Choosing God's Best - I Finished the Book

(Originally published Thursday, January 19, 2006)

I just finished the book Choosing God's Best, by Dr. Don Raunikar, the other day. There are a few things he says that I don't agree with. He is a psychotherapist and some of his viewpoints have a pop-psychology tilt to them. Mostly it's about "self-esteem," but he points everyone back to Jesus and clarifies that everyone's "self-worth" is only found in Jesus. The other issue is that he suggests reading Christian books about physical intimacy issues between man and wife, I don't agree with this. It's not addressed in the Bible, and I don't believe anyone should be getting advice about this subject from anyone but God and their spouse.

Anyway, other than that, it's an extremely good book. It makes a lot of points that I hadn't thought of before. It even lays our a general timline and guidlines, or principles, for the courtship process. For example, he says that God will not allow you to be any more intimate (not necessarily talking about physical intimacy) with someone else than you are with Him. So, if you feel like you are deprived of intimacy with your mate or future mate, then it's because your relationship with God is deprived.

Another good point he makes in the book is that even if you have been in a relationship with someone where you didn't have an official boyfriend/girlfriend status, if you spend too much time with them, or let your mind go off to imagining things about a future relationship, then if you make known your feelings and they give you the cold shoulder, or just have to let you down, it will be as if you had been in an actual relationship with them. I relayed an instance like this in the real story of James (http://eternal-life-day-by-day.blogspot.com/2005/12/relationships-is-he-ready.html) He put too much of his heart into a girl without making it known, and ended up hurt.

So, the point is that you can stay completely pure physically, and still be hurt if you have too much emotionally invested.