Posted on 09/30/2015 2:40:51 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
You want to know one reason why so many Christian marriages end up in divorce?
Ronald Reagan once quipped that the trouble with his political opponents, “is not that they are ignorant. It’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
Well, I’ve had a bee in my bonnet for years over something that far too many of my fellow Christians believe in that just isn’t so. I speak, gentle listener, of the whole “soul mate” nonsense, especially when it comes to finding a husband or wife.
Let me be perfectly clear: No matter how many ads for Christian dating services you hear or trendy books you read, we simply don’t have “soul mates,” at least as our confused culture understands that term. Does this surprise you? It shouldn’t. Look for that concept, by the way, in the Bible, and the only thing you can find remotely close to it is the fierce friendship of David and Jonathan. “Jonathan made a covenant with David,” Scripture says, “because he loved him as his own soul.”
Now those are soul mates, friends. But the Bible knows nothing of romantic “soul mates.” This concept is more New Age than Christian. The Huffington Post gives nine signs that you’ve found your soul mate, the first one being: “You communicate without speaking.” Okay. One New Age website, however, gives three signs you’ve “definitely” found your soul mate: “You just connect without trying,” “Your level of communication is unmatched,” and “You create your own world together.”
That’s cute, it’s nice, maybe it’s even romantic . . . but it’s certainly not biblical.
Now all of this confusion might be kind of funny if it weren’t so harmful to naïve Christians and others who’ve fallen for this idea. Because this idea implies that somewhere out there is that “perfect person” for you, and if your marriage is not exploding with intense communication, romance, and a great sex life, well then maybe it’s because your spouse is not your “soul mate.”
Men who are a little bored with their wives, or vice versa, might be tempted by a co-worker who “understands me so well and is my soul mate, or could be my soul mate.” But frankly, this is a recipe for adultery and divorce, and families end up getting dropped for “soul mates.”
Once I wrote a tribute to C.S. Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters” called “Screwtape Proposes a Divorce,” in which Wasphead, my invented senior devil, says the following to Gallstone, the junior devil: “That [soul mates] do not exist is to be kept TOP SECRET. … Let’s be blunt: these humans are scouring the globe for someone with whom a relationship will require absolutely no work or compromise. … Many adult humans who have long ago dismissed Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny as myths somehow persist in believing this person to exist.”
The “soul mate” concept is unworkable and completely unfair to the real other person in your life. It puts enormous pressure on him or her to perform, to meet our impossible expectations. As Jerry Root and Stan Guthrie point out in “The Sacrament of Evangelism,” putting others in God’s place—expecting them to give us what only He can—is a naked form of idolatry and will only lead to deep disappointment.
Here’s another thing. The “soul mate” idea suggests that marriage is all about me, that I need to find someone who understands me perfectly, who makes me happy. Marriage should be about finding someone you can make happy. In the great teaching on marriage in Ephesians, for example, husbands are told to lay down their lives for their wives, as Christ did for the church.
As J. R. R. Tolkien once wrote to his son, “No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial.”
So folks, let’s drop the whole “soul mate” talk, shall we? Marriage can be wonderfully satisfying, but that’s the result of God’s grace, hard work, and self-sacrificial love. And that is the truth.
Most “soul mates” are nothing more than a person willing to do whatever it takes to get and keep who they want.
This is the reason why so many “soul mates” are ugly women.
Men never will totally understand women, or vice versa.
Bravo to Eric Metaxas!
Lewis comes pretty close to approximating a hellish POV, however. I believe Lewis followed this up by saying that wishful thinking exists in hell as well as on earth. Lewis’s devils (and perhaps real devils) sometimes fantasize things to be even worse than they are, which is actually pretty realistic. If you’re wanting to damn everything to hell, you’ll be biased to that interpretation of an ambiguous situation.
From the bottom of my heart, I believe it is because by-and-large, with the possible exception of the South, women, whether Christian or non-Christian, are not raised to honor and subject themselves to their husbands as unto the Lord, obeying them as their head.
“Feminism” (applied opposite of its actual meaning in an Orwellian way like “liberal”) and the Women’s movement have not only created a bloody infanticide of 70+ million unborn but is the main cause of family, and, therefore, societal, breakdown.
Women have quite a price to pay to be married. If they are brought up to compete with men (almost all are), or not to cherish and embrace their true feminine nature, or not trained for such, or not a believer who is teachable to change in God’s hands, they are likely to fail. The beautiful, honorable, admirable, and desirable apparel of a married woman is thus: “a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands; even as Sara obeyed Abraham calling him lord...” (1 Pet 3:4-6).
Fifty-one years here & still standing at 69. - When you get old, you NEED each other. It isn’t glamourous; but it’s reality. - Forgive each other EVERY day; then stand up and deliver. - Trust in the Lord & don’t be a smart aleck. - Oh, and any “green grass” you might think is on the far side of that hill reeks & stinks because it’s really just a great big pile of green diarrhea that only resembles a good looking woman or man in your deluded mind. - Twinkie’s just telling you like it is.
Please find some actual numbers on this for us. I rather doubt that, but would of course yield (gladly) to evidence.
Amen.
LOL!
I agree with Gerald O’Hara: if like doesn’t marry like, disaster follows. And middle-class and lower-class people shouldn’t take rich, Hollywood-types as their role models. Half the problems of America comes from imitating the multiple marriages and adulteries of Hollywood vulgarians.
There ain't NOTHIN' in that 'green grass' that's worth losing what I have at home. Real intimacy with a spouse takes years to develop.
**Marriage can be wonderfully satisfying, but that’s the result of God’s grace, hard work, and self-sacrificial love. And that is the truth.**
So true.
Sowing seeds
Count me in!
Education, income...it all takes a back seat to what really matters. Does your intended walk with Christ? That path will draw you closer together no matter what.
ALL Christians need to see the movie, the WAR ROOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!
True. Looking for unconditional love? Get a Labrador Retriever.
Bingo! It took me more than one time to figure it out. For us God is first, she is second for me, children are third, and then the rest.
“The whole soulmate idea is just snother symptom of our narcissistic culture.”
ABSOLUTELY. That term makes me SICK. Even if people feel that way, they should KEEP IT TO THEMSELVES. There’s NO REASON for a person to brag about their (supposed) compatibility with their wife (or vice versa, for that matter).
Bottom line: Just show it, that simple.
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