Love, Desire and Independence

Love, Desire and Independence

If you are in your 20’s like me chances are you’re trying to find your way in the world of dating, engagement and relationships in general. The conservative Christian community has published countless books on the subject and the Internet is flooded with guides, lectures, sermon series, blogs, etc… Much of the discussion is directed around the term “dating”, it goes without saying that this is a vague, subjective and culturally specific term that ranges in a meaning so broad that many Christian’s when asked the question, “So are you dating?”, respond with a pensive “well...were definitely not courting, but were more than friends, if that is what you mean.” While this may not describe you or your friends, it does apply to many Christian’s with whom I am acquainted and this article nonetheless skirts that complex issue all together, don’t worry, this is not a commentary on dating. So whether your'e single, dating, courting, engaged or “umm…we don’t like to put a label on it”, there is hopefully something you can glean from what I’m writing.

A little background on why this topic is so important to me begins with my experience growing up. I was raised in what I label the “I kissed dating goodbye” era, this means there was a lot of controversial discussion surrounding the formation of romantic relationships that boiled down to some basic do’s and don’ts when interacting with the opposite sex. While I myself am poorly read and have in fact only cracked open Joshua Harris’s farewell letter to dating once, I never read more than a few pages on the topic of dating from any one source. So I can fairly say most of what I know about Christian cultures perception of dating I learned through relationship and conversation…a lot of conversation. Accordingly, as I have walked through life with many Christian men and women as they journey to find true love it has raised many questions that I sought to answer in the hope of solving the riddle that plagued almost everyone of my friend’s.

The Wrong Questions
Here is what seemed to make it to the top of mine and my friends list:

When am I ready to date? Who should I date? What is “Christian” dating?  and When should we get married?

As I progressed into my college years and joined the community of a Christian Bible school these questions evolved beyond youthful dialogues fueled by anticipation. Here they took on a new meaning and a new depth, friends were dating, getting engaged and married all in the matter of a few semesters. Relationships that had formed like a summer camp crush, would soon be sealed at the alter, before the couples sophomore grades had even been tallied.  In this fast paced and high pressure culture that was consumed by the urge to be wed, most of the conversations that I had with couples weren’t casually discussed in order to pass time. Rather many sleepless nights were spent drinking coffee and arguing early into the morning about the finer points of Biblical manhood and the prerequisites to marriage.

While I know that this obsession with early marriage and a stamp of Biblical approval hardly represents western cultures or even most Christians general attitude towards dating, it none the less served to illuminate for me some basic truths about the Christian faith, relationships and the current state of our society.

As my friend rushed to find the person that they would spend the rest of their lives with, most of what was discussed in this process involved the phrase “I Want”. I want to meet the right person, I want to be married, I want to have sex, I want love, I want a relationship, I want a family…Let me be honest here, I want these things myself, and I think God wants us to have these things. I make no indictment upon the desirous hearts of anyone who says or thinks any of these things, they are good, natural and are a gift from God.  However, what I found most disturbing in my own heart and mind and in conversation with those around me, was that no matter how much we knew marriage to be a selfless act, we never stopped to change our thoughts, hearts and deeds to match that truth. It is easy to act as though marriage is an object, something to be procured and enjoyed by ourselves. I often would observe couples around me with a longing desire to “have” what they had. I would be jealous, anxious, discontent and even angry.

The Passionate Pursuit for Possesion 
I thought of a girlfriend and marriage as something I had to find for myself, hoping that someday I would have someone to call my own. I gave little thought to the phrasing and manner in which I perceived relationships, I used language like: obtain, have for myself, call my own. These terms all speak of ownership as though I could go out and just take someone and yell “Hey I caught a girlfriend and I got her first so no one else can have her!” Seeing relationships in this light darkened my heart and my mind blinding me to the reality of scripture, truth and love.

True relationships aren’t possessions; they aren’t obtained, bought or owned. True, intimate and loving relationships are created, grown and carefully culminated. This is a concept we are very familiar with, it is not foreign to hear someone describe their marriage in this very way, “we have grown closer”, “our love created something specially between us.” However, while this sentimental dialogue may be exceedingly prevalent, the full depth and fruit of these truths lived out regularly among Christian’s today is far more rare. How often do you see men pursuing relationships with one another in order to build a lasting and God honoring community? It is rare to see men laboring intensely to earn the trust and respect of others by sharing their time, resources, and story or even struggles. These relationships are hardly quotidian and they often take years and years to form, growing through long trials and common shared experiences.

We as a culture can easily understand why a man would stand in the rain for an hour or drive hundreds of miles just to see a girl for a few hours and then drive all the way back home. We would typically call this love. But if a man were to do that same thing to see a brother or a friend it seems far less plausible, and of a deeper substance, we would hold it with a different regard and really begin to ask why that man was so sacrificial to spend just a few hours with that person.

See, love for a woman, that makes sense, sure it makes men do crazy things and act in ways they never would for anyone else, but that's what love is, right? It’s this emotion, this drive, this power that fuels us and allows us to do amazing things. Ok, so if men love women then they must really love: sports, tv, food, sex, money, power, etc…Right?

I think the answer is intuitive, it’s not yes or no, it’s a qualification or a definition of terms. Yes, men love women and do crazy things for them and Yes, they love sports, tv, sex, etc…but they are different kinds of love or more “intense” forms of love. To some this may not seem like an important distinction, but ask a woman if her husband or boyfriend loves her or sex with her more, then you’ll see just how important that distinction is. So whether it’s a different kind of love or just a more intense love, it is clear that delineating between the various forms of love is fundamental in giving true meaning and value to “Relational Love.”

