(by Hudson Russell Davis)
Like yours, my heart is a library of loneliness, longing to be read, but most people come only to browse. All too often the real feelings go back on the shelf.
— Tim Hansel
One of Satan’s chief means of crippling us is to convince us in our loneliness that we are truly alone, not simply without a mate but without a friend, without help and without God—forsaken. He whispers that whatever cries we utter are spoken into thin air and deaf ears, both human and divine. He tells us that people do not care and that God does not care, but it is not so.
Everything that has overtaken us is common to humankind. We all suffer loneliness. We all suffer rejection. We all raise up hope only to know disappointment. This is true of the single and it is true of the married, true under the limelight of success and the clouds of failure. We all know, to some degree, what it is to be misunderstood or ignored.
This does not mean that our sufferings are not individual, not unique; it means we do not suffer alone. I cannot know the ways you have been cut or the bruises you bear, but I care. We can never truly “understand” but need only love. While it is wonderful if someone understands, it is better if they care.
Each of us knows a particular sorrow, but we all know the pain of loneliness and the hurt of dreams deferred. We could resolve not to dream, but that is not wise. We could resolve not to feel, but that is not practical. By never speaking we could withdraw from the dangers of miscommunication, but that is not human. It seems so simple—no dreams no waking horrors, no feelings no hurt, no misunderstanding no discord. Isolation is a natural answer, but it is spiritual suicide.
If we choose not to risk we loose ever so subtly, the sharp edge to our faith. Over time we become people whose lives are as bland as our dreamless nights. Over time we become the boring but safe people who squash the dreams of others and tell them they should be “realistic.” Over time we may convince ourselves that we are the only unhappy souls in the world. We may even come to believe that a tasteless existence is really contentment. It is not. It is a numb, anesthetized, existence that falls short of living. It is a coma.
Self-deceit would rather ask nothing of God than wrestle with the answers he does or does not give. Isolation would rather resolve to need no one than risk failed relationships—even failed friendships. Because that is what it will come to if we never make peace with the loneliness. If it is suppressed, it may one day explode.
If ever we withdraw behind our carefully constructed barricades and for fear of disappointment relinquish hope, we shut out wife, husband and all living things. That is the danger—numbness not only to the hopes and dreams we harbored in our youth, but numbness to all dreams and hopes that life naturally cultivates.
Years of loneliness can warp our thinking and sap our strength. In time we may imagine that over that dune and the next dune is nothing more than sun, sand—and loneliness. So many of you have shared with me you felt lonely and alone in your loneliness. You have been very kind in telling me that my honesty eased your loneliness. I want to tell you that you were never alone. Alone is what the desert makes us feel, but we are not alone.
Indeed not only do I suffer the same trials, but also many of those you encounter weekly as you suffer in silence. How do I know? They have written and told me—a stranger—what they were afraid to tell you. And you have written and told me—a stranger—what you were afraid to tell them. Perhaps some of you felt comfortable with me because I had opened my heart and because you need not look me in the eyes and fear my rebuke. I have encouraged everyone that they are not alone, but want to add one last charge: break the silence! Open up and let someone in. And if someone speaks to you, listen between the lines for the pain that words cannot express.
Be a safe harbor for hurting hearts. Paul writes, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). You may find the comfort you have enjoyed here—in knowing my heart—closer than expected. Perhaps someone near you is waiting for you to break the silence and live by honesty. It is the surest turn in our healing to understand that we are not alone, that we share a common sorrow, a common longing, which is not our own private nightmare.
It is the Enemy’s greatest tool to cripple us, to isolate us in our loneliness. He then attempts to convince us that all the whispers and all the laughter is about us—that we are diseased or damaged and that everyone we meet knows it. But it is not true. He is a liar and the Father of Lies. There is no truth in him (John 8:44). Our greatest weapon is the faith we have been given in a God who loved us enough to rescue us “while we were still sinners” (Rom. 5:8). Our greatest weapon against the isolation is to confess both our love of God and our genuine longing to a living, breathing, person who can touch us and restore us in love.
Beware! Not everyone loves honesty. Those who have already given up hope will not want their memories stirred, will not want the embers poked. They fear disappointment. I fear disappointment. For some, who have found peace in simple answers, the complexity of a real God who acts in ways we do not understand and cannot explain will be too much. But if ever the Christian community is to rise above the charge of “hypocrite” we must come out of the shadows and honestly state that we are content but not satisfied.
