My friend is a wonderful man of God. I met him almost a year ago at bible study on base where we work. We are both in the military. He and I connected immediately. Everything between us was Godly and good and right. We started to be tempted physically and never crossed into anything that was close to fornication, but as we all know, everything leads to that. We knew we cared about each other, and we never had to say a single word to each other about feelings or future plans between us because we both had the mutual understanding that we were watching and observing each other for future mates.
However, as we became closer and closer, we just naturally wanted to hug and hold each other and wrestle for fun and joke around. I knew what it was doing to me and my emotional attachment. We had standards of our own that matched up, but we slowly let them slip. Three times I had talked to him face to face, embarrassed, seriously telling him that everything we do and say to each other gives me hope and when we hug or hold hands it causes attachment and hope on my end. Also making it clear that God had been convicting me about our physical closeness. We still hadn’t made it official yet if we were courting because according to him, he didn’t know what God wanted.
Later on, I found out that there is a girl back home. WHO has absolutely no interest in him over the last seven years that he’s been pursuing her. He finally told me that he believes he’s supposed to marry this girl because God told him to pursue her. He wants to marry me, but can not disobey God. He did what Gideon did in the bible- at age 15 using paper with initials of all the girls in his class and only did it one time instead of twice like Gideon. The initials that were dry in the morning were the initials of this girl. When I came along last year, he decided to call her to end his pursuing and pursue me instead-without telling me. Finally, we went too far for either of us. We decided to separate aggressively. We did and since January 28th, I have grown so immensely again in my walk with God. Our sin is disgusting to me as it was even when we were in the midst of it. He and I have found peace between us after a long, hard road of recovery and reconciliation. Every day seems to get better and more at peace and God-glorifying. But I still find myself falling for him every once in a while. He is an incredible man of God who walks in biblical statutes. It pains me to think that we came so close to courting. But I know that God had to step in. We have rebounded where others probably would not have been able to and I’ve grown in ways I can’t describe and I am “preparing” as best I can.  I think I may be missing something and I need someone to tell me the way it is. Any suggestions?