A Beautiful Inheritance July 1, 2025

We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides;
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides.

Matthew Arnold, “Morality”

This is a much more personal and vulnerable thing than I usually post on this blog, and in all honesty, I don’t know that I’m making the right decision in publishing it. And this is all quite raw—in all likelihood, my posture will mature with time, and this will no longer be reflective of my thinking. Perhaps I’ll later take it down sometime, but at least for now I think it has some use in sharing my thoughts with some close friends.

Anyway, I was recently talking to a friend, and we came to the conclusion that we like each other, but shouldn’t date because she is not Christian. Obviously the situation kind of sucks, and has triggered lots of emotions. But while talking it over after the fact with a couple of friends, I was convicted that my approach to the whole thing was on the whole more dogmatic than God-centered, which is something that I must repent of. What follows is a lightly-edited entry from my personal journal with some thoughts on that.

God, I confess that I have been far from you of late, and I acknowledge that your Spirit is my chief need, not any particular knowledge or action or relationship. And if any good comes out of this situation, it will be to increase my need for you and to fill me with your Spirit. I have sinned in loving wooden rules and dogmas—don’t date a non-Christian—more than the deeper trust in and relationship with you that these laws are meant to point me to. Oh, I could give a million logical reasons why this rule is useful. The purpose of dating is to discern marriage; therefore, it would be wrong to date someone with whom there is a clear disposer against marriage.¹ It is unwise to date someone with the expectation that they will change,² yet such a relationship could not truly last unless she were to come to Christ; therefore, it would be unfair to date with this hanging over us, and would be setting us up for likely heartbreak. Or, as Paul said, we are not to be unequally yoked (2 Cor. 6:14), for the Christian relationship is as much about growing closer to God together as it is about growing closer to each other; therefore, I ought not to put myself in a situation precarious to my (admittedly weak at times) faith. And though God does work in and sanctify such imperfect relationships (1 Cor. 7:14)—and every relationship is imperfect!—we are called to actively strive for holiness (1 Pt. 1:16) and conformity to Christ (1 Cor. 11:1); therefore, to actively seek out such a relationship would reveal that my heart is not set on him, and would be putting God to the test (Mt. 4:7).

But there is great danger in treating these logical principles—wise as they are—as ends in and of themselves, stopping short at robotic obedience without trying to understand what it is about the heart that the rules are meant to teach us. Something that has alarmed me is that I have caught myself thinking: if only she were a Christian, then we could date, as if being a Christian were just a checkbox to tick.³ Lord, far be such thinking from me! For Christian faith is to be the very essence of my identity, not a peripheral thing to be tacked on top of other qualities. Why indeed is a Christian not to date a non-Christian (as the prevailing wisdom goes)? I think if I were to truly love God the way I claim to, then I would genuinely think that loving God is the most attractive trait there is and the surest foundation for any relationship, that to imitate Christ is lovely in and of itself. And if I had such a perfect devotion, I would daily be pursuing God with such zeal that it would be hard to imagine being compatible with anyone who did not share that foundation. Now, Lord knows that I often feel weak, that I cannot pretend that these are my everyday convictions. But he has promised that if we seek him, he will not be far from us—knock, and the door shall be opened (Mt. 7:7). Oh, I believe; help my unbelief (Mk. 9:24)!

And this, too, I must confess to you, O God. It is telling that my first instinct when encountering this situation was to want to talk it over with friends, rather than to earnestly seek your will through prayer. Now that is not to say that talking to friends is a bad thing—I am profoundly thankful that you have placed so many wonderful friends in my life to give me wisdom and encouragement; it is one of the greatest blessings in this world. I am so thankful for the countless hours they have spent pouring into my life over the years, and I hope by your grace to have likewise been a help to them when they needed it. And yet it is possible for me to idolize such deep friendships, to forget that my greatest need is you, not another long call or conversation with a friend. These, too, are meant only to point me toward you; may I learn always to turn first and foremost to you. Sustain me with your Spirit and guard me with your peace, O God, as you have promised (Phil. 4:6–7)!

To be entirely honest, I am not certain that I made the right decision not to date her. I have expressed more certainty to others—including to her—than I really feel. But I also do not necessarily feel that I made the wrong decision, and certainly if I agreed to date in the moment without thinking through all these things, I would have done so for the wrong reasons. Will I regret it? Perhaps yes—she is truly one of the most amazing people I know, full of a deep kindness and wisdom and care for the world that I admire greatly. It makes me sad that I will not get to cherish that kindness and wisdom and care in a deeper way; that I won’t get to make her eyes roll again with some dumb joke about South American fauna; that we won’t spend another night staying up absurdly late talking about life.

I sometimes wonder if I should change my mind and ask her to date. (There is no guarantee that she’ll agree, of course, especially after all that has happened.) But if I do make such a change, I want it to be the result of prayerful and deliberate consideration leading to a change in conviction on how best to glorify God, not just because I like her. Whether we date or not, I am to do all things to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31); whatever happens (or not), I will be able to look back without regret, I think, if I have abided by this principle as best as I know how. I can only pray that God would align my will to his, such that the driving factor in all my decisions is how best to honor and please him; when I can honestly say that is the case, I will know that I have made the right decision. When I see that my deepest satisfaction is in God, wrought by the cross of Christ and sealed by the indwelling Spirit, then will I know how to make all these ancillary desires subservient to his will. God grant me this kind of faith!

And in the meantime, I think I will be okay. There’s a line in one of my favorite hymns—one that I sing often when I am in need of comfort—that goes like this: Perish every fond ambition, / All I’ve sought and hoped and known; / Yet how rich is my condition; / God and heaven are still my own! Or, as the psalmist has it: “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance” (Ps. 16:6).