D' kingdom Domain

Courtship: When Does it become Right or Wrong?

by Mayowa Adeniyi

CourtshipLife is in phases, there’s a time when you’re child and in another phase of life, you become an adult. As a child, you think and act immature but when you become an adult, you’ll put away childish things. This phenomenon was captured in the bible as having a time and season for everything under the heaven.
Marriage is an institution everyone looks forward to. Although in rare cases where you choose to remain an eunuch, either for spiritual or medical reasons that you’ll not marry. The period before wedding after you’ve found someone to marry is called courtship. A period where you get to be familiar and know each other better before marriage is decided.

In life, abuse they say is inevitable when the purpose of a thing is not known. Courtship too can be abused when you don’t know its purpose. There are many singles even Christians who had messed up their courtship due to some things which they tolerated ignorantly or carelessly. Doing a right thing at the wrong time is wrong and doing a wrong thing at the wrong time is equally wrong. How do I know when courtship becomes right or wrong?

1. Readiness
An athlete doesn’t win an Olympic game the day he wakes up from sleep. He must have prepared himself and absorbed several trainings. He will fail if he doesn’t train no matter the good record he must have had.
It’s bad to start courtship when in two or more years you’re not ready for marriage. Courtship doesn’t make you ready for marriage but you make yourself ready for marriage before courtship. It serves you no benefit when you’re not financially, spiritually, mentally and emotionally ready for marriage and you two claim to be in courtship.
What are you courting? Two immature and unprepared partners cannot have a successful courtship or marriage when they go into it. If they court or marry, such relationship will fail.

2. When love leads to lust
There’s a thin line between love and lust and it’s very easy to cross the boundary when you take the slightest chance or ignored warning signals. Love takes time to grow but if care isn’t taken, that love will end in lust. How? When touches becomes too intimate, conversations becoming erotic and your desires are carnal; lust would creep in regardless of the sacrifices and commitment you must have had.

Just because God has said you two will marry doesn’t mean you’re free from transgression if you cross the boundary. It’s normal to desire intimacy because you’re in courtship but care must be taken so that it doesn’t gets out of hand. Caution must be taken during hugging so that it doesn’t become prolong that ‘something’ would happen and your conversations do not lead to immoralities.

3. When it becomes too long
It’s of no advantage to prolong something that could have been done better when you’re fully prepared for it. For instance, reading with a sound mind for thirty minutes is better than reading for hours with a wavering mind.
It’s not the duration of courtship that makes marriage better but in your readiness for a successful marriage. When you prolong the duration of courtship to exceed one year or more, something can happen which would destroy the marriage.
Courtship shouldn’t be too short or too long, there must be a balance in it. Having done your assignment in finding the right person by confirming and getting conviction from God, your period of your courtship should be a time where you get to know yourselves (likes, dislikes, purpose etc), parents, friends and families better. Mind you, it’s not the duration of the courtship that makes you know your spouse. Even in marriage, there are more things to know about your spouse.
Have you made yourself a right partner (spiritually, mentally, financially and emotionally), prayed and sought God’s face for who would accompany you in your marital journey? Until you have done your assignment properly, don’t think of courtship lest you make a ruin of it. After doing your assignment, don’t cross the boundary. There’s no point sniffing the aroma of the food that you’d be eating. Delay sex and sexual plays till marriage and not before it. Don’t make courtship wrong when you could have made it right.