UNTOLD TRUTH about guarding your heart | Christian Dating Advice

Hello girls and welcome to the cutest
room in our house right now! This is Baby Mini’s nursery which is really starting
to come together! There’s still stuff everywhere like an explosion, but it is
looking so cute. We’re gonna do a nursery reveal video in a few weeks and
I can hardly wait. Today we’re gonna be answering one of your questions which is
how do you stay emotionally pure in a dating relationship? So today I’m going
to share three tips with you for staying emotionally pure but first we have to
define what emotional purity actually is. In my mind emotional purity means that you see your boyfriend as your boyfriend, not as your
husband. Not forming too deep of a soul connection with him like I would in
marriage saying I’m all-in and all yours when we’re just dating. So that’s what I
think emotional purity is. Now I do want to clarify that some people want emotional purity because in their mind what they’re thinking is not emotional purity, it’s
like having a wall and a guard up so that you don’t get hurt. And the thing is
with dating and with close friendships, there is a risk involved. You’re putting
yourself, your heart out there, you’re being vulnerable and there is the risk
of being hurt or having your heart broken. And I don’t think there’s a way
around that. Just because you’re emotionally pure does not mean that it
won’t hurt or that you won’t be disappointed if the relationship doesn’t
work out. So I just want to clarify that emotional purity is not about having a
wall up so you don’t get hurt; it’s about keeping the relationship in your mind
and in your heart what it is in reality, and not seeing your boyfriend as a
husband when he’s just your boyfriend. So how can you stay emotionally pure in a
relationship? I want to share three tips with you today that I think are really
helpful and maybe they can help you too. And comment below any tips you would add. So tip number one is keep your life in balance, and I’ve got three ways you can
do this. First way, stay close with your friends. We all know those girls – and I
have been one of those girls – who gets in a relationship and all of a
sudden her friends are like, “Have you seen Tiffany lately? Like I don’t know
where she’s been. Oh right, she’s dating that new guy and she’s only
always with him and never sees her friends!” So don’t be that girl. That’s
dangerous. That means that your relationship is starting to fall out of balance. Now that doesn’t mean you have to stay friends with every single acquaintance
you’ve ever had, but it does mean that your real close friends, the people you
trust, that you’ve invested in, you need to make time for them and prioritize
them. Don’t just spend every minute with your boyfriend but also make time for
those friendships. Another part of keeping your life in balance is
continuing to do things that you enjoy. So if you really enjoy sports or if you
really enjoy music or this certain ministry you’re doing, that you’re still
making time for it. That your boyfriend is not taking over your whole world,
especially in the first few months. And there might be some things that you need
to step back from if you’re a really busy person and you’re like, “I don’t even
have time to see my boyfriend!” Then yeah it might be time to cut some things out
of your schedule so you have time to invest in him too, especially if the
relationship is getting serious. However he shouldn’t just become your
entire world; you should still be doing things that you love to do and you
should still have those outlets. James and I still have those outlets and we’re
married. And part number three is to make sure that your boyfriend is not your only outlet for emotional support, so you’re not getting all your emotional
needs met in your boyfriend. And this is true even in marriage; you can’t have all
your emotional needs met in one person, because they’re human. We need other
people. We need friendships, we need mentors, we need a relationship with God, and so make sure you have all those outlets
so you’re not putting all your emotional needs on your boyfriend. So all that to
say, keep your life in balance. Number two: Be aware of your daydreams. We all day
dream. At least I think we all daydream and I hope I’m not the only one! But
it’s really easy in our thought life to make our relationship far bigger than it
is or far more serious than it is, and so just be aware of that. It can be normal
to daydream and things, like, “I wonder what it would be like if we were to get
married.” And to some extent that can be helpful to think through it, but if
you’re daydreaming about that too much, especially in the early phases of a
dating relationship, it’s gonna make the relationship far more serious in your
mind and your emotions and heart than it is in reality. And I think that that kind
of sets yourself up to start seeing your boyfriend as more of a husband rather
than as your boyfriend. And the third point is: Let your relationship grow
more slowly. Not that it has to be a certain length of time, but it’s really
easy to go in the space of even a week from I just met this person to this is my
soulmate. And I think that it’s so important to let your relationship grow
slowly, in its own time and pace, without rushing it. And so that means not having
conversations about: “Are you the one for me? Are we gonna get married? What would life look like if we were married?” – I would not recommend those conversations until at least a few months into your relationship; certainly not the first
couple weeks! Give your relationship time to grow, space to grow. Get to know each
other; just see if you like him as a person, just see if you’re good together
as as a couple before you jump into: “Let’s talk about marriage.” Along the same lines is you don’t need to open the deepest secrets of your heart to him in
the first couple weeks. You need to see first if he earns your trust.
Just like with friendships, it’s so easy to want – you click with someone and you just want to like spill your guts to them. And there might be times when that’s
appropriate, but I think a lot of the time that creates a false sense of
intimacy, where you suddenly feel a lot closer to the person than you actually
are, because you haven’t gotten to know them yet. You haven’t gotten to know if
they’re trustworthy. And if you’ve been friends before you started dating, this
might be a lot different for you, but if you’re just getting to know the person,
give it space, give it time, don’t spill too much at the very
beginning, but let yourself grow into the relationship. There’s no rush; just kind
of take it slow, let it go at its own pace. And in closing, if you find that
you’re always taking relationships too far too fast, making it too serious in
your mind right away, I would just kind of reflect on that a little bit. Ask God
like, “Where’s that coming from?” Maybe talk with some older, wiser people
who you trust and just ask like, “What’s causing that in my heart?” Because that
could be a sign that there’s something deeper going on inside you that maybe
you need to work through with God and with people who you trust. So girls I
hope that that can really help. These are my thoughts on that topic; comment your
thoughts down below as well. I love you girls and I’ll see you on Tuesday.
Bye!