Are your motives for a relationship pure? Or are you struggling with idolizing relationships?
This is a really important question to answer. Even if you are struggling with idolatry, it’s better to know this about yourself so you can ask the Lord for help in repenting. His grace is sufficient!
In all likelihood, God is probably going to bless you with marriage one day. But he often waits until our motives for marriage are pure. Therefore, here are 5 tests to help you know where you’re healthy and where you might need to ask the Lord to help you grow.
1. The “Your Type” Test
When we elevate non-critical traits over the critical, it usually means we have an idol.
For example, if a man is most concerned with finding a woman who has a certain figure that accentuates certain body parts that he finds most attractive, that’s an imbalanced scale. While some men are simply more attracted to one feature of a woman’s body and another a different feature, which is just how God made him, no godly Christian man should view a woman’s body like he’s customizing his dream car – “I want this engine, with these tires, and this paint job . . .”
While a man can’t help but be attracted to what he’s attracted to, the problem is that he’s elevating less important things over the most important things. A man with a relationship idol would say, “First, she needs to look this way. And then I’ll make sure she has Christian character.” But a man who has pure biblical motives will say, “First, I need to make sure she has Christian character. And then I’ll decide if I’m attracted enough to her to want to marry her.”
Or let’s say a woman really likes the jock type of guy – strong, attractive, funny, popular, etc. There’s nothing wrong with her having that preference. But if she has an idol, she will overlook critical spiritual deficiencies simply because this man is so closer to her ideal “type.” A woman without an idol in this area will first be attracted to a man’s Christian character, and then she will decide if the less important preferences are there to want to marry him.
In short, this point is really about not majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors. While physical attraction is important, idolatry is occurring when it is someone’s most important variable.
Proverbs 31:30, “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” That principle can be applied to both sexes. A person’s fear of God is what is most important about them.
2. The “Only You” Test
Eventually, you want to get to the point where you know you only want to marry that one person. But idolatry occurs when you give in to this feeling too early, or when you ignore all the red flags pointing in the other direction.
It’s even okay to have really strong feelings for someone and to sense that they may be the one for you. But when you jump ahead without going through a wise testing season, this impatience and impulsivity are usually pointing to an inner idol that’s fueling infatuation.
And even if they really are the one, the best way to know you’re hearing God accurately is to be willing to hear anything. When you’re only willing to hear a yes about that one person, you won’t be able to hear anything from God, even if he really was going to give you a yes. You’ll always question if you’re just telling yourself what you want to hear because you know you’re not willing to hear a no if God did want to say that.
So if you really want to be with someone but you’re also willing to say to God, “Your will be done, not mine” (Luke 22:42), that’s a powerful sign you have a pure motive and are ready for marriage.
3. The “Avoidance” Test
Avoidance is often just the different side of the same old idolatry coin. In other words, while most people express relationship idolatry through obsessive pursuit, some will express their idolatry through extreme avoidance.
How can avoidance be an expression of idolatry? When you believe something is the most important thing in the world, you can put so much pressure on yourself that you end up avoiding it altogether. In other words, many people are actually so obsessed with what the opposite sex thinks about them that they avoid the opposite sex altogether. If you’re afraid to fail, you might just choose not to play the game.
A mark of a healthy desire for a relationship is neither an extreme pursuit nor an extreme avoidance. A healthy person can pursue a relationship without being devastated if it doesn’t work out (Philippians 4:12-13).
4. The “Ruminating” Test
To ruminate means to think deeply about something or someone for a long period of time. While not all ruminating is inherently bad, it can be a sign of idolatry when you are thinking about a particular person in an extreme way.
While “ruminating” is not a biblical word, the Scriptures have been warning us of this for far longer than modern mental health professionals. For example, in 2 Samuel 13, we have Amnon ruminating on his desire for his half-sister, Tamar, which led to his raping her. And then we have Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, ruminating on Amnon’s sin, which then led him to murder Amnon.
When your thoughts are consumed with someone for a long period of time, either someone from your past or someone in the present you don’t know that well yet, this is not healthy. While you will need to think deeply about someone when deciding to enter into a relationship or marriage, that should be a season. When there is no purposeful reason for the rumination, it’s usually a sign of idolatry.
5. The “Rollercoaster of Emotions” Test
Extremes are usually the devil’s playground. If you’re jumping for joy because someone looked at you, or if you enter into deep depression because someone didn’t look at you, that’s too much instability.
When something really bad happens to you, you should feel really badly. And when something really good happens to you, you should feel really great. But when your emotions are out of balance with reality, this often means an idol is messing with your internal ability to rightly assess what’s truly important or not.
When the Holy Spirit is truly guiding you, you won’t be a stoic who is emotionless. Rather, you will have a proper emotional response to what is actually happening (Romans 12:15, Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4).
So, how did you do? What areas are you thriving in and what areas do you need to pray about? Wherever you are on your journey, just remember that sanctification is a process. The more we walk with the Lord, the more he will conform us into his image (2 Corinthians 3:18, Romans 6:19, Philippians 1:6, Hebrews 10:14)!
