Often such thinking becomes an excuse for lack of progress in sanctification. Or as a song from when I was a teen put it " You may say its only natural for me to act this way, I know it's only natural but I have not been made only natural. .... I've got the spirit of the living God alive in me giving me power so I don't have to be only natural." More recently the slogan that embodied this for me, though it was in a different context is " progress not perfection".
But we don't all have the same parents raising us and Christians don't agree on what the most proper course of action is. Let's dig into just a couple of the questions that you didn't bother to answer as examples: Restuarants - should you ask the waitress for prayer requests? Should your faith influence how much you tip? Should you pray before your meal? How should a Christian respond when the service isn't that great? These are rubber meets the road type questions that help people who care to live out their faith.
Other practical concerns and areas of conflict, how much planning can you do and still live by faith? What decisions should you pray about together and what can you be trusted to decide on your own without consciously checking in with God? When the call comes to give for an emergency crisis, should you give everything in the bank and trust God to provide money to pay your bills or should you set some rational limits to what you are willing to give? How long and hard to you pray before you accept that it's God saying no and not a lack of faith on your part? Is demanding a certain level of intellectual rigor in discerning the voice of God wise or legalistic? And those are just questions that have come up in my own walk and interactions with other Christians.
And circling back to the beginning point, no I don't want a man that strives to do good; I want a man who succeeds in doing good the vast majority of the time. And I want to be a woman who does good not who just tries hard and still keeps failing. Women give points for trying, but don't expect them to act as though trying to quit a habitual sin is of the same value as having overcome it. While there are some women who have really high standards that they don't meet themselves, seems like there are also a lot of guys who think their failures are a much smaller deal than women do and that their efforts and wanting deserve to be rewarded with a woman no matter how terrible of a partner they would make. And I've also known some good Christian men, who due to personality and lifestyle preferences would make terrible partners for me. Being a caring person who means well really isn't enough for a long term decision; it might be enough for a first date, but it might also be kind and caring to turn down a first date if you can't see any substance behind the caring who means well. After all, they meant well is usually what we say when someone unintentionally does harm; not when someone does something that benefits others.
It's not just toward non-believers. I think often Christians are even more harsh with each other because believers who are sinning 1) should know better and 2) should have the power to overcome temptation if they're really saved . But I can agree that Christians are often arrogant and judgemental and all too often quick to blame the victim for the problems they face (don't have enough faith, don't love/ trust God enough, etc trust me stick around churches long enough and you will hear these things). But since Jesus was perfect, I don't think trying to be perfect is the problem, it's just pretending you're perfect when you aren't that is the problem. Such hypocrisy is a problem that Jesus was just as against as most modern unbelievers are.
So putting me down because you didn't get the answer you want rather than the answer that needed to be said. And things I said, it sounds to me you're intentionally twisting what I was saying, like strive to good. You know exactly what I meant, so don't pretend like you needed to correct me. You can already do good and still strive for more of it.
And since we're on this subject, let's talk about what is good in the dating realm. What do you define as good? Is it helping the poor? Is it earning a lot of money and giving it to charity? Is it doing unto others as you do to yourself? Is it helping people with physical/mental disadvantages? Does it line up with what God has outlined for us?
Let's look at this from a single man's perspective. Many women talk about good men in doing good, and these same females saying that's what they want when getting into a relationship. However, after they say it, they go after men who are the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they said. In other words, these type of women are all talk, and it makes me question if they were truly Christians to begin with.
I've seen women who would, either online or in person, quote scripture, be nice to everyone, and talk about how they want a good guy. Then, out of the blue, they're dating non-believers who were charming enough to rope them in. These women, man, do they ever LOVE these type of guys. They know that these guys are non-believers and they know they don't perform acts of good, but they stay with them anyway. They even go as far as making excuses for them. Breakups are rough for these women because, in their minds, these men were perfect for them, and when they do date other guys they compare them to the "perfect" one before.
A pastor's daughter, who I know, dated an atheist. They were together for quite some time, too. They went a lot, did fun activities together, and did the things that neither one even considered doing. The guy was tall, made good money, and good looking. However, there were all sorts of red flags about this man when they first met, but she stayed with him. Eventually, though, they did call it off because of beliefs. I don't know if I buy that reason because she knew that this guy was an atheist and continued seeing him. Something tells me the family stepped in, more than likely her father, and explained how this was not a good idea, based on not just what this man believed, but also his actions. The family were probably, also concerned that she was being led astray. This is very likely because I went through something similar (which I'll get into here in a bit). Since then, she's had other men, who WERE believers, but turned down each one. She says she's looking for a godly man, but it seems like she prefers men that are not.
Now, the flip side, from a single woman's perspective. Let's say they ARE looking for good men and live by their word through their own actions. There are men who say that they want good women, especially if they gave their lives to Christ. However, us men tend to get ahead of ourselves and try to fix the women we want to be a part of lives, rather than the ones that have been saved. It comes out of a place of pride and ignorance because we are wired to solve problems. But what we fail to realize is some things we simply will not fix, despite our best efforts.
I dated a woman last year who was not a Christian. In my mind, at the time, we grew up together through middle school, our families knew each other, and we were about the same age, so I thought we can make this work. However, I ignored the red flags. This woman had a mental episode after her brother's death, been engaged multiple times, a broken family, serious financial issues that she was not resolving on her own, and she's a heavy drinker. She also had baggage of being molested by one of her family members and abused by an ex fiance. Yeah, I thought I had my work cut out for me, but after the last time I was with her, I believed, at the time, I got through to her. Unfortunately, she called it quits out of nowhere. I didn't understand it at the time, but I'm beginning to believe more that I wasn't like her ex, who was charming, had a decent reputation for the line work he was in, and almost was married to him. You could say I didn't live up to what this man meant to her, even though I was told he was the ex that abused her. Either way, this woman's way of thinking I couldn't fix and I learned to accept it. And what happened to me was I missed church, missed out on hanging out with my friends, and it affected my work. I was a fool in going out with this woman and doubly one who though I could save her.
Was it good for us to go out with people who don't believe to have some sort of romantic love together? Hearts were in the right place, caring about someone's salvation and loving that person because it's a command to love one and other, but if they're showing no signs of wanting it, then it probably wasn't right to begin with. You could even say it isn't right. We said we wanted godly people to be in a relationship with, but instead, we turned out to be hypocrites. So speaking through experience, we need to be much more true to our word when we say things like this. Let our 'yes' be yes and our 'no' be no. Honestly, if I get back out in the dating market, I don't know who'd I go out with. I know what's good and what I'm looking for in a woman, but my greatest fear is that I will screw up again and choose unwisely. That's why I'm remaining single. But whenever I see a woman that I find interesting say they want a good man, they, typically, end up with the opposite. I see other men do the same thing. Besides, the Apostle Paul said it would be better, in many cases, to stay single and focus on God. For others, it would be better to be with someone, but problems usually arise from that, so they have to make sure God is at the center. I just hate seeing good people seeing good people, men and women, set themselves up for failure, and that's what I'm ultimately getting at.
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