I remembered life as a teenager, it was really adventurous, fun, and somehow silly. Silly in the sense that there were things I did as a teenager then, but now as an adult, I wished I had known better.
Permit me to share a bit of my life with you as a teenager during those years of dating, you know those secondary school things of “I love you, I like you”. Days of writing love letters and instructing junior students to give the lady in the other class. “Senior Taiwo said I should give you this letter and wait to get a response from you”. But sincerely, I didn’t do it but let me tell my own experience.
I didn’t have the ‘appetite’ to date as a teenager but I had a close friend who pursued a girl from the wooing stage to the bed mating stage. He narrated all his ordeals to me as the chasing was going on and I knew it myself. He patiently wooed the girl, they loved up and they ended in bed.
The sad story was that he took the girl to his friend’s house, several kilometers away from her house to ‘consummate’ their dating relationship. After the whole premarital sex experience, they did not end up being married today after several rounds of premarital sex. What a tragedy!
Why didn’t I date anyone as a teenager? That’s a story for another day. I tried when I finished secondary school, but unfortunately, as I told mom about it, what she said made the love die instantly. I made another effort in the university when I was in year three based on my roommate’s influence, we only lasted for a week.
Many of my friends, coupled with those I saw, heard, and read about never had a good experience from this thing called dating even as a teenager.
Here’s the truth about dating, it’s an assessment of one or more persons to determine their suitability for marriage. How does a teenager succeed in that? What do you know about marriage as a teenager? Marriage isn’t for boys, girls, or teens, it’s for mature adults. Even some adults are still having issues with their marriage how much more teenagers in a relationship that they thought would end in marriage.
Am I saying you shouldn’t have friends of the opposite sex? No! Be just friends with no strings attached.
If you want to face the realities of life, let me show you the pitfalls of teenage dating and examine the perks if there are any.
1. It takes you far from your Creator
That you go to church doesn’t mean you’re close to your Creator. That you’re born in a Christian family doesn’t mean God knows you.
It takes a teenager who is saved, born again and he or she is serving God to be known by God. There are many religious churchgoers (teenagers) who claimed to be Christians but they’re miles away from God.
The best life you can ever live is the one you live to acknowledge your Creator. Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth before the evil days draw near. Those days would come, ask King David. It’s better to serve your Creator now before the devil destroys you through dating relationships and other means. And THE FARTHER YOU ARE AWAY FROM YOUR CREATOR, THE EASIER THE DEVIL HAS THE CHANCE TO DESTROY YOU.
2. You’ll be distracted
One of the greatest distractions the devil throws at teenage boys and girls is a dating relationship. He distracts you from becoming focused on your destiny and hinders you from fulfilling God’s purpose for your life.
You can’t chase two birds and catch both. Lines must be upon lines and you must follow the eight precepts.
No great man or woman in the world would have ever amounted to greatness if they had messed their lives on the ungodly relationship. You need to channel all your energies, resources, and focus to what you want to become in life. There are many teenage boys and girls I see around who waste their lives on dating relationships and I’m left with no option other than to cry or talk to them if they ever care to listen. ONCE YOU ARE DISTRACTED FROM PURSUING GOD’S PURPOSE, YOU ARE IN FOR DESTRUCTION.
3. You can’t fulfill God’s purpose for your life alongside an ungodly relationship
How can you become all that God wanted you to be as a teenager when you’re pursuing lust in a relationship? My dear, life is more than the pursuit of pleasure. If you don’t know God’s purpose for your life, you’ll abuse your life with the ungodly relationship as a teenager.
Can you be the best that He wanted you to be and at the same time please your boyfriend or girlfriend? God forbid! The time spent on immoralities could have been better invested in your life and destiny if you serve God.
You can’t sow to the flesh and be successful. You can’t invest your life in a dating relationship as a teenager and you wouldn’t have one or two things to regret.
I’m telling you this so that you won’t learn from your mistake. An ordinary man learns from his mistake. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others, but a fool doesn’t learn from the mistakes of others and the ones he made or he’s about to make.
4. Only those who seek Him early can find Him
Trust me, the best time to seek God’s during your teenage years. It’s a good time to lay the foundation of seeking and serving God. All that you’ll do when you’re an adult is to build on the solid foundation you laid as a teenager.
Do you think it’ll be easy to find God when you’re already a victim of unwanted pregnancy or when you have grown wild in your carnal knowledge? You may find Him because He’s merciful but you’d have more regrets to nurse then. It’s usually not easy my dear to find Him when you’re nursing the consequences of sexual immoralities.
Don’t give God your leftovers. Don’t be a young man or woman that is void of understanding. You can never do much for God when you waste a greater part of your teenage and youthful life on dating relationships because it ruins.
5. You’ll be exposed to the evils people do in the name of love
You’ll agree with me that lots of men and women who were victims of premarital sex, abortion, unwanted pregnancy, and the likes became victims in their teenage years. As a teenager, you can’t pursue a love relationship and not pay for it dearly because of your immaturity.
You’d think an expression of love is sex, kissing, and the likes. And it’s so unfortunate that the media has made you feel these are the ways of expressing love.
Do you want to live a saner life and have nothing to regret when you look back at your teenage years? Stay away from dating relationships. Anyone who encourages you to date when you’re not mature for it only wants to destroy your life.
Ninety-eight percent of those who became victims of relationship issues met their waterloo as a teenager or those who barely just escaped their teenage years.
Don’t put the cart before the horse. Being intimate with God, knowing God’s purpose for your life, and fulfilling it before the quest for a partner is the right order to follow in life. A reversal of that order will jeopardize your life and destiny.
Don’t go into dating as a teenager because others are doing it so that you won’t experience what they experienced.