Here, I will start: “Hi. My name is Hudson and I am lonely.”
Now you. ...
Source: crosswalk
Friday, July 4, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
When to Settle
(by Candice Watters)
When Steve and I started dating, one of my close friends said she was worried that we'd end up getting married. What in the world? I thought. We've only been dating a few days. Marriage? And so what if we do? What would be so bad about that?
"I just don't want to see you settle," she said. At the time, Steve was still planning to use his degree to go back to his small hometown to be the principal of his dad's church-sponsored school. I guess in her eyes that was beneath me. Me, a soon to be holder of a master's degree. "You've got so much ambition," she said. "I'd hate to find you, years from now, disappointed in him. A frustrated wife who 'under married.'"
My friend was a believer in the notion that to marry a man without certain traits or ambitions would be settling. And in her mind, settling was bad. No longer just a guideline, not settling was itself a goal. Something worth striving for. As in: Finish that report for work, lose 20 pounds, get a boyfriend, don't settle.
And so we find ourselves in the midst of a massive shift in marriage trends: women waiting longer than ever to marry, all the while holding out for their soul mate -- "the one." When a nice guy asks a woman out, if the sparks of attraction aren't hot from the start, she turns him down, reasoning, sure, I want to get married someday, but I'm not about to ... settle.
Where has all this not settling gotten us? In "Where Have All the Men Gone?" Laura Nolan writes about men who are still single at 35.
I realised that over the past decade [my friend] Jamie has effectively been degenerating from the man he was at 25 years old to the boy he is today. The person who fell in love and believed that when you found a great girl you counted your blessings and married her has morphed into someone in search of nothing more than a bit of fun, who views any relationship that he can't get out of at the ping of a text message with genuine unease.
I am often told that our problem boils down to bad timing. In our early twenties (the age at which our parents tended to meet and marry), we, arguably the first generation of properly educated and professionally ambitious women, were not ready to settle down and start having babies.
By our late twenties many of us did end up reconnecting with our first loves, or met men of a similar age who were still young enough to want to match and hatch. But for those who didn't, life is increasingly complicated — and infuriating.
Nolan says men are like eggs. If they don't hatch in time, they go bad. (The cost of delay is indeed high.)
In the wake of stories like this about frustrated women who are marrying later, or not at all, comes Lori Gottleib. She's shaking things up with her article "Marry Him!", saying women should settle and get married because "it's better to feel alone in marriage than actually be alone." Not only that, but the longer you wait to settle, the more settling you'll have to do (bad eggs anyone?).
Why does this matter? And why should you care? Because stories about family trends on the cover of The Atlantic have been known to send ripples through our society (anyone remember "Dan Quayle Was Right"?); because she's speaking from a camp that has long offered a chorus of hostility toward marriage and men, but now, thanks to her personal experience, appears to be changing her tune; and because even though you have to dig for it, I think some truths surface in the midst of her story.
Hers is a story that began with lots of dating and sex, but never marriage (no man was good enough), and a feminist ideology culminating in Gottleib choosing to have a baby via sperm donor. Now she's an exhausted, lonely single mom still waiting and wondering if she should have held out less hope for Mr. Right and gone ahead with one of the many Mr. Good Enoughs. Her present state is a far cry from what she envisioned when she started out. She used to see things optimistically: "I can have it all — a baby now, my soul mate later!" Now she knows better. "Well ... ha! Hahahaha. And ha."
Her sound and fury signifies something: Her dissatisfaction with what her choices have gotten her. It's not a bitter tale of heartbreak or self-pity as much as a warning to all the women still young enough to have a lot of good-enough men to choose from that, if they're wise, they will.
We'd be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won't tell you it's a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she'll say that what she really wants is a husband (and by extension, a child).
Not so fast you say. To which she replies,
Oh, I know — I'm guessing there are single 30-year-old women reading this right now who will be writing letters to the editor to say that the women I know aren't widely representative, that I've been co-opted by the cult of the feminist backlash, and basically, that I have no idea what I'm talking about. And all I can say is, if you say you're not worried, either you're in denial or you're lying.
We do desire marriage. And though we might not recognize that longing as such at age 20, the longer you go without it, the more you realize you need it. That's the truth part. She understands the problem. But that's not enough. Her "solution" — just go with the next warm male body who's not too weird — hardly seems helpful.
