Dating a non christian

by Jane Johnson Struck

The first time I saw Paul—I mean, really saw him—was during my senior year of high school.

Actually, I'd seen him plenty of times before. He'd been in all the school plays and musicals, and I'd either watched him perform or been in the shows with him. We'd been in choir together, and we had some mutual friends. But we'd never really noticed each other. Until …

One day, as I watched Paul walk into the room, I really saw him, like I'd never seen him before: a great-looking guy, dark hair, broad shoulders, gorgeous smile, tons of talent. My eyes followed him across the room as he headed to his seat. Then he looked my way and noticed me noticing him. It wasn't as sappy as a movie scene, but when he flashed his great smile at me, I knew I had a killer crush on him. As it turned out, Paul was interested in me too.
It wasn't long before we started going out.

From the beginning, I knew certain things about Paul. I knew he wasn't a Christian. I knew he didn't go to church.
I knew he drank and partied on weekends.

I knew the girl he'd dated before me had a reputation for sleeping around.

I was a Christian. I went to church regularly. I didn't drink or party. And I had no intention of sleeping with anyone before marriage.
Paul was everything I wasn't.

My eyes were wide open about what kind of guy Paul was. But they were blinded to what I was getting involved in. And at the time, I didn't have any hard-and-fast rules about dating non-Christians.

Within a few months, I had moved way beyond liking Paul and felt that I really loved him. When we were apart, I thought about him all the time. When we were together, I couldn't think about anything else—not God, not my family, not anything but him.
I'd always felt there was nothing extraordinary or spectacular about me or my life. My family was quiet, normal, plain. My dad had a blah job. We lived in a blah neighborhood where all the blah houses looked alike. When I looked in the mirror, I thought I saw a blah person. I thought my life was boring.

But now, there was something exciting in my life. This attractive, talented, popular guy cared about me. He didn't think I was in any way ordinary or plain or boring. I got caught up in feeling important, loved, special.
Besides, Paul was a great guy. He was compassionate, caring, funny, kind. He would have been a great Christian, if only …
If only he didn't drink. If only he didn't think sex outside of marriage was OK. If only he believed in God.
" But I do believe in God," he'd insist. "Just not the same way you do."

Paul came to church with me sometimes, but he was totally uninterested in the whole thing. By then I was so caught up in our relationship and seeing things in such a distorted way, I missed the obvious: Paul just wasn't interested in Christ. Instead, I'd think, Man, he must really care about me. He doesn't even like church, but he's willing to try it just to make me happy.
This type of skewed thinking began to happen more and more.

Once, Paul and a group of our friends were headed to a party I knew my parents would never let me attend. But I desperately wanted to be there with Paul, so I told my parents I was going to a movie with a girlfriend—and then headed to the party. At the party, I thought about how great Paul was because he never teased me about being a non-drinker, and he never once tried to get me to drink. I never thought about the fact that I'd lied to my parents about where I was going.