I want to talk about why my wife can’t satisfy me and, similarly, why I can’t satisfy her. Before rushing to judgment please allow me to explain. I’ve known my wife since I was fifteen years old, we’ve been married for over twenty-two years, and I can confidently say that I love her more today than on our wedding day.

Yet, it didn’t take long for the belief that my wife would be ‘the one’ to fulfill and complete me to come crashing down. Over the years I’ve felt betrayed, confused, annoyed, and guilty, ultimately resulting in deep-seated resentment and anger toward my wife. This is what happens when people, things, and experiences fail to live up to our expectations. I wish I could say that I’m alone in this but in my twenty years as a pastor, I’ve seen many marriages crash and burn for similar reasons.

THE MYTH OF THE SOUL-MATE

We are steeped in the belief that there is someone out there for us, the one who will satisfy our deepest desire for love and intimacy. This belief inspires numerous love songs and stories passing before our waking conscience. It is the heart-felt desire for a ‘soul-mate,’ the one that completes us, the one who will fulfill our longing to be known and cared for in reciprocated fashion.

At the bottom of it, we long for the person who gets us, who loves us as much as we love them, who drives away our pervading sense of loneliness and fills our life with significance and value. It is a pursuit that never ends in fulfilled desire but often results in frustration, confusion, and despair in wondering if we have somehow missed our soul-mate, whether ending up single after numerous dates and failed relationships, or unhappily married.

The idea of a soul-mate descends to us through the Greek philosopher Plato. In a discussion on love, one of the characters in Plato’s Symposium (Aristophanes) argues that humans were created as perfectly happy and complete beings. That is, until Zeus, in a jealous fit, split them in two with a thunderbolt, so that humans were destined to spend their lives searching for their other half, for their ‘soul-mate.’

Plato’s thought has profoundly influenced Western culture on numerous levels, and the area of romance has been no exception. Of all the excellent insights Plato has passed down, the idea of the soul-mate has carried with it catastrophic implications, in that it undermines the value of romantic love and fidelity, as well as the importance of friendship and community for human fulfillment. Scripture gives us a different vision for love and fulfillment. The first two chapters of Genesis provide insight into God’s intention for human relationships, romantic and otherwise.

FROM THE BEGINNING

In Genesis, God creates human beings in his “image” (Genesis 1:26). There is no shortage of scholarly speculation as to what this fully means but at the very least, the way he creates humanity speaks to God’s relational and loving nature (Genesis 2:7). The three persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit) eternally exist in loving community with one another. In a similar way, human beings were not created to live in isolation or autonomy, nor were they created to merely find their supposed soul-mate and live happily ever after. Human beings were created to live in a loving community, both with God and other human beings. This is evidenced not only in God creating a human companion for Adam but a companion with whom he would create family and community (Genesis 2:18-24; 1:26-28). We are intended to experience relational fulfillment through layers of relationship. In this way, family and friendship remain foundational, even after we’re enraptured in the throes of romance.

There is no single relationship that will completely satisfy us. This is true whether one is single or married, with or without kids. No matter what your present situation in life, you need friendship, you need community. There are aspects of our personalities that my wife and I are unable to connect deeply on. I need friends I can talk theology, philosophy, ethics, and politics with; with whom I can share common passions and interests. Who I can geek out about movies and comics (yes, I’m kinda nerdy). I need friends who get my sense of humor. I need friends to whom I can confess the darkest of my sins and struggles. I need friends who will shoot me straight when I am acting the fool. We need older men and women to mentor us through our careers, marriage, and parenting, as well as a larger community to support us through the difficult and dark seasons of life.

Friendship can be deeply intimate without being sexual. Meaningful friendship involves enduring commitment and fidelity. And in this way, it is possible for one to experience the deepest levels of intimacy, love, and fulfillment as a single or celibate person, as a divorcé or a widower, as much as for the person who has entered into marriage. We must expand our imagination for how we think about the depths of love, intimacy, and fidelity we can experience outside of romantic relationships.

Loading all of our relational fulfillment upon one person will only result in disappointment, despair, and damaged relationships. It is no wonder why so many marriages end with divorce, even among followers of Jesus. There is no perfect person, family, or community. Still, we need one another.

THE CHURCH NEEDS TO BE MORE

Here, it is vitally important that we not only cultivate layers of relationships for ourselves but seek out those in need of such relationships. This is one of the primary roles of the Church as God’s people, “the household of faith,” the family of God (Ephesians 2:19; Galatians 6:10; 1 Timothy 3:15; cf. Matthew 12:48-49). This level of commitment and concern drove the early church to care for “orphans and widows” (James 1:27). If those of us who have a connection to our natural families, spouses, and children still struggle with loneliness, then that experience is compounded for orphans and widows, as well as those who choose faithfulness to Jesus over and above fulfilling their desire for a same-sex relationship.

As the community of God’s people, we must make a concerted effort to develop a robust culture of love and belonging. Even where the commonalities needed for fostering friendship are lacking, we are called to be family. A healthy family provides an atmosphere of acceptance, interest, concern, and care for its members that transcend personal differences. Doing this requires a deeper level of commitment and sacrifice not often found in many churches today.

Our churches have largely become a reflection of consumer culture. As much as we long for connection and community, comfort has become the chief commodity of Christian community. We arrive at church with expectations centered around our felt needs. Often our willingness to ‘serve’ comes with self-serving conditions. When our expectations are unmet (production value is weak; the sermon is too long; the pastor is not dynamic enough; the small group doesn’t match my social criteria or fit nicely into my overcrowded schedule; the church says too little about the politics I’m ‘for,’ or too much about the politics I’m ‘against’; somebody offended me … and so on).

If we want to experience deep and meaningful community, we have to identify where we approach church as a consumer, hedging ourselves in for the sake of comfort and convenience, then push ourselves beyond our comfort zone as a “living sacrifice” for the sake of Christ’s body. We must make cultivating authentic community a priority out of our own necessity and for the good of Christ’s mission in the world (Romans 12:1).