Even if her idea of marriage as less than "a passion-fest" and "more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business" is partly accurate, what woman wants to be in business for the rest of her life with a guy she's just tolerating?
Marriage columnist and author Maggie Gallagher (The Case for Marriage) agrees:
... in the end Lori, who has got her fingers on a big chunk of truth, has missed the most important point. Women shouldn't settle for less, we should appreciate more. A good family man is not a step down, it's a step up.
The Real Non-Negotiables
Have you ever known a man that you've thought about dating, but in the end, ruled him out because to do otherwise would be settling? If you're holding out for perfection, or have a long list of must-haves, it's possible you're overlooking some good men who are already in your life. Knowing what about a potential mate is worth appreciating and what's just eye candy has everything to do with when you should "settle."
Choosing to marry a man — whomever he is — inevitably involves compromise (on his part, and yours). That's why it's not truly settling. It's just making a decision. Something we do every time we pick one thing over another. In most areas, it's called being decisive. For some reason we've made indecision noble when it comes to dating.
What's needed is a new, objective standard for what makes a good match, because, for a Christian woman, there are some non-negotiables for choosing a mate. That's where Gottlieb's advice falls short. Thankfully we have a standard that's completely reliable.
* A man must be a believer.
* He must be able and willing to provide for his family.
* He must love sacrificially.
* He must be honest, have a good reputation and strive for the qualities of a spiritual leader. (See Acts 6:3, 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9)
If you're measuring a man against that list, considering his aptitude for growing into full maturity in those areas, then marrying him is praiseworthy. Even if he is shorter than you. Or younger. Or bald. Failing to meet our worldly expectations — our romantic shopping list — is no liability if he meets biblical ones. That's the only list that matters.
And marriage to such a man could hardly be called settling. In another day, it went by the much more pleasant, and desired, description: settling down. When faced with a big decision, my dad used to say, "Honey, you have to settle the issue. Make the best decision you can, in view of the wisdom of Scripture and prayer. Then move forward confidently." Putting the unending list of options to rest is freeing. Once you make a decision, you can stop noodling, debating, and weighing the alternatives, and get on with the rest of your life.
"Find a good man and love him," Gallagher says. "Do it not only because it's the best way to raise a family. Do it because spending your life actually loving a man, however imperfectly, is better than spending your time perpetually shopping for the right set of inner sensations in your brain (a.k.a. waiting for 'the One.')."
And my friend who said I'd be settling if I married Steve? She was looking at externals, so her ability to rightly judge was skewed. I saw beyond where Steve was at that moment, to the man I knew he could become. And because my faith was based on that biblical list, I knew it was well founded. Thankfully I followed the wisdom of Scripture.
I wasn't disappointed.
Source: Boundless
When Steve and I started dating, one of my close friends said she was worried that we'd end up getting married. What in the world? I thought. We've only been dating a few days. Marriage? And so what if we do? What would be so bad about that?
"I just don't want to see you settle," she said. At the time, Steve was still planning to use his degree to go back to his small hometown to be the principal of his dad's church-sponsored school. I guess in her eyes that was beneath me. Me, a soon to be holder of a master's degree. "You've got so much ambition," she said. "I'd hate to find you, years from now, disappointed in him. A frustrated wife who 'under married.'"
My friend was a believer in the notion that to marry a man without certain traits or ambitions would be settling. And in her mind, settling was bad. No longer just a guideline, not settling was itself a goal. Something worth striving for. As in: Finish that report for work, lose 20 pounds, get a boyfriend, don't settle.
And so we find ourselves in the midst of a massive shift in marriage trends: women waiting longer than ever to marry, all the while holding out for their soul mate -- "the one." When a nice guy asks a woman out, if the sparks of attraction aren't hot from the start, she turns him down, reasoning, sure, I want to get married someday, but I'm not about to ... settle.
Where has all this not settling gotten us? In "Where Have All the Men Gone?" Laura Nolan writes about men who are still single at 35.
I realised that over the past decade [my friend] Jamie has effectively been degenerating from the man he was at 25 years old to the boy he is today. The person who fell in love and believed that when you found a great girl you counted your blessings and married her has morphed into someone in search of nothing more than a bit of fun, who views any relationship that he can't get out of at the ping of a text message with genuine unease.
