married and she can make in one day what he makes in an entire week. Now, you can see difficulties, can't you? If you can't, let me have you wake up. You know, you imagine what that does to his ego, that she can make five times as much as he can make and she's respected and, you know, difficulty, and it can lead to all kinds of problems.

Now, I'm not saying there's none of these that are insurmountable. Spirituality can overcome every difficulty, but there can be sore tests, extreme tests on the way that we look at. Let me look with you then just again at Genesis 24 and at the confirmation which which bolstered.

Let me just mention three things hurriedly. First of all, there is the affirmation of circumstances, circumstances that worked out just as he was hoping they would. He prayed, she came, he had asked for a sign and the sign occurred.

And there was the affirmation of circumstances. Circumstances can be very helpful, but circumstances can also be a test, a test of my loyalty and a test of how much I really want the will of God. Did you notice what happened when the sign occurred? He had prayed, she came, he asked, she gave, she poured for the camels and just let your eye drop down at Genesis 24 for a minute and look at what it says when you come down to verse number 21.

Put yourself at verse 21 for just a moment. You would have said, thank God, my prayer is answered, this is the woman. It's not what he said.

Genesis 24 and 21 to the man wondering at her held his peace to wit, whether the Lord had made his journey to prosper or not. You would say, man, what's wrong with you? You prayed, it happened. Isn't that what else do you want in life? Everything is working out just as you wanted.

Go for it. This is it. But the man held his peace wondering, is this God's will? They might say, why? Because there was one thing that had to be fulfilled.

You see, there was a clear command. Whoever she is, whatever she does, she's got to be from the house of my father. So he says, whose daughter are you? See, circumstances are fine, but if it's contrary to the word of God, then those circumstances are a test of your loyalty.

That's all they are. They're a test. Or you might say, is God, does God play those kinds of games? No, God doesn't play games.

He doesn't play games with us. But at times when he gives us a clear word that is unmistakable, that cannot be somehow misunderstood, and then we are brought into circumstances, we seem to lead another way. God is asking us, which will you take my word or circumstances? So there was a word from the master which overruled everything else.

Whose daughter are you? And as soon as he knows that here is one from the house of Abraham's family, then it says he bows his heart in worship. I being in the way the Lord led me. So there is the affirmation of circumstances, but.

Ultimately, there is the assurance from the word of God. Assurance from the word of God. And I want to mention one third thing here that is encouraging, and again, it's only by the way.

You notice what it says that Bethuel and leave and say this thing. It's from the Lord, don't be afraid to ask advice of others. Your parents.

Those in the assembly who are older, who have been that way, whom you respect, don't be afraid to go to them and say, you know, we're praying about whether the Lord would have us to go further with our relationship. Would you pray for us? And if you have any advice, we're happy to have it. Now, wise men and wise women will not tell you you're out of your mind.

Forget it. Or, you know, they'll usually give you some experience that they have learned how they have learned God's will. And they will pray for you.

The advice of others. Don't discount it. The affirmation of circumstances, the advice of others, the assurance from the word of God, all of that is so vital in this great issue and in this great matter.

But what of conduct then, which, which builds the relationship and binds it together? Let me just touch on one or two things as the time is just about gone and mention them and then leave. And there might be questions others would have an approach. What do I mean by that? Well, remember that you are dealing with another person's emotions.

I don't know if this is present over here, but let me just mention it. In our country, which is not known for its bashfulness, it has become become the norm for not among believers. I'm just speaking about what is the norm in society for women to take the lead just as well as men in the dating game, you know, and for women to.

Initiate a relationship. In as much as God has invested leadership in the male, I would think that scripturally it is still wise for that to mark us even in the issue of courtship, because if a relationship is going to go further, in other words, just think of it like this. If a woman took the leadership role in courtship, then very likely, very likely she's going to have the leadership role in marriage.

Do it's hard to turn switches off and on just like that. So it is certainly consistent with the principles of scripture, of leadership in the male that still in this issue of courtship and in deciding a partner in life that the leadership should be in the male. So having said that, the first thing is to approach it politely.

You are dealing with someone else's feelings and you're dealing with another believer, you're dealing with another Christian and the way you approach it and the way you deal with this can have lasting effects upon that individual and upon their spiritual life as well. So it needs to be care to do it politely. Need I say that you do it prayerfully, prayerfully? Make sure that every step of your relationship is bathed in prayer before God to do it privately.

Don't make a big thing of something until you're much more confident. This is the will of God for us in life that the steps we are taking, even a public step that God is leading us and guiding us along this way and do it patiently, don't allow emotions or other individuals to rush your relationship beyond what you prayerfully know to be God's will for it at that moment in time. So an approach then that is marked by prudence.

