Excerpt
Relationship Road Map 30-Day Challenge
Day 1Begin with Your Destination in Mind Olivia and two of her girlfriends were enjoying brunch one Saturday morning when the conversation turned to marriage. Olivia was single, and her two friends were both married. Over the course of the conversation, one woman complained
continuously about how much time her husband spent playing golf each weekend with his friends and how this had become a source of much conflict. It sounded like she harped on her husband about it
every day. The rift between them had become so deep that they might go days without speaking to each other.
Olivia’s other married friend also shared a bit about her marriage. She explained how her husband’s boss had taken credit for great work her husband had done. Noticing how upset he was, she stopped what she was doing to pray with him about the frustrating situation. She even shared how grateful her husband was for the TLC.
As Olivia drove home from brunch, she continued to think about the two relationships and what she did and didn’t want in the marriage she hoped to have one day. She began to picture the future she aspired to reach.
I’ll bet you know what it’s like to prepare for a trip. When you take time off work, pack up the car, gas it up near home, and then hit the road at five o’clock in the morning to meet up with a friend for vacation, you know where you’re headed. (If you don’t? Well, that’s a whole other conversation . . .) And when you’re on this dating journey—whether you’re still packing the car or you’ve been driving so long that you’re running out of gas—you need to travel
with your destination in mind. Specifically, I’m inviting you to notice the experience of other travelers who’ve been there.
I don’t know what kinds of marriages you’ve seen, but God’s plan isn’t just for you to find someone to make babies with and then grow old and die. The writer of Song of Songs gushed, “I found the one my heart loves. I held him and would not let him go” (3:4). God’s good intention is that marriage would be amazing. Joy filled. God glorifying. That’s the beautiful destination.
In Jesus’s ministry, the crowds who were curious about Him
traveled with Him. And as He taught them about what it meant to be His disciple and follow Him, He wanted to make sure they had enough “gas in the tank,” so to speak. He wanted them to consider—at the front end—what it would take to
finish well. He offered, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?”1 Today is your opportunity to consider where you’re headed and if you’ve got what it takes to make it there.
Day 1 Challenge Spend time considering the destination: the marriage you want to experience one day. List five things about marriage that you’re looking forward to:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
List five things about marriage that may concern you:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
All right, now I want you to get a little more specific. (And because you’ll be naming names, remember that this challenge is private. It’s between you and the Lord, so
speak freely.)
When I look around at marriages I’ve seen over the years, I admire the relationship that __________ and __________ share.
I’d like to emulate their marriage with my own future spouse in these specific ways:
When I look around at marriages I do
not want to duplicate, a marriage that concerns me is the one between __________ and __________.
I want to be careful not to imitate what I’ve seen in their marriage for these reasons:
God, show me what You desire in a strong, healthy marriage. Day 2Check Your Engine When Deion was young, his mother was addicted to alcohol and drugs. At the age of six, Deion and his twin brother were removed from her care and placed in the foster system. Growing up, they rotated through different homes. At sixteen, Deion was adopted by the foster parents he’d lived with for four years. He didn’t date in high school, but when he went to college, he met Marissa during orientation, and they started dating exclusively the first week of school.
Everything was going well in their relationship at first, but after a few months, Marissa noticed that Deion would get angry with her for the smallest things. He would get heated when she was out with friends at night and didn’t answer his texts. Or if she went home for the weekend to be with her family, he would act really cold and distant when she returned to school. Eventually, Marissa decided that she couldn’t deal with his hot-and-cold moods, and she broke up with him. During his years in undergrad Deion dated two more girls, and both of those relationships had the same outcome.
Before you set off on a long trip, you want to know that your engine is running well. You need to know it’s not going to overheat! And if you’ve been taking care of your car, you likely have that confidence. Deion’s social worker knew he would benefit from therapy, but his adoptive parents never made it happen. Throughout his difficult childhood, Deion hadn’t been offered the opportunity to care for his engine.
Not everyone’s story is as difficult or complicated as Deion’s, but we all have trauma—past hurts that have hindered our personal growth and continue to affect our relationships. One of the ways today that you can check your engine is to pause and consider the dating relationships from your past. That’s what I’m inviting you to do. And if you haven’t dated, or haven’t dated much, ask God to show you how
your old hurts have affected other close relationships in your life. (But, to be clear, a relationship with a committed partner is where old hurts will really interfere. Now you know.) And I want you to hear that this engine check isn’t
my idea. The psalmist announced this about the Master Mechanic: “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (147:3). Heart healing is what God does. However, if we want God to heal our hurts, we need to acknowledge them. Take a moment to respond to the following statements.
• From what I know of myself, the hurts—little and big—from my past that might interfere with my journey include . . .
• From what I know of myself, the inner hurts that God has
already healed include . . .
One of the ways our old hurts can interfere with our lives today is through the power of fear. Fear is a natural response to being hurt. If we’ve been wounded, we’re
afraid that we’ll be hurt again. It’s natural. But it’s also something God wants to redeem.
How has the fear of being hurt again affected your relationships with others?
Even though our past hurts can negatively influence our current relationships, like they did for Deion, we can also reap the healing
benefits of prior relationships. Maybe a previous boyfriend or girlfriend who accepted you entirely helped you believe you are worth loving. Or maybe their appreciation of one of your quirky habits allowed you to love it. Or they may have shared with you their wholehearted love of God’s Word.
