Missionary Dating

Missionary Dating

            “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?”2 Corinthians 6:14, an infamous verse in Christianity, especially to tell those of dating age. The message that typically goes along with this verse is pretty simple, you shouldn’t get into a romantic relationship with someone who is not a Christian. Why would you want to mix an emotional component with a difference in beliefs? Most young people have found a way to work around this, however, with something called missionary dating. Basically, we have convinced ourselves that when dating someone who isn’t a Christian, you will let your light shine SO BRIGHT that it will surely make it your significant other feel the overwhelming never-ending reckless love of God. This might work about 0.0005% of the time but overall it doesn’t end well.  I think everyone at some point has either thought of doing this or actually attempted to do this. I’ve been guilty of both on two different occasions. Both experiences wrecked me in different ways, and while I can’t tell someone what to do or how to feel, I can tell you what happened to me. It’s not stories I want to share because they’re so personal and one of them is still very fresh in my mind. But I promised God I would share what He wanted me too and He is not letting me keep this to myself any longer.

            In high school my junior year, I was good friends with this guy we will call Jacob. We had known each other for a bit and somewhere along the way I started to wonder what it would be like to be more than friends, but I am not the type that is forthcoming with my feelings so I wasn’t going to tell him this. It wasn’t too long before we had one of those after-school confessional moments. And just like that, we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I was excited to be dating him and didn’t really think about anything like Christianity or lack thereof. I think it wasn’t until about a month or two after we started dating that the topic came up. That’s when I found out he was an agnostic. I think he actually was an atheist, and probably claimed the other, as not to seem “that bad” compared to my Christianity. In case you’re not sure what those are, an atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in the existence of God, whereas an agnostic believes the existence of God isn’t known and can’t be known. They don’t know if God is real or even if that is something that can be known. That was not something I was prepared to deal with. Up until maybe middle school I was always surrounded by fellow Christians. I had a built-in assumption that everyone was unless they told me they weren’t. So when Jacob told me he wasn’t a Christian I was conflicted. I knew the verse about being unequally yoked, yet here I was. But he was my boyfriend already, I didn’t want to let him go. There was another problem too, my family didn’t know we were dating. I can’t remember at this point why I hadn’t told them we were dating. I think they knew I liked him, but that was it. Now that I knew he wasn’t saved, sanctified, Holy Ghost-filled, water baptized and running for his life, there wasn’t a good way to bring that up. So I didn’t. That decision sent me on a downward spiral.

            I couldn’t really go on dates with him, because it would be weird to go on a date with someone who’s just a friend. So if I wanted to see him, it had to be a group thing. So we were that obnoxious couple in our friend group that was way too affectionate in group settings. When I couldn’t see him in a group setting, we would see each other in school. So we were also one of those couples always holding hands and taking up too much of the hallway at school. I thought that this arrangement would work; we saw enough of each other and no one here was going to run into my parents. This would be fine. But anyone in a relationship would want to spend one-on-one time with their significant other; Jacob was no exception. He wanted to spend time with just me, and that put me in a predicament. The only solution I could think of was lying. Either to my parents, saying it was a group event when it wasn’t or to Jacob, saying I was busy or not feeling well enough to hang out with him. I hate lying, but at that point, I was doing it as much as I was breathing. I was trying to keep a balance that I shouldn’t have attempted in the first place. I couldn’t be open with the people I considered closest to me. I felt split in half, and after about six months I couldn’t take it anymore.

            I broke down in front of Jacob one day while we were sitting in the stairway after school. I told him I was lying to him and my family and that I couldn’t handle that anymore. I told him why I was lying, that faith was a breaking point in our relationship. I told him I couldn’t do it anymore; we broke up. Looking back now, I wish that was the end of it. This would have been a hard breakup sure but the end of a deeper pain. However, that wasn’t the end. Neither one of us handled it well. It was hard to keep those feelings in check when we saw each other. We both just wanted us to go back to the way things were, but I couldn’t ignore my Christianity again. So what would we do? I decided that I wouldn’t lie, I told my parents about my feelings for Jacob and that we wanted to date (again). They weren’t necessarily excited about the fact that he was agnostic, but they weren’t against us dating. And for a while things were good. I could actually go on dates with my boyfriend and I didn’t feel like I was sneaky around anymore! Honestly, I thought that was enough. We were happy to have a chance at our relationship again and I thought there wouldn’t be any more issues.

            To keep this long story from getting longer, that comfortable feeling didn’t last. It wasn’t long until the weight of the situation fell on me again. There were still parts of our relationship I thought I had to hide. While that was thrilling for a minute, sneaking around like kids in the movies, it turned into shame. I still felt like I was hiding my beliefs from Jacob too. It’s not like I was bringing him along to church with me, I was too nervous to even ask. He knew I was Christian, but I felt like anything more than that would push him away. In my mind, our relationship was on a fine thread and anything that looked like I was “forcing religion down his throat” would snap that thread permanently. That took a toll on me and kept me from being fully honest in that relationship. I am a child of God; that is my identity more than anything else, but I was keeping it separate from this relationship. I don’t think Jacob saw how much that weighed on me, but my family certainly did. They told me to do what I was afraid to do, end the relationship. I was scared to do that for all the wrong reasons. I already felt like no one liked me beyond friendship and I didn’t want to let him go. I also knew that if things ended we would never be friends again, and that stung as much as ending things. Eventually, shortly after my 18^th birthday, I did break up with him. He never spoke to me again and I hurt for a long time because of this.

            This experience taught me some things, good and bad. I think it made me very scared. I don’t like losing people, relationship or otherwise, and that is still something I struggle with today. This also showed me, even if I was directly denying my faith, this relationship was neither honoring God nor helping me grow. The more time that passed from this relationship, the more I glen from it. Obviously I didn’t glen quite enough since I fell into a similar situation later, but that’s a story for another time.  I can’t say that I am the authority on whether or not you should date someone that isn’t a Christian, or that might not believe the same things you do. My experience isn’t the same as everyone else. I will say that the Bible mentions this for a reason, and you should honestly evaluate any relationship you pursue and why you are pursuing it. Please never put yourself in a position of guilt or shame of your identity, just for the sake of someone’s affection.