Sometimes young people question, oh, well, you know, what do we do? How do we spend our time when we're keeping company? Do you ever think of praying together? Do you ever think of visiting another couple, older Christians or maybe those not so old, but just visiting and tremendous value, tremendous blessing, tremendous help to you to spend time like that and become more acquainted with each other in that way. But I just want to close, let me just mention one or two other things. Why the time and what are we doing then during all this time of courtship, the appreciation for the purpose of the time? Well, there needs to be a discussion of issues.

There needs to be a clear discussion of goals and issues in life. Do you ever sit with a couple who are having a marital problem and you find out the difficulty is she didn't want children and he did. And amazingly, no one ever talked about it before.

And now they're married. Now they're faced with two totally different agendas in life. How do you resolve that once they're married? Someone has to compromise.

Someone has to be willing to give up what was their agenda. And the problem is once you're married, you begin to hold more tenaciously to your agendas time to discuss then differences like that issues such as children, issues such as family issues, such as in-laws issues, such as financial matters. Someone is usually the spender and someone is usually the hoarder.

Now I know you're going to say it's usually the woman who is the spender of the man who's the hoarder. And that's not always the case, though, surprisingly. But all of those issues need to be discussed and communication difficulties and problems such as that.

If you go again to the Song of Songs where I alluded to earlier, that scripture we use so frequently and use with good reason really referred to something that was occurring during their courtship. Take us the little foxes that spoil the vine, in other words, let's deal with the things which are going to hinder the grapes from developing as they really could. Let's address the issues which are going to mar the development of our love and relationship in our married life.

That's not just bury them. That's not just say, well, we love each other so much we can overcome everything. And let me tell you, you will find once marriage occurs that you will have great difficulty not only changing your spouse, but changing yourself.

Courtship is the time to deal with all of those issues. Let me come then to avoiding the perilous, not simply the idea then of an approach that is prudent and an appreciation of the purpose. But let me carefully, but I hope faithfully talk about avoiding what is perilous.

We live in a very permissive society. Moral standards no longer exist. I am not yet 60 years of age shy of it by about a year and a half, not yet 60 years of age.

When I sat at cafeteria tables and lunchroom tables at university and at high school, people whispered about what was happening with couples who were dating. Nowadays, they talk openly about it. And if you're not involved that way, they whisper about you.

There's something wrong with you. So you'll understand how morals have changed so drastically. It's what is recorded in the book of Malachi.

Evil is now good and good is now evil. And the world looks at young people who wish to maintain their purity as though there's something wrong with them, though there's something sick about them. So then we need to avoid imbibing the world's thinking.

I want to just mention the need for an awareness of your own heart, an awareness of your own hearts. Most parents who have had teenagers will have had their children come to them. And it may have been a very simple thing like borrowing the car, going somewhere, doing something.

And the usual response when you say no is, well, don't you trust me? Don't you trust me? And most parents feel very guilty saying, no, I don't trust you. Well, let me give you some liberty, because if you think about it for a moment, under certain circumstances, you don't trust yourself. And under certain circumstances, I wouldn't trust my own heart.

There are things I don't know if I could stand, that I would be able to stand and resist. And it's only God's mercy that preserves us. Only God's mercy.

So be aware of your own heart. You cannot trust it. You may think you're strong enough.

You may think that you can withstand temptation, but be aware of your own heart. Not only that, but an appreciation for holiness. There's an expression that occurs in the Psalms.

Is it three times, two times? The beauty of holiness. Now we have difficulty putting a physical appearance on something which is abstract. Maybe the best way you can get a handle on that idea, every groan, every tear.

Every broken heart, every shattered hope, every ruined home can all be traced back to sin. Everything that is ugly in our world is due to sin. Sin is ugly.

Now God says, what I find beautiful is holiness. Do you know, dear brother, dear sister, if your, if your great desire is to maintain purity until God brings a partner into your life and you're married, God says that is beautiful to his eye. That's beautiful.

The light's in it. It's like looking over a cesspool, a barren desert, and there are specks of gold here and there that God's eye feasts upon. Individuals marked by chastity and purity because of obedience to, to God.

An awareness of my heart and appreciation for holiness and avoiding of the hazardous. Avoiding the hazardous. Keep yourself out of situations, places, circumstances where things could easily escalate and what you never intended occurs.

Someone might say, you know, you're being awfully difficult. How do you, you know, don't you believe in, in, in showing affection? There is a vast difference between showing affection and inciting passion. I learned from first Corinthians chapter seven that no one has a right to another person's body in any way until marriage.

Do I need to be plainer? No one has a right to another person's body. Until the marriage vows are said until then your body is your own, belongs to the Lord and is kept pure for him. Avoid the hazardous, avoid situations, avoid circumstances, avoid places, avoid conditions where things could go much further than you ever intended.

Never trust your own heart. Maintain purity in your relationship. Maintain it in the fear of God.

Maintain it to please God and God will indeed bless and enrich you for it.