I'm a freshman in college and just started a relationship.

We are both Christians and want to keep God in the center of our relationship.

However, I find myself making our relationship in my boyfriend an idol.

I depend on him for my happiness and I think about our relationship more than I think

about my relationship with God.

How can I stay away from that?

What does relational idolatry look like for someone in a new relationship, like mine?

Well amen to their mutual desire to keep God central, amen, amen, whatever couple be like

that.

Seems to me that Nora already has a significant picture in her mind of what idolatry looks

like because she thinks she's in it, at least in some measure.

I think she's being really honest there but her heart is against it which is a good sign.

I wonder if it would be more helpful for me to her in describing the positive alternative

to idolatry in a new relationship so that she might recognize idolatry as the opposite

of these things and so would be able to put her energies not so much into avoiding something

as pursuing something.

So that's the approach I'm going to take.

It seems to me that there are at least three ways that Nora can think about the way her

new romance relates to her relationship with Jesus.

First, she can think about it comparatively.

How does her affection for the boyfriend compare to her affection for Christ?

She's sort of thinking that way already.

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