Haha, dating services.  What a joke!  You know, God has control of who you are supposed to be with, not eHarmony, or whatever dating services there are.  God has total control of our lives, and we should leave it up to Him if we find someone to date, marry, etc.  The main concern with the dating services is waiting on God's timing on the right person.  God will bring the person to you.  You don't have to search for them.

God Bless!

Jeremy

I feel about dating services the way I feel about this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310262658/qid=1116251652/sr=1-11/ref=sr_1_0_11/026-7104906-1855648

It seems like it's a case of saying "God's too slow, I want to do it myself". BAD advice! I read bits of it when it came into the shop.

If you read the front it even says, "be dating in 6 months or your money back"....!! Oh my word. (http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0310262658.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg)

"Boundaries in dating" annoyed me enough - it spent a whole chunk at the beginning explaining why Josh Harris was so wrong... fair enough if that's what they think, then think it, but that shouldn't be why you write a book! To get at someone else! How childish.

He actually says "Non-serious dating, Cloud writes, is an essential step in the process of eventually finding a mate, because it teaches people what they need and want through trial and error" - which is exactly why the world dates... OK, so when did Christians start conforming to what the world thinks??! Apparently "Cloud goes so far as to say that if you're not casually dating several people at the same time then you are setting yourself up for disaster."...!

Anyway... I see the whole dating service as a similar thing - not waiting on God. Fine to use it to make friends... but I'm wary of anything that is outwardly promising to help you find love. Relationships started on the premise that it might turn into romance seem to be dangerous to me: better to make friends, because that's the best basis for long term relationships anyway.

The thing that I really hate both about books like that and about dating services, is the assumption that there is something wrong with you, and indeed you SHOULD be unhappy, if you are not dating... I won't even start on what is wrong with this assumption............................................ ARGH!

I kinda like the guesswork, though. Getting to someone is half the fun.

Oh my word!! Sarah, it actually SAID all of that?!

so I can be bright tailed and bushy eyed

Hahahaha.......................

I sort of agree with Ethan (I know, write it down....it may never happen again ). I don't think all dating services are for desperate people. They started out that way, but have evolved over time. There are certain kinds of dating services that I think should be frowned on, such as the so-called "speed dating".

I believe that God can work in different ways in different lives. For some, He may bring a person right to their doorstep. For others, He may want you to be in a place where you can meet people. There is no hard and fast rule for each person. For years, people have been told to go to places where they will meet others, such as larger churches, libraries, even grocery stores. If you meet "the one" at work, does that make it wrong, because you didn't wait for God? Of course not. We don't frown on that, and people have been meeting their spouses that way for years. When Brandon was looking for a job, we told him that nobody was going to just knock on the door and offer him a job - he needed to go out and look. But that's where a lot of the problem comes in with people looking for other people - they don't know the right kind of people they should be hanging out with. They might look for the wrong things, or settle for the first thing that comes along.

Being in places where you can meet people, is not the same as actively looking, though. People who want someone so badly they can't stand it, people who are lonely, are more likely to get attached to the wrong person. But something that needs to be carefully considered is this: if you are meeting people and constantly being disappointed, you need to really, carefully reconsider 1) where you are meeting these people, and 2) the kind of person you should be associating with.

God CAN bring that person right to you, but that isn't the only way He works. We have to be careful that we don't put limits on Him.

Learning something about someone before investing time and effort into a relationship isn't an entirely bad thing. 

 I very much agree here. But my thought is that you should get to know a person as a really good friend before you date them. I dated some definite losers, and did not even realize that a friend I had not previously considered (that I had known 4 years) would end up being my husband. But I am REALLY glad it turned out that way, and that I took another look.

I still don't know what I feel. Could be good or bad, depending on the person and the motives, but I just know that I would feel weird if I tried it. Maybe I'd be surprised if it turned out differently, but it just feels like a fake interview process, to me. You both know the other person is looking for someone to date, and that puts a weird spin on getting to know each other well. I'm having trouble explaining exactly what I think, though.

"Non-serious dating, Cloud writes, is an essential step in the process of eventually finding a mate, because it teaches people what they need and want through trial and error" - which is exactly why the world dates...

Yeah, I think that's a very bad statement. It definitely is the way the world has dated all along, and you see how that has worked out - a divorce rate of 50%. And because Christians have followed along with it, the divorce rate in the church is about as high. In generations past, people got to know each other well, long before they dated, so there were no big surprises, for the most part. I'm sure everybody knows of somebody that married, and stayed married, after only knowing each other a very short time, but it's rare. (And a long marriage doesn't always mean a good marriage.)

Something else that some Christians tend to think: that God has one, and only one, right person for us. I don't believe that at all. God could make a number of different people the one for us. He can cause love to grow in many different situations. 

"You both know the other person is looking for someone to date, and that puts a weird spin on getting to know each other well."