I am often told that our problem boils down to bad timing. In our early twenties (the age at which our parents tended to meet and marry), we, arguably the first generation of properly educated and professionally ambitious women, were not ready to settle down and start having babies.
By our late twenties many of us did end up reconnecting with our first loves, or met men of a similar age who were still young enough to want to match and hatch. But for those who didn't, life is increasingly complicated — and infuriating.
Nolan says men are like eggs. If they don't hatch in time, they go bad. (The cost of delay is indeed high.)
In the wake of stories like this about frustrated women who are marrying later, or not at all, comes Lori Gottleib. She's shaking things up with her article "Marry Him!", saying women should settle and get married because "it's better to feel alone in marriage than actually be alone." Not only that, but the longer you wait to settle, the more settling you'll have to do (bad eggs anyone?).
Why does this matter? And why should you care? Because stories about family trends on the cover of The Atlantic have been known to send ripples through our society (anyone remember "Dan Quayle Was Right"?); because she's speaking from a camp that has long offered a chorus of hostility toward marriage and men, but now, thanks to her personal experience, appears to be changing her tune; and because even though you have to dig for it, I think some truths surface in the midst of her story.
Hers is a story that began with lots of dating and sex, but never marriage (no man was good enough), and a feminist ideology culminating in Gottleib choosing to have a baby via sperm donor. Now she's an exhausted, lonely single mom still waiting and wondering if she should have held out less hope for Mr. Right and gone ahead with one of the many Mr. Good Enoughs. Her present state is a far cry from what she envisioned when she started out. She used to see things optimistically: "I can have it all — a baby now, my soul mate later!" Now she knows better. "Well ... ha! Hahahaha. And ha."
Her sound and fury signifies something: Her dissatisfaction with what her choices have gotten her. It's not a bitter tale of heartbreak or self-pity as much as a warning to all the women still young enough to have a lot of good-enough men to choose from that, if they're wise, they will.
We'd be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won't tell you it's a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she'll say that what she really wants is a husband (and by extension, a child).
Not so fast you say. To which she replies,
Oh, I know — I'm guessing there are single 30-year-old women reading this right now who will be writing letters to the editor to say that the women I know aren't widely representative, that I've been co-opted by the cult of the feminist backlash, and basically, that I have no idea what I'm talking about. And all I can say is, if you say you're not worried, either you're in denial or you're lying.
We do desire marriage. And though we might not recognize that longing as such at age 20, the longer you go without it, the more you realize you need it. That's the truth part. She understands the problem. But that's not enough. Her "solution" — just go with the next warm male body who's not too weird — hardly seems helpful.
Even if her idea of marriage as less than "a passion-fest" and "more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business" is partly accurate, what woman wants to be in business for the rest of her life with a guy she's just tolerating?
Marriage columnist and author Maggie Gallagher (The Case for Marriage) agrees:
... in the end Lori, who has got her fingers on a big chunk of truth, has missed the most important point. Women shouldn't settle for less, we should appreciate more. A good family man is not a step down, it's a step up.
The Real Non-Negotiables
Have you ever known a man that you've thought about dating, but in the end, ruled him out because to do otherwise would be settling? If you're holding out for perfection, or have a long list of must-haves, it's possible you're overlooking some good men who are already in your life. Knowing what about a potential mate is worth appreciating and what's just eye candy has everything to do with when you should "settle."
Choosing to marry a man — whomever he is — inevitably involves compromise (on his part, and yours). That's why it's not truly settling. It's just making a decision. Something we do every time we pick one thing over another. In most areas, it's called being decisive. For some reason we've made indecision noble when it comes to dating.
What's needed is a new, objective standard for what makes a good match, because, for a Christian woman, there are some non-negotiables for choosing a mate. That's where Gottlieb's advice falls short. Thankfully we have a standard that's completely reliable.
* A man must be a believer.
* He must be able and willing to provide for his family.
* He must love sacrificially.
* He must be honest, have a good reputation and strive for the qualities of a spiritual leader. (See Acts 6:3, 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9)
If you're measuring a man against that list, considering his aptitude for growing into full maturity in those areas, then marrying him is praiseworthy. Even if he is shorter than you. Or younger. Or bald. Failing to meet our worldly expectations — our romantic shopping list — is no liability if he meets biblical ones. That's the only list that matters.
