What It Means to Date on Purpose

Eight months in, you still don’t have a name for what this is. You’ve met his roommates. You’ve spent four holidays with her family. You text good morning and good night every day without fail. But when a friend asked at brunch what you two actually are, you both gave a different answer, and neither of you laughed it off as easily as you wanted to. It’s a little like hiking a trail with no markers — you’ve covered real ground together, but neither of you actually chose the direction; you just kept walking because stopping felt harder than continuing.

Proverbs 16 sits among Solomon’s collected wisdom sayings about the tension between human planning and divine sovereignty — a recurring theme throughout this chapter especially. Verse 9 captures it in a single line meant to be memorized and lived, not just admired from a distance.

“A man’s heart plans his course, but Yahweh directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)

Notice what this verse doesn’t say. It doesn’t condemn planning; it states planning as a simple fact of wise living — “a man’s heart plans his course” is presented as normal and expected, not as prideful overreach. What the verse corrects is the illusion that planning equals control. You can plan the course. God directs the actual steps. Applied to dating, this is not a verse against intentionality. If anything, it assumes intentionality as the starting point — you’re meant to plan your course — while trusting God with how the details actually unfold.

That distinction matters, because “dating on purpose” often gets confused with either rigid over-planning on one end, or passive drifting dressed up as spirituality on the other. Drifting looks like letting a relationship coast on convenience and inertia without either person actually choosing it — staying together because breaking up feels harder than continuing, avoiding the conversation about direction because ambiguity feels safer than a real answer. Some couples call this “letting God lead” or “not rushing things,” but it often isn’t trust in God’s sovereignty at all. It’s frequently just avoidance of a hard conversation, wearing spiritual language as a disguise. God directing your steps assumes you’re walking somewhere with intention, not standing still hoping direction will find you on its own.

It helps to notice how the rest of Proverbs treats planning as a mark of maturity, not its opposite. The book repeatedly contrasts the sluggard, who drifts through life reacting to whatever’s in front of him, with the wise person, who thinks ahead, weighs consequences, and commits to a direction. Nowhere does Scripture praise aimlessness as a form of spiritual surrender. Faith, in the biblical imagination, looks like Nehemiah surveying the broken walls before he ever picked up a trowel, or Paul planning missionary routes he then submitted to the Spirit’s redirection. The pattern is always the same: plan with real intention, then hold that plan open-handed enough for God to redirect it. A relationship that never gets planned in the first place isn’t more open to God’s leading — it’s simply directionless, with no plan for him to redirect.

Dating on purpose looks specific and concrete: naming what you’re actually doing together — are we dating with marriage as the aim, or is this genuinely undefined and both of us are at peace with that? Having regular, honest check-ins about where the relationship is headed instead of assuming you both already know. Being willing to end a relationship that has clarified it isn’t leading toward marriage, rather than letting it drift on for years out of comfort or fear of starting over. This isn’t about rushing anyone into a decision — it’s about respecting the other person’s time and heart enough to be honest about direction, because vague relationships often quietly cost someone years they could have spent building a life with someone actually walking the same course.

It’s worth being honest about why ambiguity feels safer than clarity for so many couples. Naming a direction out loud means risking a real answer — maybe your partner isn’t actually planning toward marriage the way you assumed, or maybe you’ll discover you’ve been more hesitant than you realized once you have to put it into words. Staying vague protects both people from that risk, at least temporarily. But Proverbs doesn’t offer risk-avoidance as wisdom. It offers planning, submitted to God, as wisdom. The couple who never asks the direction question isn’t being more faithful; they’re simply postponing a conversation that will eventually happen anyway, usually at a point where more time and more of each other’s hearts are already invested.

Take that eight-month couple. Prompted by the brunch question neither of them could answer well, they finally sit down that week and have the conversation they’d been circling for months — naming their intentions, their expectations around exclusivity, what moving toward marriage would actually mean and on what kind of timeline. It’s not a comfortable conversation. There’s real relief in some of what gets said, and honestly, there might be grief too, if it turns out they want different things. But either outcome is better than another eight months of walking an unmarked trail, letting momentum decide something neither of them ever chose on purpose.

It’s worth adding that dating on purpose doesn’t require having every answer figured out on the first serious conversation. Direction can be genuine even when the exact timeline isn’t settled yet. What matters is that both people are actually choosing, together and out loud, rather than one person quietly hoping the relationship becomes something neither of them has agreed to pursue. A couple can honestly say we’re moving toward marriage and still need real conversations later about when. What they can’t do, if they want to date with integrity, is let month after month pass without ever naming the direction at all.

Purposeful dating isn’t a lack of trust in God — it’s cooperating with the way he actually works throughout Scripture: plan your course wisely, walk it with intention, and trust him with the steps you can’t control. Don’t mistake drifting for patience. Plan your course this week, and let God direct where it actually leads.

Reflect

1. Could you clearly state, in one sentence, what direction your relationship is currently headed and why — or has it mostly been drifting on convenience?
2. Is there a conversation about intention or timeline you've been avoiding because clarity feels riskier than ambiguity?
3. Where in this relationship have you confused waiting on God with simply avoiding a decision you're afraid to make?

A Prayer for Today

Lord, I confess I've let drifting feel like patience and avoidance feel like trust. I don't want to waste either of our years in a relationship neither of us has actually chosen on purpose. Give me courage to have the honest conversation about direction and timeline instead of hiding behind vague hope. Help me plan my course wisely, the way Proverbs describes, while still trusting you to direct the actual steps. Whatever the answer turns out to be, give me the strength to face it honestly rather than let ambiguity decide for me. In Jesus's name, amen.

Your Action Step

This week, have one direct conversation with your partner naming where you believe the relationship is headed and by when, instead of letting time decide for you.