I Kissed Dating Goodbye Read Online Free

the girls I've dated. I mean that I've struggled with the whole process. And based on my experiences and my exploration of God's Word, I've concluded that for Christians dating is a swerver--a set of values and attitudes that wants to go in a direction different from the one God has mapped out for us. Let me tell you why.
    self-control isn't enough
    I once heard a youth minister speak on the topic of love and sex. He told a heart-rending story about Eric and Jenny, two strong Christians who had actively participated in his youth group years earlier. Eric and Jenny's dating relationship had started out innocently--Friday nights at the movies and rounds of putt-putt golf. But as time went by, their physical relationship slowly began to accelerate, and they wound up sleeping together. Soon afterward they broke up, discouraged and hurt.
    The pastor telling the story saw both of them years later at a high school reunion. Jenny was now married and had a child. Eric was still single. But both came to him separately and expressed emotional trauma and guilt over past memories.
    "When I see him, I remember it all so vividly," Jenny cried.
    Eric expressed similar feelings. "When I see her, the hurt comes back," he told his former youth pastor. "The wounds still haven't healed."
    When the youth minister had finished telling this story, you could have heard a pin drop. We all sat waiting for some sort of solution. We knew the reality of the story he told. Some of us had made the same mistake or watched it happen in the lives of our friends. We wanted something better. We wanted the pas the seven habits of highly defective dating
    tor to tell us what we were supposed to do instead. But he gave no alternative that afternoon. Evidently the pastor thought the couples only mistake was giving in to temptation. He seemed to think that Eric and Jenny should have had more respect for each other and more self-control. Although this pastor encouraged a different outcome--saving sex for marriage--he didn't offer a different practice.
    Is this the answer? Head out on the same course as those who have fallen and hope that in the critical
    16 moment you'll be able to stay in control? Giving young people this kind of advice is like giving a person a cart that swerves and sending him into a store stocked with the world's most expensive Chinaware. Despite the narrow aisles and glass shelves laden with delicate dishes, this person is expected to navigate the rows with a cart known to go off course? I don't think so.
    Yet this is exactly what we try in many of our relationships. We see the failed attempts around us, but we refuse to replace this "cart" called dating. We want to stay on the straight and narrow path and serve God, yet we continue a practice that often pull us in the wrong direction.
    defective dating
    Dating has built-in problems, and if we continue to date according to the system as it is today, we'll more than likely swerve into trouble. Eric and Jenny probably had good intentions, but they founded their relationship on our culture's defective attitudes and patterns for romance. Unfortunately, even in their adulthood they continue to reap the consequences The following "seven habits of highly defective dating" are some of the "swerves" dating relationships often make. Perhaps you can relate to one or two of them. (i know I can!)
    joshua harris
    1. Dating leads to intimacy but not necessarily to commitment. Jayme was a junior in high school; her boyfriend, Troy, was a senior. Troy was everything Jayme ever wanted in a guy, and for eight months they were inseparable. But two months before Troy left for college, he abruptly announced that he didn't want to see Jayme anymore.
    "When we broke up it was definitely the toughest thing that's ever happened to me," Jayme told me afterward. Even though they'd never physically gone beyond a kiss, Jayme had completely given her heart and emotions to Troy. Troy had enjoyed the intimacy while it served