And marriage to such a man could hardly be called settling. In another day, it went by the much more pleasant, and desired, description: settling down. When faced with a big decision, my dad used to say, "Honey, you have to settle the issue. Make the best decision you can, in view of the wisdom of Scripture and prayer. Then move forward confidently." Putting the unending list of options to rest is freeing. Once you make a decision, you can stop noodling, debating, and weighing the alternatives, and get on with the rest of your life.
"Find a good man and love him," Gallagher says. "Do it not only because it's the best way to raise a family. Do it because spending your life actually loving a man, however imperfectly, is better than spending your time perpetually shopping for the right set of inner sensations in your brain (a.k.a. waiting for 'the One.')."
And my friend who said I'd be settling if I married Steve? She was looking at externals, so her ability to rightly judge was skewed. I saw beyond where Steve was at that moment, to the man I knew he could become. And because my faith was based on that biblical list, I knew it was well founded. Thankfully I followed the wisdom of Scripture.
I wasn't disappointed.
Source: Boundless
Settling
(by Scott Croft)
In this article, author Scott Croft continues unpacking themes first explored in "When to Settle," by Candice Watters.
* * *
My advice is this: Settle! That's right. Don't worry about passion or intense connection.... Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.
Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment.... It's not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it's downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize ... and the theme of holding out for true love ... permeates our collective mentality.
I came across these paragraphs the other night while doing some research on a completely different topic (it was late, and my internet research skills aren't state of the art anyway). The piece was written by an apparently non-Christian, successful, early-40s, single professional woman who had recently experienced an epiphany of sorts. She described an outing to the park on a beautiful spring day with a couple of friends — also single. In lamenting their common lack of romantic prospects, it occurred to the women that each of them had had decent guys interested in marrying them at some point but had turned them down in the hope of landing "The One," "Mr. Right," or some other term connoting the perfect man as they individually conceived of him. The had all refused to "settle" and were not pleased with the results of that strategy — thus the above advice.
We've talked a lot in this column and related comment threads about a biblical approach to dating and finding a spouse, but we've never directly addressed the idea of "settling." Before we dig in, let's define what we mean. Let's use the following as our working definition of "settling": a willingness to date or marry someone who clearly fails to meet all the major criteria on your "list" to the extent you dreamed about when picturing your spouse, and/or doesn't appear to be your "soul mate" in the Friends/Sex in the City/fill in vacuous worldly movie/show here sense of the word.
Think Christians don't deal with this? Think again. I can't begin to tell you how many single believers I have spoken to and counseled who are trying to avoid settling, worried that they are settling, think it's "wrong" to settle, etc. Good relationships have gone down the tubes or never gotten off the ground because of this issue. The question for us is whether that approach to dating and marriage gels with the biblical approach to life and love we've tried to outline here.
It doesn't, for at least three reasons.
A Selfish Premise
The first is that worries about settling reveal a selfishness approach to marriage that misunderstands the Bible's idea of love. "Holding out for true love" as the above quote defines it means demanding a person to whom I am completely attracted in the secular sense, somebody who meets all the qualifications on my "list," and whom I believe is the "best I can do." In the author's mind — and unfortunately in the minds of many single Christians — anything short of finding that perfect match created in one's mind falls short of "true love" and constitutes the sad and unwise act of "settling." Such an approach to love and marriage fundamentally misunderstands the Bible's idea of both. I wrote about this at length in this space many moons ago. The highlights are worth repeating:
I don't mean that such an approach [looking for a spouse based primarily on my own "list" and attraction] involves malice or the intent to hurt anyone. I simply mean that such an approach is self-centered. It conceives of finding a spouse from the standpoint of what will be most enjoyable for me based on my tastes and desires. What will I receive from marriage to this or that person?
In Scripture, love is described not as a mere emotion based on personal desire (i.e., "attraction"), but as an act of the will that leads to selfless actions toward others. According to Jesus Himself, the second-greatest commandment (after loving God) is to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31). He also said "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Jesus' love for us did not result from our inherent loveliness or our wonderful treatment of Him. He didn't go to the cross as a spontaneous response triggered by mere emotion. His perfect love of us was a choice, an act undertaken despite our lack of attractiveness — and it led to both sacrifice and joy.
The apostle Paul agrees. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes the biblical definition of love in detail, and he lets us know that love isn't just felt, it does something — something selfless.
