Relationship Goals

Michael Todd, lead pastor of Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, offers a faith-based guide to romantic relationships, arguing that popular culture promotes a misleading vision of love and that God's Word provides a stable framework for pursuing meaningful connections. Todd draws on personal experience, biblical teaching, and anonymized pastoral counseling stories to address readers at every relational stage.

Todd opens by examining the #RelationshipGoals trend on social media, where idealized images of celebrity couples encourage people to adopt unrealistic standards. He contends that most people's relational ideals are shaped by television, music, and social media rather than by biblical wisdom. Todd explains that he grew up in Tulsa in a churchgoing family with four brothers and parents who have remained married over 40 years. He met his wife, Natalie, at age 15; they dated for roughly eight years and married in 2010. Using the metaphor of archery, he frames the book's central argument: Without a clear, God-given target, relational effort is wasted. He establishes a guiding motto of progression over perfection and commits to transparency about his own relational mistakes.

Todd argues that a relationship with God must precede all human relationships. He points to the Trinity as evidence that relationship is foundational to existence and cites Jesus's two greatest commandments, to love God and to love your neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39), as proof that the best human connections flow from knowing God. He illustrates this with the story of Doug, a family friend whose loss of faith triggered the collapse of his business, friendships, and marriage. Todd also contends that Adam had purpose, tending the Garden of Eden, before he had a partner, and that Eve was created to help him fulfill that work. He introduces the book's framework for romantic progression: singleness, dating, engagement, marriage, sacrificial love, and potentially children, urging readers to embrace whatever relational season they currently occupy.

Todd devotes considerable attention to singleness, reframing it not as a deficiency but as potentially "the most important part of the relationship process" (47). He challenges the cultural pressure to exit singleness quickly and contends that one can love others only to the degree one loves oneself, a self-love rooted in understanding God's love. He tells the story of Diamond, a member of his congregation who survived sexual abuse as a teenager and turned to partying and sexual relationships in college. After finding Christ, Diamond stopped dating for a season to heal and develop her gifts, eventually earning advanced degrees and building a successful career. Todd proposes three activities for singleness captured by the letter "I": invest in friendships and passions, imagine future goals, and inspire others.

Moving to dating, Todd contrasts recreational dating, which is aimless and physically casual, with intentional dating, purposeful pursuit aimed at determining whether the other person is right for marriage. He opens with a confessional account of his own failures: As a young adult, he broke up with Natalie under the pretense of seeking God but actually pursued other women and became sexually active. Natalie retaliated by seeing another man, and after reconciling and marrying, they endured roughly 10 years of mutual insecurity before God healed their relationship. Todd argues that dating is not a destination but "transportation to a relational target" (66) and warns against being "unequally yoked" (2 Corinthians 6:14), using the agricultural metaphor of mismatched oxen to illustrate how partners with fundamentally different spiritual commitments damage each other. He outlines a practical 90-day intentional friendship program in which couples discuss relationship fears, set physical boundaries, and read a relationship book together, and he advises evaluating a partner's patterns rather than potential.

Addressing when relationships need to end, Todd draws on the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar from Genesis. He derives two reasons for breaking up: when a relationship began out of impatience rather than God's direction, and when it undermines one's God-given purpose. He identifies three qualities of a good breakup: End it quickly, end it kindly, and end it cleanly, with no vague breaks or open doors.

Todd calls readers to surrender their sexuality to God, reclaiming sex as a good gift designed for marriage. He introduces the metaphor of a sex container: Just as uncontained water causes floods but channeled water generates power, sex within marriage produces blessing while sex outside marriage produces destruction. Engaging 1 Corinthians 6, set against the backdrop of ancient Corinth, a city known for rampant sexual immorality, Todd follows the apostle Paul, author of 1 Corinthians, in arguing that so-called sexual freedom is actually slavery to sex and that the body was made for the Lord. He provides specific steps for surrender and includes a written prayer for readers to mark a turning point.

Todd next introduces the concept of soul ties, connections formed through the mind, will, and emotions when a person's soul becomes deeply attached to someone. He distinguishes godly soul ties, such as marriage and deep friendships, from ungodly ones formed through sexual relationships outside marriage. Using 1 Corinthians 6:15–17, he argues that sex creates a one-flesh union even outside of covenant, meaning every sexual encounter forms a binding counterfeit marriage. He illustrates this with the story of Caleb and Chloe, newlyweds whose marriage nearly collapsed when Chloe discovered Caleb's ongoing involvement with an ex-girlfriend to whom he was bound by a soul tie. Todd provides a four-step process for cutting soul ties: call it by identifying the bond honestly, confess it to a trusted person because "God can't heal what you won't reveal" (134), cancel it by removing all reminders, and cast it by surrendering grief to God through prayer. He concludes by urging readers to draw on the spiritual union that believers share with Christ, whose resurrection power is sufficient to overcome even the strongest bonds.

Todd presents his model of godly marriage as a triangle: one whole man plus one whole woman plus God equals one healthy marriage. He insists that marriage requires two already-whole individuals with God as the essential third partner; as each spouse draws closer to God at the triangle's apex, they draw closer to each other. He argues that real, sacrificial love comes after marriage because the love described in 1 Corinthians 13 can be fully practiced only within lifelong covenant. Addressing divorce, Todd cites Malachi 2:16 and Jesus's teaching that adultery is the only acceptable ground, while noting Paul's secondary exception in 1 Corinthians 7:15 for cases where an unbelieving spouse insists on leaving. He urges struggling couples to seek counseling and introduces the acronym ONE for sustaining marriage: Ownership of God's authority over the relationship, Nurture of both spiritual and spousal bonds, and Evolve through continual growth together.

In a chapter co-authored with Natalie, Todd presents three practical keys to a successful marriage: understanding each other's needs (Natalie identifies women's needs as security, affection, and communication, and men's needs as honor, support, and sex); learning how to communicate by discovering each other's love language (each person's preferred way of giving and receiving love); and resolving conflict by eliminating unspoken expectations and expressing root feelings gently rather than lashing out.

In the conclusion, Todd reflects on his and Natalie's upcoming 10th wedding anniversary as a miracle built from broken pieces. He frames repentance as the pivotal turn that breaks relational cycles, drawing on Acts 3:19–20 to assure readers that turning from sin and toward Jesus brings refreshment. He closes with a prayer that all of the reader's relationships will be renewed through that turn toward God.