Relational love passes beyond desire, beyond craving; it involves commitment, dedication and a sacrifice. That is why men that know true love would die for their brothers in Christ and live as passionately for the gospel as they would for a girl.  Just as women who know true love, can commit themselves to God and find security in loving others with God’s love and finding their identity and comfort in Him.

Would I Love Her If I Didn't Have Her?

How then does our generation differ with their perception of love and relationship? It seems that we are a very passionate and loving culture, almost all works of fiction and non-fiction alike inspire some aspect of love. Our culture unavoidably inspires a desire for relationship and for love, to such an extent, in fact that this love, this desire for a relationship, any relationship, has grown so power and strong that most could say, “I love the idea of a dating or marriage!” Thus, it can quickly become confusing determining the difference between love for the person and love for the relationship. This is a understandable confusion given that “an” aspect of love is most certainly desire. However, if your desire for a relationship is so indistinguishable from your love for the person, how then can you truly say which you love more and which is truly motivating your actions. Is it the person or the relationship?

While one perspective, loving the person, makes the other individual the priority and purpose of dating or marriage. The other perspective, loving the relationship, sees the person as an object or simply a means to obtain a relationship that will satisfy their love and desire for “a” relationship. Our culture is easily motivated by theory, hopes, dreams and fantasy, all directed and guided by personal interests and gratification. True love, however, lives in reality, asserts others as the purpose and joy of love and commits to compassionately care for them.

It is the realization of this essential distinction: love for a relationship or love for a person that can be so difficult to unravel and makes sense of when we have been raised in the culture and society of western consumerism and independence. From the time we can speak, concepts of possession and distinctions of self are forefront in our minds, phrases like “mine”, “I want”, and “no” are all centered on personal gain and the freedom to pursue satisfaction for ourselves. Obtaining freedom and the means to happiness are some of the fundamentals of western thinking.

Until the advent of most modern technology the freedom to indulge in a self-sufficient lifestyle that is dictated by personal interest, was greatly limited. Survival was largely dependant upon trade and mass labor, these requirements were met through community and family. If you wanted to survive you had to maintain relationships, learn to rely on others and grow to be a mature individuals upon whom others could rely as well. Absconding to California for a few years to “find yourself” wasn’t a luxury afforded to most of society. Many people lived and died in the same cities, seeing the same faces and doing the same job for generations, this meant responsibility, reputation and service for others held a much higher value.

The Age of Desire

While I am hardly one to gaze upon the past as though regressing to a pre-industrial society would somehow resolve our relational quandaries; I am however, a firm believer that understanding the changes that have effected how our society thinks and lives is a useful tool for growth and progress. Accordingly, it is through reflection upon ages past that some truths of wisdom can be gleaned that may help us in this discussion.

If the pre-modern age demanded reliance upon community, combined with the discipline of self-sacrifice in order to survive, how then does the freedom from these constraints and an introduction of increased personal independence and freedom, of modern culture influence our relationships? I believe it influences us greatly! In just a few short generations, we have been freed from the burdens of war, true economic depression, lack of education, transportation and nominal technology. Now the barriers that kept us from exploring our full spectrum of interests lay in rubble and we have become free to pursue our desires like never before. And there it is “desire!” The result of this progress has given way to unfettered desire and love.

We are living lives that were unfathomable a hundred years ago and we are making thousand of choices everyday. All based upon this philosophy and notion of indulging and exploring ones own desires. This extreme transition from the restraints of industrialism to modernism, is paralleled on a smaller scale today as teenagers graduate from high school and free themselves from the restrictions of childhood to explore the world as adults, as free thinkers and it is in this great and tumultuous transition of culture and of self that most twenty something’s find themselves. Caught between a world of artificial restrictions that seem antiquated and archaic, and the world of self focused pleasures that promise to please and gratify. Combine this with the always counter cultural morays and influences of the gospel and it is no wonder one can drive themselves to sleepless nights fighting for true romance while simultaneously trying to hold on to a vestiges of scriptural pretence.

Even if your home life during childhood wasn’t fraught with intense restriction that limited the pursuit of your own desires, you have still become an adult in the eyes of the world and entered into a whole new realm of freedom. For most in the western world there is little stopping you from pursuing any of what your heart seeks. Indulgence, gratification, power, freedom and independence are the mantras of our generation. Through media, business, schools, friends and community, we are fed this philosophy. Credit cards are mailed directly to our apartments, internet pipes in all the media we can digest, colleges swoon us to become educated so that we can further indulge ourselves and friends enable us and encourage us all the more.

Infected or Affected?

This virus of selfish motives, consumerism, and independence are the very thing that has infected the modern relationship, we are constantly faced with the temptation to objectify and consume others, rather than love and sacrifice “for” them. Community has been replaced by independence, love by desire and commitment by freedom. If it remains this way true love can never grow and flourish as God intended.

I warned you that this was not a commentary on dating, so don’t be surprised that I left that topic rather asunder for the majority of this discussion. For I believe that answering the dating question is foolish, if our hearts are “desiring/loving” the concept of a relationship, a concept that is most likely derived from a media and culture that is young, independent, selfish and devoid of God’s truth and love.  Accordingly, I do not offer up a solution, but simply ask you to consider the condition of your heart and state of your desires.