Let’s say you go on a first date with somebody, and while you weren’t swept off your feet, your date was decent and pleasant. Maybe he was a few inches shorter than you’d hoped, or maybe she checked her phone one too many times, or maybe the first question he asked you was “How much can you bench-press?”* Or maybe she had a few extra pounds, or something got stuck in his teeth and it grossed you out, or she hates football. But overall the conversation flowed smoothly; you laughed some and discovered you have some things in common.
* this actually happened to a woman I know this week. Come on guys!
So you go on a second date, and a third, and pretty soon you’re wondering whether it’s time to date exclusively. You think to yourself, “I like this person, but what if there’s someone better for me out there?”
I’ve got good news. There is! There totally is! There’s someone out there who is taller or thinner or funnier or more successful, and you’re free to leave the one you’re with and go find that person.
But I’ve also got bad news. When you find that person, you’ll be disappointed to learn there’s someone better out there than that person, too.
Now the really bad news. If there’s always someone better for you out there, there’s someone better than you out there, too, just waiting for the person you’re with to wake up and realize you’re not the best they can do.
What happens to romantic relationships and marriage when an entire generation of single people have been conditioned to expect the best? No one will ever be happy. Duke University ethics professor Stanley Hauerwas describes the problem this way: “Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment…The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect to marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person.”
Do you get what he’s saying? The point of marriage isn’t finding the best person; it’s choosing someone who may not be the best and loving them anyway. Real marriage is founded on the grateful realization that the person who married you could have done a lot better if they wanted to, but they didn’t.
It’s one of the great mysteries of real romance: even with better options on the table, you both choose each other unconditionally. Even more mysterious is this: after years of choosing each other unconditionally, you’ll both wake up and realize you’re married to the best one.
Throughout the Bible, when God chose people to share His message or lead His people, He rarely chose the best candidate. He chose people with flaws, people with a past. And because God showed faith in them, they responded with faith in God and were motivated to become the people He said they could be.
That’s love. Romance at its best is two flawed people who, knowing there are better options out there, choose to love each other, and only each other, until they both become the people God created them to be. God didn’t let our shortcomings keep Him from committing to us; His unconditional love turns our weaknesses into strengths. So if God has placed someone in your path who isn’t perfect, or is slightly boring, or occasionally annoying, or just a little meh, you can walk away and find somebody better out there.
Or you can love the one you’re with the way Jesus loves you – patiently, unconditionally – until one day you look into the transformed eyes of your beloved and you realize that God’s promise is true:
Love believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.
Love never fails.
– 1 Cor. 13:7-8
