The Quest for Marriage: (A Guy-Friendly Relationship Book)

By Dan Farnow

In this off-beat and unorthodox relationship book readers will be taken on one mans journey from courtship to getting married and beyond, while including both the highs and the lows during his travels. Included is the hard-fought wisdom obtained through it all along with an honest, humorous, no-holds-barred account where no subject is off-limits. Topics cover a variety of practical issues that need to be dealt with in a relationship including taking the first steps, communicating with women, meeting potential in-laws, searching for a ring, planning a wedding, and adjusting to the challenges marriage can bring. This practical, straight-forward book will give you a broader perspective on women that will enable you to be better equipped as you embark on your own quest for marriage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490831077

Dan Farnow

Dan Farnow, since accepting Christ in college, has served in leadership in two different ministries. He has a passion to equip others to overcome obstacles and hurts. He currently does this through ministry at The City Church. He resides in San Diego with his wife, Margaret.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

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A Useful Way to Prepare: Serve ‘Til You Love It

A lthough my former church had its weaknesses, it also had its strong points. One of the topics the pastors taught really well was to make a lifestyle of serving others. Not only does this fulfill God’s will in the church to love and serve one another, it is an excellent way to prepare us for a good marriage, and eventually raising children. Learning to do this as a single man helped me to feel prepared to handle the many challenges a relationship brought (and continues to bring!)

Serving people was definitely not easy a lot of the time. For a few years, I lived in a house with some of the other single men in the church. We all came from different walks of life and had little in common. If that wasn’t tough enough, I had to share a room for two years with someone that was my exact opposite and got on my very last nerve. I’m sure we could have made an entertaining reality show.

There were times where I really needed to go out of my way to serve my roommate. I can remember one of the classic times. I would need to get up for work at around 4:30 am several days a week. When it was my day off and I had a chance to sleep in, guess who needed a ride to the airport at 5:00 am and asked me at the last minute? Not only did I need to drive him, I also had to deal with his perky, talk-a-holic personality the whole time while half asleep. Mind you, this is a guy who talks on the phone more than a teenage girl!

Later on down the road, I had grown into more of a leadership role. On a daily basis I would arrive home from work, tired and worn out, hoping to read, play video games, or do some other activity that didn’t involve people. But it never failed that one or two guys would want to spend time with me or talk about something going on in their lives. Many times these talks were 1 – 2 hours long!

If you ask me, these two circumstances show what one is really made of when it comes to the area of serving. It is a major test when the person in need is someone who can be hard to deal with and your own will is crossed or minimalized, little or no recognition is given, and lots of time and effort is required. I feel that getting a hold of this skill is essential in order to have a great relationship and a blessed marriage.

It is a pet peeve of mine when people are partial about who they serve. I have seen many occasions where a pastor or other esteemed person has a need of some sort, and instantly many people fight over being the one to help. But when it’s someone else, these same people make excuses on why they cannot serve.

I specifically remember one weekend where our pastor and his wife were moving. I think about 15 – 20 people willingly came out to help. A few weekends later, another woman from the church was moving and only one of her friends and I showed up to help. I may sound like a cynic (I prefer the term optimist with experience), but I don’t buy that as a coincidence.

Please understand that I am NOT against people serving their pastors. That’s a wonderful thing to do and a good way to honor those who serve and teach us; but I do have a problem and will question the motives of a person who is willing to serve a pastor yet be unwilling to serve somebody who is not so esteemed or who may not be able to do anything for them in return.

Ultimately, we’re called to serve God and carry out His will. A practical way we can do this is to lay down our lives for others. We must remember that God is NOT partial to anybody. I cannot imagine Christ, if He were in the flesh today, getting excited and fainting because He met the President of the United States. I do not see Him begging to get His picture taken with Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey either.

We’re meant to be Christ-like (Christian), right? So we should serve anybody regardless of status with our best effort. Christ was quite clear about this in scripture:

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. (Luke 6:32 – 35, NIV)

When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

(Luke 14:12 – 14, NIV)

What Christ addressed is unfortunately a very common attitude in the Christian community. I would love to say that I’m excellent at showing impartiality, but that would be a blatant lie. Although I have come a long way, I still have quite a way to go. Praise God that He’s so graceful and patient! I still ask you though to take an honest look in the mirror as I have and see how you can improve.

When we practice servitude the way Christ calls us to, God does much through us and those we serve. Relationship-wise, we become conditioned to think of others’ needs and not just our own. Now that I’m married, I’m so glad I had this ability ingrained in me.