In the world's version of attraction, I'm a consumer, not a servant. I respond to attributes of yours that I like because of their potential to please me. Again, this is not malicious or evil — it's just not how we're primarily called to treat one another in Scripture. It's not the Bible's idea of love.
[According to scripture], marriage is a beautiful (if distant) analogy of the way that Christ has perfectly loved and sacrificed for the church, and the way the church, His bride, responds to her Lord.
Marriage is incredibly fun; it's also incredibly hard. For most people it is the greatest act of ministry and service to another person that they will ever undertake. Husbands are literally called to "give themselves up for" their wives. Wives are called to submit to, respect, and serve their husbands "as to the Lord." Though husbands and wives receive countless blessings from a biblical marriage, the very idea of biblical marriage describes an act — many acts — of love, service, sacrifice, and ministry toward a sinful human being. According to Scripture, marriage is anything but a selfish endeavor. It is a ministry.
What sense does it make to undertake that ministry based primarily on a list of self-centered (and often petty) preferences? If your idea of attraction — whatever that is — dominates your pursuit of a spouse, consider this: Is your approach biblical?
The Bible calls us to reject the world's approach to love and marriage. That may require a pretty radical rethinking of your own approach. If it does, join the club. If you can manage that rethinking (with the Lord's help), it will drain much of the angst from any discussion about "settling."
Everybody Settles
Another problem with the usual discussion on settling is that it usually reflects two unbiblical beliefs: (1) we can strategize our way around the effects of sin in human relationships and the reality that marriage is hard work, and (2) we can hope to be perfectly, ultimately fulfilled by marriage — or any other earthly relationship.
If you have a biblical understanding of human nature, then you will realize that in one sense, everybody settles — even the people who think they are refusing to. Every person who decides to marry makes the decision to marry a sinner. That means you will marry someone who is at some level selfish, who has insecurities and an ego, who has annoying tendencies that you will only discover after marriage because they will only be revealed in that intimate context. And don't forget, your spouse will have married the same type of person. As sinners, we all "settle" for marriage to a person who will not always meet our sinful, individualized, selfish whims, who will not be the spouse we "dreamed of" every day, and who likely entered the bargain with some level of expectation that you were going to be the one for them.
It's also true that anyone who enters marriage expecting it to serve as a substitute for Christ in the ultimate fulfillment of his or her own desires for companionship, love, intimacy, security or anything else will indeed be disillusioned — quickly. It's a fallen world, and we are sinners. We cannot gain in any earthly relationship what the world tells us to seek from "romance" and marriage. We all settle.
Nobody Settles
Finally, deep worry about settling for less than one desires or deserves in marriage fails two acknowledge two fundamental biblical truths that apply to all areas of the Christian life — not just dating and marriage: (1) as sinners, what we deserve is condemnation from God; and (2) we have been given greater gifts than we could possibly deserve or attain on our own. In other words, compared to what our lives should be before a just and holy God, no believer in Christ ever settles — in marriage or in anything else.
To get at this, we have to talk about sin again, so forgive me for being a little stark for a minute. The Bible teaches that we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It teaches that what we all "deserve" is instant condemnation at the hands of a righteous and holy God. We deserve hell. But the Lord hasn't given that to you, has he? For God's people, he has given salvation in Christ, eternal life, sonship in God's kingdom, and glimpses of heaven on earth — one of which is marriage. I know, I know — we're talking about settling here. Still, in any discussion of earthly circumstances or relationships, when we are tempted to pursue and think we're entitled to an idealized, easy, hassle-free life, it's no bad thing to think about the truth of what we deserve, and the blessings God has given us instead. God's people don't settle; the "best we could do" apart from Christ is a horrible tragedy compared to the lives we have with him.
What's more, nobody really "settles" in a biblical marriage because God has designed marriage as a wonderful gift that gets better with age. This is what people worried about settling don't seem to get. They think joy in marriage is all about the original choice one makes about whom to marry, rather than how the nurture and build their marriage. Again, this misses the picture of biblical marriage.
Read Song of Songs. Look at the implied deepening of a marriage that has to take place if Ephesians 5:22-33 is to be lived out. Sure, it takes hard work. But if two people are truly faithful as spouses, growing in God's word, studying one another deeply and attentively with an eye toward uniquely ministering to and serving each other, both will find that 10 years in they are known and loved and cared for better and more deeply than when they were newly married. That doesn't hinder passion, people. It builds it. More on this in later articles perhaps.
