My reactions and comments to the concepts of Harris

Ok. So here they are! My thoughts on part one of the book I kissed dating goodbye. The first one comes from chapter three, under the heading of bullet point three. It outlines the idea that dating oftentimes isolates the two people involved from their other friendships. While I strove not to allow this to happen, I think this is still a very important point. People in a romantic relationship often compromise their good activities such as studying, building good friendships, maybe even worship or things like that, just so that they can be together. That temptaition is real, and one would be a fool to not acknowledge that this effect is there. Joshua goes on to expand upon this and answer a few questions you may have about this, but for that you'll have to read the book. That's right: I like it enough to shamelessly plug it in my blog posts.

The next point is one that follows right after this one, also in chapter three but under point four. Here, Harris nails me right on the head in an illustration. He begins to expound upon the idea that, typically, dating distracts from preparation for life. Now while this may actually motivate you to do better and excel to give the best to your date when you're finally ready to marry, it can still suck away precious time that could've been used even better for those future preparations. The illustration Harris gave? I'll quote it here: "Christopher and Stephanie spent countless hours talking, writing, thinking, and often worrying about their relationship. The energy they exerted stole from other pursuits. For Christopher, the relationship drained his enthusiasm for his hobby computer programming and [thank goodness this part didn't happen to me] his involvement with the church's worship band." Talk about weird. Now, once again, there's a bit more to this than I say here, but that's for you to read.

Ok. Now the next point that struck me is from chapter four, under the third point. It's the idea that although you may truly love someone, the idea that you'll "someday" be getting married is bad, because realistically, in our young relationships (I'm talking the idea that we're [collectively as readers] not out of our first two years of college yet), we just aren't prepared enough to make that step. Am I saying dating is bad or that we shouldn't have relationships at this age? No. That's not what I'm saying, and not what I think Joshua Harris is advocating, but I do think that, as Harris believes (he's good at changing your ideas, if you're honest with yourself), unless you're ready to consider marriage or you're interested in marrying the person you're dating, it's selfish to ask them to fill your emotional or physical needs. Again, there is more expansion and there is that small bit of wiggle room in the idea that we all will probably have a few close relationships before we find the right person, but let's not use that as an excuse to just date anyone for any reason.

The final idea from section one that I find is a particularly good one is the idea that choosing to quit this detrimental dating style doesn't mean you remain single and lonely all your life. We can still pursue friendship, romance, and marriage, but in God's time and terms, not ours. And, as a segway, this also means that if we do things in his terms, not ours, we better give it our all, and not just part of what we could give.

Well, that's that post over with. For reference, I will try and post a lot next week because I still have that writing bug mentioned in my previous post. So be on the lookout. Well, in the meantime, Roses are #FF0000 (most of the time), and I'm excited.