I can think of one incident in my marriage where this really helped. I was at work one day and my wife (Margaret) had a job interview nearby. She was expecting to be done around 11:30 and planned to meet me at my office around noon for lunch.

That morning, work had been very stressful, and I was pushed to my limits. By the time 11:00 came around, I was already exhausted and felt like I had not eaten for days! Margaret was supposed to call me after the interview to get directions to my office from her location. Once 12:00 came and went, I still had not heard from her. It was probably safe for me to assume that she would not be able to see me for lunch. Besides, I was headachy and irritable from being so hungry and certainly didn’t mind the idea of some peace and quiet. Sitting outside and reading a book in seclusion sounded wonderful!

In the back of my mind, I knew Margaret had been stressed about the interview and had not felt well that morning. Once it was all over, I imagined that it would mean a lot to her to just be with me afterward (Unmarried men, know now that this is a very common need for a woman! It seems like they never get tired of being around you ALL THE TIME!). Although it was a fight, I decided to stay in the office longer, since I could take my lunch as late as 1:00 if I wished.

Once the clock hit 12:30, I finally heard from my wife! She called and asked for directions. Since she did not know that part of San Diego very well, I needed to guide her some of the time over the phone (a GPS system would have been nice). After a grueling interview, she was worn out and felt overwhelmed at finding my office. I, too, had very little patience and had to really force myself to be calm on the phone.

When she arrived at 12:45, I took her to a Japanese restaurant (she absolutely loves all kinds of Asian food). After being seated, I made the decision to just let her talk about how everything went and to focus the conversation on her. There are times where she has to unload and I just have to sit there and take it like a punching bag. As lunch ended, I could tell that being able to go out with me like this after such a difficult morning blessed her greatly.

As I’m writing this, I’ve already forgotten how painful and inconvenient it was to do all of that for my wonderful wife. But it’s quite priceless that she walked away from this knowing just a little more about how much I love her. Without the practice I had with all of my roommates, I think it would have been far more difficult to go that extra mile, if I even made it that far. Again, I cannot express how much I appreciated learning such selflessness as a single man!

CHAPTER 2

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Taking the First Steps

I t’s hard enough to ask somebody out on date. If you ask me, this awkwardness is even more pronounced in a church environment, especially in churches that do not have a lot of people. In spite of these obstacles there are some practical ways to get our feet wet before taking the risk of asking a woman out. Of course, if you are a Mr. Rico Suave that has the charm and ability to get any woman you want, then by all means take a pass on this chapter and be grateful that you have that gift. Just please don’t be so smug about it towards the rest of us.

Again, where I came from everybody knew everybody, just like one of those small towns detached from the rest of society. If somebody liked someone, the pastor wanted to know about it. If one of the guys wanted to ask one of the women out and/or felt that God had revealed the right woman for him, the pastor would first need to give the green light. Since a man and woman being alone together was strongly discouraged, it was difficult to get to know somebody in a more private setting. This challenge meant any guy wanting to step forward in a courtship was essentially taking a shot in the dark.

For guys living in this kind of environment, I cannot stress enough that spending time with a woman alone is NOT a sin. There is nothing in the bible that prohibits it. The scriptures do talk about avoiding every hint of sexual immorality and warns against placing yourself in situations where you could easily fall into lustful temptation. To put this practically, talking to a woman about deep personal things in a bedroom late at night would be exercising poor judgment because it could bring about an inappropriate closeness and lead into the temptation to discuss issues you can later regret. On the other hand, shooting the breeze together at a Starbucks or another public location is perfectly fine whether the two of you are in a relationship or not.

There were a handful of occasions where I would end up alone with one of the ladies under the radar. The church would have an event where people were invited to come, but it ended up just being two of us there. Other times, a few of us would go on a trip for a couple days and I would spend some extended time with a couple of people. I used these opportunities to really get to know my company better in order to gauge if there was something more there. This was a whole lot easier than asking the pastor for permission to ask this woman out and take a gamble!

Checking for indicators of chemistry between the two of you can work in group environments as well. One just needs the skill to know how to talk individually with the person you may be interested in. I cannot personally share much on this subject since I’m more the quiet type in groups and am rarely the life of the party. This skill has worked for other guys, just not me.

A third method is talking on the phone together. What’s a potentially controlling leadership going to do, say there must be three people on a conference call? We can obviously call one another on the phone for a variety of different reasons. When talking to one of the ladies, simply ask her open-ended questions about something meaningful to her in order to get her talking. This usually works since for most women, talking is like breathing!

If the two of you never seem to run out of topics to talk about there may be something more there. But if not, then be extremely happy for not bringing any embarrassment upon yourself! Just remember that if there may be something further there, be careful not