Bottom line, the real danger for God's people in pursuing a spouse is that we will "settle" for the world's vision of self, love, marriage and even romance, rather than a vision of those things steeped in scripture and rooted in the love of Christ. Biblical love and marriage ask more of us than the world's selfish pursuit of non-existent perfection. But the rewards are infinitely richer. "Keep your eyes on the prize"? Sure. Just make sure it's the right one.
Source: boundless
In this article, author Scott Croft continues unpacking themes first explored in "When to Settle," by Candice Watters.
* * *
My advice is this: Settle! That's right. Don't worry about passion or intense connection.... Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.
Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment.... It's not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it's downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize ... and the theme of holding out for true love ... permeates our collective mentality.
I came across these paragraphs the other night while doing some research on a completely different topic (it was late, and my internet research skills aren't state of the art anyway). The piece was written by an apparently non-Christian, successful, early-40s, single professional woman who had recently experienced an epiphany of sorts. She described an outing to the park on a beautiful spring day with a couple of friends — also single. In lamenting their common lack of romantic prospects, it occurred to the women that each of them had had decent guys interested in marrying them at some point but had turned them down in the hope of landing "The One," "Mr. Right," or some other term connoting the perfect man as they individually conceived of him. The had all refused to "settle" and were not pleased with the results of that strategy — thus the above advice.
We've talked a lot in this column and related comment threads about a biblical approach to dating and finding a spouse, but we've never directly addressed the idea of "settling." Before we dig in, let's define what we mean. Let's use the following as our working definition of "settling": a willingness to date or marry someone who clearly fails to meet all the major criteria on your "list" to the extent you dreamed about when picturing your spouse, and/or doesn't appear to be your "soul mate" in the Friends/Sex in the City/fill in vacuous worldly movie/show here sense of the word.
Think Christians don't deal with this? Think again. I can't begin to tell you how many single believers I have spoken to and counseled who are trying to avoid settling, worried that they are settling, think it's "wrong" to settle, etc. Good relationships have gone down the tubes or never gotten off the ground because of this issue. The question for us is whether that approach to dating and marriage gels with the biblical approach to life and love we've tried to outline here.
It doesn't, for at least three reasons.
A Selfish Premise
The first is that worries about settling reveal a selfishness approach to marriage that misunderstands the Bible's idea of love. "Holding out for true love" as the above quote defines it means demanding a person to whom I am completely attracted in the secular sense, somebody who meets all the qualifications on my "list," and whom I believe is the "best I can do." In the author's mind — and unfortunately in the minds of many single Christians — anything short of finding that perfect match created in one's mind falls short of "true love" and constitutes the sad and unwise act of "settling." Such an approach to love and marriage fundamentally misunderstands the Bible's idea of both. I wrote about this at length in this space many moons ago. The highlights are worth repeating:
I don't mean that such an approach [looking for a spouse based primarily on my own "list" and attraction] involves malice or the intent to hurt anyone. I simply mean that such an approach is self-centered. It conceives of finding a spouse from the standpoint of what will be most enjoyable for me based on my tastes and desires. What will I receive from marriage to this or that person?
In Scripture, love is described not as a mere emotion based on personal desire (i.e., "attraction"), but as an act of the will that leads to selfless actions toward others. According to Jesus Himself, the second-greatest commandment (after loving God) is to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31). He also said "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Jesus' love for us did not result from our inherent loveliness or our wonderful treatment of Him. He didn't go to the cross as a spontaneous response triggered by mere emotion. His perfect love of us was a choice, an act undertaken despite our lack of attractiveness — and it led to both sacrifice and joy.
The apostle Paul agrees. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes the biblical definition of love in detail, and he lets us know that love isn't just felt, it does something — something selfless.
In the world's version of attraction, I'm a consumer, not a servant. I respond to attributes of yours that I like because of their potential to please me. Again, this is not malicious or evil — it's just not how we're primarily called to treat one another in Scripture. It's not the Bible's idea of love.
[According to scripture], marriage is a beautiful (if distant) analogy of the way that Christ has perfectly loved and sacrificed for the church, and the way the church, His bride, responds to her Lord.
