A. If we lived every day as if it were our last, then don't study for finals. They won't come. Don't send in applications for college. What's the point? Spend all of your money today and quit your job. Seize the day, and you'll wake up tomorrow feeling pretty embarrassed. The same goes in relationships. If you think you've found your soul-mate, then do not give in to the desires of the moment, but build the foundation to make your love last a lifetime. We all have this desire for enduring love, and we all hear about the 50% divorce rate. So, where do people go wrong? For one, couples who sleep together before they marry are three times as likely to divorce.(1) For why this happens, click here.
By the time I was married to Crystalina at the age of 27, I was convinced in four previous relationships that I had found "the one." Since then, one of those girls has been married and divorced, and the other three are married … to friends of mine!
We always hear about living in the moment, and Hollywood gives us the romantic image of spontaneous love without regrets. We see Titanic: "Oh no, we're going to die. Let's have sex." This is a fine way to live if there were no such thing as tomorrow, or eternity. If I knew Crystalina and I would die three days before our wedding, the last thing on earth I would want to do is to remove her from the grace of God through sin. Being together for a few nights would be nice, but being together for eternity would be better. The difference is that love can wait to give, but lust can not wait to get.
Love at the moment may seem intoxicating, but you must have the wisdom to realize that you are worth waiting for. Pray to have the strength to avoid a huge mistake. If you choose to be pure, you will be loving your boyfriend in the most perfect way. If it is truly love that you want to express to him, purity alone can communicate that.
Couples who are chaste still want to be one, so they are forced to learn how to express love to one another in non-sexual ways, and their intimacy deepens. So, why wait until tomorrow to have what you can get today? Because after you get what you want, where is "the one" six months from now? Crystalina thought it was love when she lost her virginity in high school. Now, I've seen the tears fall down her face as she remembers it years later.
So, indeed you should live as if you will die tomorrow. Love to the fullest. Every person on earth should live and love like this. But, the key is that impatient lust is very, very different from love. Lust says, "I want it, you want it, let's go." Love says, "No matter what you or I want, I want what is best for you." Besides, if you're meant to be with this person, you will have the rest of your life to enjoy sex. But if you are not meant to be, then why harm your ability to bond with the one who you will marry? Love is patient. That's one huge element that distinguishes it from infatuation.
I just read a book by a psychologist where he said most teens are in the concrete operational stage of thinking. What this meant, he said, is that most of them have no idea how the decisions they make now will affect them in the future. All they see is present rewards and consequences, not future rewards and consequences. By failing to look into the future, they often make life-changing decisions that harm them.
So if you think you found your soul-mate, make smart decisions now, and put God at the center of your relationship. Be at peace and trust God with your bodies. If it is his will, you two will last. In the mean time, I once heard it said that God always gives his best to those who leave the choice to him.
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J.D. Teachman, J. Thomas, and K. Paasch, "Legal Status and the Stability of Coresidential Unions," Demography, November 1991, 571-83.
from http://www.pureloveclub.com
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