You, Bae and God: Being Counter Cultural by Pursuing God in Your Relationship
Okay, so you’re feeling as if things went from perfect to chaos and you don’t know when, where or how it happened. You and Bae seem to fight more than you all laugh. You frown more than you smile. The chemistry is gone. The vibe is wrong. And honestly, you feel as if it’s time to call it quits. It doesn’t look like the relationships you see on Facebook or Instagram…It doesn’t feel like a love tale like a scene out of “The Notebook.”
Well, truth be told. That’s the problem! The relationship you are in is missing a vital piece: God. Your relationship is in trouble because you are caught up in a world that seeks its concept of culture and this concept doesn’t include Him. Here’s how you defeat this and become counter cultural.
- Stop using social media untruths to determine God’s value of you!
World’s Culture: We log on to Facebook and buy into the “relationship memes” that seem to have all the answers: “Post a pic of me, so I know it’s real.” “It ain’t real until he gives you the password to his Twitter.” “Guys who kiss girls on the forehead.” Or what about this one: #relationshipgoals. Let’s face it. You have been sucked into these illogical arguments that pop up in your news feed and they all scream “Help! My relationship is in trouble if I’m not doing these things.”
You are falling victim to an immediate online unrest of emotional imbalances. I call these social media untruths. Social media untruths become valuable to us when we have nothing us to combat them with.
Counter Cultural: Your relationship with your significant other is NOT determined by a persuasive social media post. Allow Christ to show you what your relationship is really worth. To Him, you are more than what a Facebook status suggests. So, for His sake, “discard everything else and count it ALL garbage!” (Philippians 3:8) These things will be considered WORTHLESS once you consider what Christ has already done and what He will do for you and yours.
2. Start pursuing Christ as a couple: This starts way before “I do.”
World’s Culture: Before we made a collective decision to pursue Christ, my boyfriend and I bickered and “fought below the belt” every week. We became verbally abusive and I resented him for not being the man God wanted him to be. I made a conscious effort to exclude myself from any blame because I wanted him to take all the credit for what went wrong. I wanted him to fix everything while I sat back and watched.
Counter Cultural: A lot of people think that a Godly relationship happens after the wedding. WRONG! This is the world’s culture tricking you again.
The only act that is saving me and mine is the pursuit of Christ in our relationship.
What brought us to a Christ centered relationship is the tool that is needed most in all relationships: communication. One evening as we rode to one our favorite spots for dinner, he simply stated that we were not going to make if things continued the way they did. Luckily for us, we loved each other enough to keep trying — so we did. We talked about the things that hurt us and the traits we loved about one another and we talked about the traits we wanted to disappear!
Serious attempts of deepening communication helps. Morning prayer wake-up calls help. Late-night scriptures before bed help. Praise and worship car rides help. And though arguing still happens, Christ is our counselor and He is preparing us with the tools necessary for marriage.
3. Understand that dating does not stop after “I do.”
World’s Culture: I hear all the time from guys that “all women want to do is go on dates. And not just your typical dinner date. No! They want some “thought” put in to it! But hey, if that’s all I gotta do to get some, that’s fine!” Too many people consider dating as an extra, something that does not have to be executed much to make a relationship prosperous. Nowadays, dating is used more as a publicity stunt — simply dating to be seen. To post a picture of you and yours ON A DATE supposedly solidifies the love you share. It confirms “in a relationship” status. The amount of money he spends at dinner proves that he cares, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t spend THAT much money on you, right? Wrong again, Sweetie.
Counter-Cultural:Dating is not just a mere act of going out for going out’s sake. Dating isn’t something you do to let others know you’re doing it. Dating isn’t something you do because your significant other has been good to you. The fact of the matter is, dating does not have an expiration date. You do not date to marry. Pastor and author,Tony Evans, says it this way in his book, Kingdom Men: YOU MARRY TO DATE! So, if we are to marry to date, that must mean the actual dating starts with marriage. This is when the dating truly matters. Can you date when you want to spit fire at your spouse? Can you date when you can’t even look at him? At her? God wants for you a marriage that will last. God isn’t impressed with surface dating. It is the in-depth dating that He wants for you and yours. The dating does not stop after I do, it starts.
You don’t need worldly views of how you and Bae SHOULD be. Don’t try so hard to be part of this world’s culture; instead, fight it with all you have. Become counter cultural, against the world’s view of what love should be. In the end, you will say one of these two things: We made it look good for the people OR God made it good for us.
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