Exactly. I know where you're going with that one

And yes, Beth, all those quotes and in for were from the Amazon listings. Scary eh?

I do think that God has different ways of working in people's lives - I get just as annoyed with those who say that you're not even allowed to be friends with the opposite sex! Some of my best friends are guys!

"Learning something about someone before investing time and effort into a relationship isn't an entirely bad thing"

Isn't at ALL a bad thing... who said it was?? *confused*... I agree with Cindy - the best time to get to know someone is BEFORE you start dating them. I have no problem with any kind of service which brings people together as friends (on or offline) - I think it puts a weird/false spin on things and doesn't fit in as far as I can see with waiting on God to have a service which intentionally brings people together as potential partners... There's a fakeness there (to me) because romance should be based on more than "I like how this person looks in their picture and what they say about themselves"... I'd rather know someone a little better than that before I think of them as potential romance! Yes, use every opportunity available to meet people... but don't look on every other person you meet as a future partner... you wouldn't do that in real life, so to me it seems fake to use a dating service where effectivly you're judging everyone in terms of "would I, could I, marry them?"

I also agree with Cindy thar there are those who you could have a better or worse marriage with, but lots of people who you could have a marriage with... and hey, if God has ONE person picked out for you, I'm sure he'll make VERY certain that you meet!

Hmmm it's a valid point about people not having time EXCEPT... if you don't have time to meet and get to know new people, do you have time to work at a relationship and make it work...??

There is a difference between being in a place where you are able to find or be found - some people just sit at home and never ever EVER meet new people, and then are surprised when they are still single - and going out "looking" for love.

I actually have a lot more problems with what the so called Christian clever wise person(!) has to say (from what I have seen) in that book than with online or offline dating services... The tagline "be dating in 6 months or your money back" makes the assumption that it would be a bad thing if you weren't dating in 6 months time... and we all know people for whom dating any time in the next 2 years would be a huge mistake... I think it's irresponsible to make it seem that we all should be, and have the right to be, dating, when some of us for reasons of maturity, life path, finances, all sorts of reasons, *shouldn't* be dating right now.

And again, what REALLY bugs me is the assumption that if you're single there MUST be something wrong... That annoys me SO much.

one last thought: getting to know someone, and know them well, before getting hitched is ABSOLUTELY paramount... I just question VERY much whether dating them straight off is the best way to go about doing that... seems to me you'd do better knowing them pretty well BEFORE you start to date...

Oh, come on, Trey! Chicken.........................

Doug, very good points. (Bethany is at work until 10:30. She is really going to be surprised to see that people had so much to say!)

Isn't at ALL a bad thing... who said it was?? *confused*...   And Sarah, I think I understand what Ethan meant there (that in itself scares me....Sorry, Sweetie, just couldn't resist!) Before you even meet a person, it's not bad to know their beliefs, likes, dislikes, etc. that you might find out from a dating service. You can probably determine from that information whether or not it is even someone you want to meet. It would certainly save a lot of time.

But then I don't believe in going out on a date with someone you just met. Been there, done that, and it never worked out. Even with a dating service, I would be hesitant to just date a person I was matched with - I would want that person to spend some time around me NOT on a date, with other people, to see if I thought they were compatible. I wouldn't really consider that dating.

The result? "We're sorry, but eHarmony could not find a match for you at this time." Ouch. Even the computer hates me.

And that's just hilarious. What does that computer know, anyway?

I hope this works this time. I wrote out this whole long comment, and the computer ate it when I hit send. To borrow a word from Sarah, "Arrgggh!"

Ps 37:4   Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart . NIV

Before we got married, I was desperate. After all, Granny Clampitt said 14 was "prime" I thought I'd never get married, and it didn't help that family was constantly trying to set me up with blind dates, or friends of friends, because they didn't think I was getting any younger, either. My aunt even tried to fix me up with a friend who was about 7 years older than me, and separated from his then wife. I was only 21. (Several years ago, he ended up being Brandon's boss!) I "finally" got married when I was 22 years and 7 months old. I know, some of you are older and unmarried, but I wanted to get married and have a family more than anything else in the whole wide world. It was all I could think of.

Yes, we need to wait on God, but I doubt He wants us to stay in the house and wait for somebody to drop from the sky onto your front porch. Girls, he'd probably be Air Force, and look what that gets you! But He wants us to be patient, an EXTREMELY hard task for some of us. Concern yourself with doing what He wants you to do, and He will reward you with "the desires of your heart". He wants to give us those desires, provided they are proper desires and not detrimental to our lives.

Some day, a guy might walk into CVS, see Beth, and never entertain even the thought of any other girl. Sarah may meet a musician that just sweeps her off her feet, while she's playing with the symphony. Doug may meet someone, not with a computer, but at a Republican rally Ethan may meet a female type in Washington that says, "He's hot....I don't care what kind of lame pick-up line he has!"

All in God's own time......