“Pastor Shaun, you were right…we should have listened.” Those were once words that would have brought me much joy and pleasure. “Hah! I told you so!” probably would have proceeded from my lips if not for years of walking with people and truly loving them changing my heart’s reception to those words. In the very moment these words were being said to me, I was hoping I had been wrong all along. I was hoping the person on the other end truly had found a better alternative to my advice since clearly not having taken it. I was hoping the historical track record of humanity was going to be redirected by this person. Yet, my hopes were dashed, and my heart sunk when I heard those words, because I knew they meant heartache was on the way.
How do we help prevent destruction?
Sadly, the way I have learned to do many things right is by doing them wrong. How often do we pay attention to the mistakes of others? Isn’t it always the same thought? “I will be the one to have the results come out differently.”
We all lived there at one time or another. Our parents told us not to run around the pool because the concrete is slippery. SPLAT! Our coach told us not to worry about the person running next to us. BAM! Most of the time we thought, “I’ll show them!”
Things haven’t changed much. Kids still believe they are sitting in a position to prove their parents wrong. Some of them directly defy their parents, hoping to prove them wrong; others will do so secretly to show them the results after the fact. Almost none of them get to either place successfully.
When it comes to the area of dating, responding to our kids hasn’t changed. In the sexually charged climate of this society, they are given all the more reason to try and prove us wrong. In an attempt to close the gap between the fairly modest society we grew up in and the overly promiscuous society our children are growing up in, many parents go to one of two extremes: 1) Closing the dam completely; 2) Letting the river run fully. Neither of these is healthy, only the easier route in the short term.
If you close a dam completely, the backed up water is going to destroy everything in its path, eventually breaking the wall down completely. If you let the river run fully, it will not flow properly and eventually not be useful to us or the ecological system. That is why dams are constructed to let the water run slowly, under careful watch. At times, the dam needs to be opened to allow the rush of water to come out to prevent disaster.
I would like to offer some thoughts on this thing that was once called courtship, then going steady, then dating, then going out, then official, then Facebook official. The term changes almost annually.
I believe that as we look to God’s Word, we can see some practical tips about how to let the water out of the damn to prevent damage and promote health. God’s Word hasn’t changed during more than 2,000 years it has been around. Teens, overall, haven’t changed either. The cultures, parenting strategies and terms have changed in sometimes cyclical patterns, but the teens themselves have not. As we seek to discover the best way to navigate the river of love, our teens inevitably face, let’s stick to God’s wisdom.
Adjusting Our Timeline
I know we’ve all heard this before but, when God created humans, He said very clearly, “It is not good that man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). We embrace this as adults, and we love the next line: “I will make a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18). We love it because, in our minds, we are of age to enjoy that helper. Of course, the question I always have is, How old was Adam? For some reason, we always picture him to be about 30, but the Bible doesn’t say that. We know Adam lived 130 years before he had Seth, but Cain and Abel were born before Seth. So, how old was Adam when God gave him Eve? We never will know for sure; but I think our society pictures him to be the age we would prefer our daughters to be when they start dating—about 30…maybe 40.
What about people in Old or New Testament times? How old would they have pictured Adam to be? Probably about 15 or 16. Eve? Maybe the same or younger. Why? Because in their culture, girls often married at a young age, even as young as 12. We do the same with the disciples. In all the paintings, we see middle-aged men with beards walking around with Jesus. The truth is, they were teenagers! John was probably 16 when he started walking with Jesus, which would have made him 19 when Jesus went to the cross.
You may be wondering why I mention this. I am bringing this up because if we are not careful, we will project on our children an age for sexual feelings that God did not intend. You may be reeling right now. However, please hear me out. God made it clear that in marriage, “a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Our dream is to have our graduated college student begin the big dating phase or at least until after high school; but, think about it—a man leaving his father and mother to hold fast to his wife implies he is still young.
The point is, perhaps we are trying to make our kids suppress what God clearly designed for them to feel. We tell them to wait X amount of time and years, but how can someone do that? Can you tell your child to hold off on puberty? We might wish we could, but we know they have no control of their biological clocks. Why do we treat their feelings for each other any differently? They were instilled with a desire for one another since before the fall. Their feelings for each other are not a result of their sin nature; they are a result of how God made them.
