I’ve seen several people in this world shopping together who are a man and a woman together with a small child with them. Unfortunately, many of them at the same time do not have wedding rings on. I think we all know what that would most likely mean. Honestly, the trend of this increasing alarms me.
Now I used to think this was mostly with the younger generation until friends of my own parents underwent divorces and before too long, they were cohabiting with someone else. It was quite stunning as I figured these people grew up with traditional morality and would honor it, but instead, they chose to not do so.
I hope most of you know my heart on this kind of situation. These women especially sadden me. I have a great love of ladies after all, and it saddens me when they make themselves to be something that they aren’t. I also get bothered by the men who I expect to act like men and not simply grown boys.
I won’t give the statistics. You can find those in many places. My understanding is that this causes the marriage to break down if it ever even gets to that point. Apparently, many women do this hoping it’s a stepping stone, but the man does it and he doesn’t really want to commit. Seems like a good way to get what you want and have an escape clause without commitment.
My opinion on why it fails though is that marriage cannot be treated like a trial run. That is not trust at all. You want to know when the testing is? It’s simple. We call it dating. That’s when you start to know the person and really learn all about them and who they are.
Now you might think you don’t know everything about them so you want to play it safe. The problem is though that you will never know everything about them. People who have been married for decades are still learning new things about each other. Persons are inexhaustible mines of information.
This is simply our culture that does not like the idea of commitment. We want to be autonomous and not dependent on anyone. We want to be able to come and go as we please. Unfortunately, life is not like that and Christians should not be like that. We are a people who serve a God in relationship with himself. We are not anti-relational. Christians believe in interdependence.
Now some say that you wouldn’t buy a car without giving it a test drive. A simple question must be asked though. Who is the driver and who is the car? Ladies? Do you want to hear that your guy is testing you like a car and wanting to see if you will perform good enough lest he take you back to the parking lot and look for another model?
That’s a comforting thought. This marriage was established because I knew my girl could perform well. Is that really what you want a marriage to be based on? Ought it not to be based on who the other person is? (Which I believe is shown in the Trinity. We look at each person for who they are and what they do flows out of who they are. Essence precedes function.)
What can be done?
I only know one answer, a return to virtue. Especially that which is found in Scripture. We need men and women who know who they are. They are creatures in the image of God. They are not highly-evolved animals resulting from an accident. Their sexuality is a gift and it is not to be treated as common.
And oh yes. Parents. Be sure of this one thing. Before you go and tell your children they need to be living virtuously, make sure you are doing the same thing. Much of our problem with the younger generation might sadly because the older generation has not portrayed the importance of the values that they said to embrace.
I do hope and pray that this trend will slow down at least. Our future, the future of the family, is too important.
Support Deeper Waters on Patreon!
