To Give or Not to Give

I've been learning a lot over the past month. I'm beginning to see why God has allowed me to be in a dating relationship. In the beginning of the relationship, I was of course, happy, full of hopes and visions for "our future". As the dating relationship began growing, I started noticing what was "not" there which I thought "should" be there. I wanted him to be more like______ and to say more of _______ and to react like ________ and to understand me exactly how I understand myself. Recently I began noticing how much about "ME" I was making this relationship. I started forgetting the reason I wanted to be in a godly relationship. I remember before even being interested in my boyfriend, I would pray for God's will in my life and if he wanted to bless me with a relationship, I prayed that the relationship would have a purpose. In other words, if I was going to date and maybe even eventually marry someone, it would be so that we could become a team. We'd compliment each other in our values and priorities in life and we would set out to encourage others by offering hospitality, advice with things we have learned or are learning, and just give in any way we can. I prayed that if this relationship would not do that, then I much preferred not to be in a relationship at all. You see, my whole life, I wanted a relationship like this, but even more now that I have been restored to Christ and the church. So why have I been making this relationship about ME lately? 1 Thessolonians 1:6-8 says "You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.  And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere." I love this scripture! Recently my boyfriend and I spoke about how we both want to be more "outwardly focused", in other words, we want to give to others and encourage others throughout our relationship. When we see each other every few months, we want to find ways to give to others, whether single or dating couples. We want to serve others and we want to be an example to everyone, even while we're over a thousand miles away.  I'm already so grateful to God that we have set dating boundaries that are helping us to stay focused on God and to be righteous. He had done an amazing job leading the way in this area and my trust for him has grown tremendously. He makes the decision every day to put his own desires/wants asides in order to meet my needs and in order to hold me up with respect making sure I am pure and blameless before the Lord. I love that about him. I want to keep following his lead and I want to make the wisest decisions when it comes to our relationship. I strongly believe that when we focus on giving to others and when we try to find ways to glorify God, we grow stronger and stronger in faith and in our walks with God. I learned from my dating mistakes of my past. I was often led by selfish men, even "Christian" men, who thought of their own needs before my spiritual needs. I often caved in and followed along, obeying my emotions of the moment. This is a mistake I don't want to ever make again. The only thing it did was distance me from God and lessen my trust in men. 
I'm so grateful for having my boyfriend in my life. He is a treasure and I pray to never grow ungrateful. I look forward to learning how we both can give and serve and grow spiritually in ways we would never otherwise if we were not dating (because dating really does challenge you and test you-that's for sure!). :)