Correcting Our Perspective
God saw that Adam needed a helper suitable for him. Again, we embrace that as adults. Yet, what do we tell our children? Many times we tell our children that all they need is God and if they have God they won’t need anyone else. We find ourselves telling them their desire for a mate is a reflection of their unhealthy walk with God. Other times, we tell them God wants them to avoid this feeling and focus on Him alone. Is any of that true?
Well, not according to the Bible. Let’s keep reading. Moses goes on to record about how God formed all of the other animals and creatures, finding none fit to be man’s helper and companion, for which we are all grateful! “Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field” (Genesis 2:19-20).
God, seeing Adam needed someone, did not say, “Adam? Here I am! All you need is Me!?” Remember, this is pre-fall. Adam was in perfect fellowship with God, yet he still needed someone. God created him that way and “saw that it was good”! God began to bring everything under the sun to Adam to see his reaction. He brought him all the animals and watched Adam interact with them. Adam named them, but he did not give them his heart.
Instead of telling our children, “If you were walking in true fellowship with God, you wouldn’t need a girlfriend,” we should tell them how God handled it, “Son, you need someone. PRESTO!” Of course, we don’t have PRESTO power, but we can adjust our thinking. Read what God did for you: “But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man” (Genesis 2:20-22).
When God saw Adam’s need for a companion, He began to seek one for him. He did not sit Adam down and tell him something was wrong. He did not tell him he needed to wait before he started looking around. He actually got involved in the process. He literally got His hands dirty in the process! Perhaps we could take a tip from God on that.
I can tell you one way not to help children find someone suitable is by telling them that they shouldn’t want someone suitable for them yet. They are going to want a mate; God proved it! So I think the best thing we can do is take our cue from Him.
Acknowledging the Built-In Need
God acknowledged the real heartfelt need: “It is not good for man to be alone.” I think this is a great first step in helping our children. Rather than pushing aside their feelings, we ought to acknowledge them and affirm them. God did not reprimand Adam for wanting a mate or ignore his need and hope it went away. God acknowledged it.
We don’t actually know what this looked like; we don’t know if He and Adam had long conversations about this or if He had just observed Adam’s clear need for a mate from a distance. I would imagine, though, it was more of the first because God was said to have walked with Adam in the garden. They enjoyed unbroken fellowship together. Surely Adam, in his perfection, was better than us at talking with God about things on his mind. He had no guilt, no shame and certainly no feelings of distance between himself and God. It was the perfect scenario for pouring his heart out to God.
Notice this acknowledgment is not simply saying, “I see you feel that way,” but saying, “I see you feel that way, and you’re right: It’s not good for you to be alone.” What a tremendous feeling it would be to know parents agree with us and that there’s no need to hide your thoughts and feelings, no need to run from them, no need to seek to have those feelings fulfilled in unhealthy ways, no need to avoid having them fulfilled. If God, being a perfect Father, said, “Adam, you’re right. You need someone, and Fido isn’t it.” We are safe in saying the same.
However this happened, the result is very obvious: God acknowledged Adam’s need. I am sure that helped Adam along. Knowing God his Father acknowledged His need to the point of agreeing with him would have helped him to be patient.
Participating in the Process
God not only acknowledged Adam’s need, but He began playing matchmaker! It began with the animals, but moved on to Eve. Still, we read the same thing, “the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man” (Genesis 2:22).
Have you ever wondered how long this all took? I mean, we have pictures of Adam resembling Tarzan with animals all around him; but really this brief account is sandwiched between two places where God acknowledges it is not good for man to be alone. In other words, it is not a disconnected Bible story to tell us how we got the name of the platypus. It is intimately connected with the point of the periscope: Adam needed a mate. God saw a need and began helping meet that need right away.
I think one big difference for us is that our children will bring home their prospects. We are not going to show up at their school and start picking kids up for dinner to put them in front of our children, but we don’t want to put them in a glass tank and watch them interact as two different chemicals in a petri dish.