Marriage is incredibly fun; it's also incredibly hard. For most people it is the greatest act of ministry and service to another person that they will ever undertake. Husbands are literally called to "give themselves up for" their wives. Wives are called to submit to, respect, and serve their husbands "as to the Lord." Though husbands and wives receive countless blessings from a biblical marriage, the very idea of biblical marriage describes an act — many acts — of love, service, sacrifice, and ministry toward a sinful human being. According to Scripture, marriage is anything but a selfish endeavor. It is a ministry.
What sense does it make to undertake that ministry based primarily on a list of self-centered (and often petty) preferences? If your idea of attraction — whatever that is — dominates your pursuit of a spouse, consider this: Is your approach biblical?
The Bible calls us to reject the world's approach to love and marriage. That may require a pretty radical rethinking of your own approach. If it does, join the club. If you can manage that rethinking (with the Lord's help), it will drain much of the angst from any discussion about "settling."
Everybody Settles
Another problem with the usual discussion on settling is that it usually reflects two unbiblical beliefs: (1) we can strategize our way around the effects of sin in human relationships and the reality that marriage is hard work, and (2) we can hope to be perfectly, ultimately fulfilled by marriage — or any other earthly relationship.
If you have a biblical understanding of human nature, then you will realize that in one sense, everybody settles — even the people who think they are refusing to. Every person who decides to marry makes the decision to marry a sinner. That means you will marry someone who is at some level selfish, who has insecurities and an ego, who has annoying tendencies that you will only discover after marriage because they will only be revealed in that intimate context. And don't forget, your spouse will have married the same type of person. As sinners, we all "settle" for marriage to a person who will not always meet our sinful, individualized, selfish whims, who will not be the spouse we "dreamed of" every day, and who likely entered the bargain with some level of expectation that you were going to be the one for them.
It's also true that anyone who enters marriage expecting it to serve as a substitute for Christ in the ultimate fulfillment of his or her own desires for companionship, love, intimacy, security or anything else will indeed be disillusioned — quickly. It's a fallen world, and we are sinners. We cannot gain in any earthly relationship what the world tells us to seek from "romance" and marriage. We all settle.
Nobody Settles
Finally, deep worry about settling for less than one desires or deserves in marriage fails two acknowledge two fundamental biblical truths that apply to all areas of the Christian life — not just dating and marriage: (1) as sinners, what we deserve is condemnation from God; and (2) we have been given greater gifts than we could possibly deserve or attain on our own. In other words, compared to what our lives should be before a just and holy God, no believer in Christ ever settles — in marriage or in anything else.
To get at this, we have to talk about sin again, so forgive me for being a little stark for a minute. The Bible teaches that we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It teaches that what we all "deserve" is instant condemnation at the hands of a righteous and holy God. We deserve hell. But the Lord hasn't given that to you, has he? For God's people, he has given salvation in Christ, eternal life, sonship in God's kingdom, and glimpses of heaven on earth — one of which is marriage. I know, I know — we're talking about settling here. Still, in any discussion of earthly circumstances or relationships, when we are tempted to pursue and think we're entitled to an idealized, easy, hassle-free life, it's no bad thing to think about the truth of what we deserve, and the blessings God has given us instead. God's people don't settle; the "best we could do" apart from Christ is a horrible tragedy compared to the lives we have with him.
What's more, nobody really "settles" in a biblical marriage because God has designed marriage as a wonderful gift that gets better with age. This is what people worried about settling don't seem to get. They think joy in marriage is all about the original choice one makes about whom to marry, rather than how the nurture and build their marriage. Again, this misses the picture of biblical marriage.
Read Song of Songs. Look at the implied deepening of a marriage that has to take place if Ephesians 5:22-33 is to be lived out. Sure, it takes hard work. But if two people are truly faithful as spouses, growing in God's word, studying one another deeply and attentively with an eye toward uniquely ministering to and serving each other, both will find that 10 years in they are known and loved and cared for better and more deeply than when they were newly married. That doesn't hinder passion, people. It builds it. More on this in later articles perhaps.
Bottom line, the real danger for God's people in pursuing a spouse is that we will "settle" for the world's vision of self, love, marriage and even romance, rather than a vision of those things steeped in scripture and rooted in the love of Christ. Biblical love and marriage ask more of us than the world's selfish pursuit of non-existent perfection. But the rewards are infinitely richer. "Keep your eyes on the prize"? Sure. Just make sure it's the right one.
Source: boundless
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