Ben Young - The One: A Realistic Guide to Choosing Your Soul Mate

The O ne

Also from
Ben Young and Dr. Samuel Adams

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF DATING

Copyright 2001 by Ben Young and Dr. Samuel Adams

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations noted The Message are from The Message: The NewTestament in Contemporary English. Copyright 1993 by Eugene H. Peterson.

Names and stories in this book are based on actual incidents. However, all names and details have been changed to protect privacy.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Young, Ben.

The one : a realistic guide to choosing your soul mate / Ben Young & Samuel Adams.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-7852-6744-1

1. Mate selection. 2. Mate selectionReligious aspectsChristianity. 3. Single peoplePsychology. I. Adams, Sam. II. Title.

HQ801.Y678 2001

646.7'7dc21

2001030639

CIP

Printed in the United States of America

04 05 06 07 08 PHX 12 11 10 9 8

To
Nicole and Claire
Lacy, Benjamin, and Emma...

with confidence that each of you will not just settle for a
partner or a playmate but, with Gods leading,
you will choose a true soul mate.

Contents

W e would like to thank our wives, Elliott Young and Julie Adams, for their support, unconditional love, inspiration, and grace along the way. You are our true soul mates.

To Dad, Mom, Ed Jr., and Cliff for a lifetime of love and support. And to my mother-in-law, Jane Hackley, for her constant encouragement.

To Paula and Alex Adams (aka Mom and Dad) for your example, sound wisdom, and advice over the years.

We also want to thank Mike Hyatt, Brian Hampton, Blythe McIntosh, and Kyle Olund at Thomas Nelson for their hard work and willingness to believe in this project.

Special thanks to Toni Richmond, my radio cohost and assistant for going above and beyond the call of duty and for your invaluable insight.

Thanks to Dave Riggle and Glen Lucke, the shallow psychologist and personal theologian, respectively, for their ever accurate insight and relevant input.

Where would I be without The Single Connection radio team of Adrienne Flowers, Bob Boyd, Chris Townsell, and Amy Cooper reaching out to singles across the country? Thanks for all the years of support and hard work!

To all the wonderful people in Single Life, Single Source, and Single Plus at Second Baptist Church, Houston, for living out a positive and dynamic vision for singles in the body of Christ.

We could not have written this book without the nightly support of Starbucks coffee and the regular supply of liquid inspiration and energy to write this book.

This book is written in memory of my dear friends Kirk Askew and Charlie Davis.

The O ne

The
Make-or-Break
Decision

R emember when finding love was easy? If someone caught your attention, all you had to do was reach into your school desk, pull out a Big Chief tablet and a red crayon, and write a simple note: Do you love me? Circle yes or no. Thats it! No games. No bull. It was short, sweet, clean, and neat. When you got a little older, it became a bit more complicated because you actually had to work through a mediatorthe persons best friend. There was an art to communicating your intentions for a relationship through another: Could you please ask Sally if she likes me?

Nonetheless, the relationship game was still fairly cut and dried. But somehow as an adult, life and love get much more complex. The process of finding love becomes more difficult. The stakes are high, the risks are certain, and the game is serious. In addition, there is a dimension to love and attraction that is difficult to explain. Often, there are deeper needs, unconscious drives, and seemingly random events that can influence our choice of dating partners. Admittedly, there is a mystery to relationships that will never be completely unraveled.

In this respect, we appreciate the struggles that many experience in their search for The One. We know that the quest for love can be confusing, frustrating, and even intimidating. It is no wonder that the approaches of so many singles tend toward various extremes. For example, some are inclined to be unprepared and thus reactive in their approach, leaving far too much to chance. They seem content to wait for almighty Cupid to strike them with his golden arrow. Another similar extreme is the tendency to overspiritualize the process, leaving everything up to God or some other cosmic force. These people avoid their own responsibility in the process, expecting God Himself to lean down from the heavens and whisper the name of The One in their ears.

As relationship counselors, we have worked with thousands of singles and couples regarding their quest for The One. Almost every day we see you in our office or we interact with you weekly by radio. In fairness, many have exercised good judgment and responsibility in their attempts to find a partner for a lifetime. On the other hand, we have seen far too many singles demonstrate a passive or superstitious approach to finding a mate, only to end up empty-handed. We have also interviewed some of the top relationship experts around the country, and they have confirmed the devastation that comes with a lack of proactivity and personal responsibility in the matter of mate selection.

LETS MAKE LOVE USER-FRIENDLY

This book explores attraction and romance in a realistic way. We will help you appreciate the more tangible and practical side of love so you may navigate through the rough waters of intimacy. Our intent is to clear up certain distortions about love and give you a practical plan to aid in this most important process. We will give you direction to help you develop your ideal picture for a mate, and well give you realistic guidelines to help you find a true soul-mate relationship. Quite simply, we want to empower you to take personal responsibility for your dating life and to plan for success in it.

In their much anticipated book Fear of Intimacy, Dr. Robert Firestone and Joyce Catlett summarize more than forty years of clinical observations, representing one of the most comprehensive studies ever conducted on intimate relationships. Among their findings, they conclude:

The success or failure of an intimate relationship is strongly influenced by ones choice of a mate. Selecting a person with the right characteristics is perhaps the most important prerequisite for attaining the ideal of a close, personal relationship.

In other words, your ability to choose the right kind of mate can either make you or break you. Therefore, one of the most important things you can do is to know, in very specific terms, what qualities you should be looking for in a mate; how to attract and identify someone with these qualities; and how to take this relationship to the ultimate place of marriage. This pretty much sums up the focus of our bookhelping you to be wise and intentional about your search for a soul mate.

WHAT IS A SOUL-MATE RELATIONSHIP?

We recognize that the term soul mate has been used and misused again and again to the point where it may mean different things to different people. Most assume that a soul mate is the one true love who represents the missing half of your soul; the special one who automatically and infinitely knows, loves, accepts, and adores you. Its a nice fantasy, wouldnt you agree? The roots of our belief in a soul mate go deeper than the fairy tales we learned as children, promising princes, glass slippers, and magical kisses that could transform life into a happily-ever-after existence. In fact, the origins of this term are found in several places, including Greek mythology, Celtic wisdom, and even Hindu tradition. Nonetheless, please understand there is no biblical or historical truth of its existence, nor is there any evidence of such a phenomenon in the world of relationships around us. Consider the staggering divorce rate. Or think about all the couples you know. How many would you say bear the mythical resemblance of having that one special soul-mate relationship?