Thoughts on Commitment

This is a different sort of post than I've ever done. And, again, it's a bit controversial and perhaps even a little offensive. Amanda asked me to write a few thoughts on this issue, and it's taken me nearly two weeks to eek up the courage and gather my thoughts!

If you look closely enough, you will find that many young people are struggling with a central issue: commitment. It affects a thousand every-day areas:  

Your friend asks you to hang out next Tuesday and you hesitantly say, "Oh, yeah, probably--unless something else comes up!" Your family wants to set a consistent family night every week, and you cringe inside at the thought of being "occupied" if some other--more engaging--event were to come up last minute.

But the main issue I want to focus on here: romantic relationships. Amanda asked me to write about commitment in a more general sense, but I’ve been studying marriage and the family recently, and I couldn’t help myself! Is it true that one is always on the lookout for someone better--even if they're in a relationship at the moment? Why aren't people settling down and choosing commitment more often than not?

In the past year or so, I've watched a number of relationships unfold gracefully, or grow stagnant, or simply never happen. The number of cohabiting couples is staggering. The number of children born out of wedlock makes my heart hurt. If one doesn't know Christ as their Lord and Savior, it makes sense that their view of commitment would be skewed and battered, and we must reach those people with the gospel of Jesus. But I wonder if we, as Christians, are letting the world's fear of commitment infect the God-given confidence and joy we can have in the relationship process.

What may be the root problem in the commitment issue?

To be honest, I didn't actually have my own thoughts on this. I thought it over for a while, but nothing solid ever came to mind. One day last week, I asked one of my friends if he could give me the guy's point of view on the issue of commitment in relationships. And then I quickly asked if I could copy and paste everything he said (okay--not quite, but almost! ha). Here are a few of the points he made:

1. People are taking longer to grow up. Basically, "young" is getting older. Society is encouraging young people to stay young longer, keeping them from considering the more serious matter of commitment and marriage.

2. People are obsessed with falling in love. The process of "falling in love" has a lot to do with emotions--which really have very little to do with the actual marriage commitment in the future. People used to find an eligible spouse, and then get married. There used to be a lot less emotional complexity and lot more emphasis on the "till death due us part" from the very beginning.

3. People are constantly holding out for someone better. The world didn't used to be so virtual; not so long ago, there didn't used to be multiple options for an eligible spouse. Of course it's important to marry the man or woman that God desires, but maybe the process has more to do with finding peace than with finding perfection. After all, we are broken, human people.

4. People feel like they need to "try out" a relationship before getting more serious. It's a legitimate desire: we want to know if there's compatibility. In reality, though, if commitment could be present from the beginning, there simply wouldn't be a need to "try it out"--because no one would be going anywhere, even if things got tough.

Those four points are affecting non-Christians and Christians alike. That's the part that makes my heart break, and that's why I needed to write this (even though I'm still a slightly naive single). If we are allowing the world's ideas and tendencies to influence our choices and trajectory, we are settling for restlessness where confidence and peace could reign (consider a relationship process of faith + prayer + listening to His voice. That sounds pretty peaceful!).

I truly believe that many Christian young people need to step back and ask themselves how the fear of commitment has been characterizing their view of dating and relationships. If Satan can convince us that the dating process and marriage commitment is too weighty, then we will look no different than the world, and the "light on a hill" will be hidden, in the very least.