{"id":22641,"date":"2018-09-18T11:39:39","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T17:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/?post_type=blog&p=22641"},"modified":"2018-09-18T11:39:39","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T17:39:39","slug":"the-key-ingredient-in-a-god-centered-relationship","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/the-key-ingredient-in-a-god-centered-relationship\/","title":{"rendered":"The Key Ingredient in a God-Centered Relationship"},"content":{"rendered":"

At a young age, I knew that making God the center of my future dating relationship was a high priority.<\/span><\/p>\n

I saw the example in my parents. They didn\u2019t have much in common when they started dating and eventually got married. They didn\u2019t like the same music, they didn\u2019t have the same humor or taste in movies. But they both loved and served the Lord with their whole heart\u00a0\u2014 that\u2019s where they connected.<\/span><\/p>\n

I saw my parents pray together every day, read the Word together every morning and lead together in church. A spiritual power couple with God at the center\u00a0\u2014 that\u2019s my parents.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Growing up, I thought that if I ever dated someone, I\u2019d want to be a power couple like that. <\/span><\/p>\n

Once I began dating Mike, I had all these preconceived notions about what it meant to have God at the center of our relationship. I had seen my parents pray, read, worship and serve together\u00a0\u2014 the perfect recipe for the Lord to be at the center, right?<\/span><\/p>\n

There was one ingredient missing in my perfect God-centered relationship\u00a0\u2014 having Christ at the center of my own life.<\/span><\/p>\n

My perfect relationship recipe wasn\u2019t working out.<\/h2>\n

I had all these expectations for a Christian relationship, but instead of ensuring I had a God-centered personal life, I tried to bypass that and go straight for a God-centered relationship. <\/span><\/p>\n

When I started dating Mike, I expected him to lead us in prayer, Scripture, worship and service. I was concerned about us looking<\/em> like a Christian couple. I pressured Mike to be the kind of Christian I thought he should be \u2014\u00a0hands in the air during worship, leading us in a couple’s devotional, praying and reading Scripture together daily, evangelizing together, and being in ministry together. I was so concerned about us doing all these Christian things that I progressively lost sight of the whole point in doing these things together.<\/span><\/p>\n

Caught up with getting my perfect God-centered relationship recipe, I forgot what it\u2019s all really about\u00a0\u2014 it\u2019s not about us, it\u2019s about God.<\/span><\/p>\n

You see, I believed in God and the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. But I was also struggling with doubt, guilt and self-righteousness \u2014 so much of what Jesus called out in the Pharisees. And I was somewhat relying on Mike to bring me closer to the Lord.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But\u00a0I had to know the Lord for myself and learn what it meant to actually find purpose and freedom in Jesus. I couldn’t rely on Mike to steer me in that direction. <\/span><\/p>\n

After much prayer, honesty, reflection and spirit-filled conversations with friends and mentors, I began to undercover the freedom we have in Christ. Not freedom from problems or doubts, but freedom from the fear of death. Freedom to love and be loved by the Creator of it all. <\/span><\/p>\n

While I believed all that at a young age, I didn\u2019t make that belief a priority for myself until Mike and I were almost into our third year of dating. As you can image, those first two years were a bit of a rollercoaster ride for the two of us\u00a0\u2014 but the Spirit knew where we were going.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Mike and me, once I stopped putting so much pressure on crossing off the boxes of what Christian couples are supposed to do together, we both found ourselves seeking the Lord more in our own personal lives, which echoed in our relationship together. <\/span><\/p>\n

Our relationship began to feel natural because it wasn\u2019t out of a desire to have the \u201cperfect Christian relationship recipe,\u201d but rather we had a genuine love for the Lord and made Him a priority. <\/span><\/p>\n

What are you trying to tell me?<\/h2>\n

First, think about your life as an individual. Is God at the center of it?<\/p>\n

Second, every relationship looks different, and having God at the center will look different for different couples.\u00a0<\/span>My advice is to talk about what “God at the center” actually means and looks like for you and your significant other.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s something Mike and I never did when we first started dating. I threw out a list of things we had to do together to fulfill our perfect relationship recipe, but we never discussed what that should look like for us as individuals and also in our relationship.<\/p>\n

As Christians, we love to use the phrases “God-centered” and \u201cGod at the center,\u201d (I\u2019ve used them a bazillion times throughout this blog post), but there isn\u2019t necessarily an objective answer to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

In premarital counseling, our pastor said that can look a little different for each relationship. Of course, reading and praying together are beneficial, but if you don\u2019t do that together every single day, that doesn\u2019t mean the Lord isn\u2019t at the center of your relationship or marriage.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve learned that “God at the center” is an overall mindset and goal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mike and I don\u2019t pray and read together every single day. But we talk about the Lord constantly. We bring Him into almost every conversation we have, because\u00a0 His presence is ever with us and we want to to talk about how His goodness interjects in our everyday lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re newly married and trying to figure out how to be a God-centered couple. What that ends up looking like for us, I\u2019m not too sure. But we will continue to pray, serve and read together, not out of obligation, but because it gives us a greater connection to the Lord and each other.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought I had it all figured out. But there was one key missing ingredient in my recipe for a perfect God-centered dating relationship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":22845,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22641","blog","type-blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dating","category-spiritual-growth"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Key Ingredient in a God-Centered Relationship - Boundless<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I thought I had it all figured out. 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