Jesus focuses on the precepts of human relationships and offers insight into how God would have us act toward one another. God seems to have a preferential (but not exclusive) love for the spiritually, emotionally, and materially poor, but it seems like we humans tend to avoid confronting normal life difficulties.
A new study, for example, has shown that marriage is really good for you, but fewer people are getting married. My theory is that the reason why there is a decline in marriage is for the same reason there is a decline in shopping in stores, hanging out in neighborhood bars, and talking to people face to face. We are afraid of the unpredictable parts of human interaction— that we miss all the benefits of it.
There are many benefits to marriage but there are some things about marriage that really scare people about being married. The #whyimsingle hashtag states some of the reasons people give for not marrying: “I value ‘me’ time over ‘we’ time”, “So I never have to share the remote control.”, “I like to sleep diagonally in my bed and don’t want any interference.” What these reasons miss is that the difficult parts of marriage are exactly what makes it effective. Marriage sometimes brutally reminds you of your own selfishness and inability to change your priorities to embrace someone else’s – and it makes you better. We are used to coddling our ego, and marriage toughens it up.
In Coddling of the American Mind, author Greg Lukianoff and Jonsthan Haidt make the case that sheltering people from challenges weakens them:
- Children carefully exposed to nuts are much more likely to overcome their nut allergies than children carefully protected from nuts.
- Kids who play outside can battle microbes far better than those who hide inside.
- And kids who mostly interact through social media are more stressed and suicide prone than kids who interact with other kids in person through sports or other activities.
This is true for adults too.
Jesus teaches it much better. Blessed are those who get bumped and bruised by others in life – the meek and the merciful, those who mourn and those who are persecuted. Love one another as he loves us, enduring rejection and misunderstanding and mistreatment. He also said we should love our enemies, and look how he blesses the just and the unjust, and teaches us to do the same.
Marriage is an example of something that can be an emotional workout that will leave you stronger. It is like most relationships in that it can be a struggle, but can teach us that we are made not for self but for the good of others.
In our day, it may be possible to do life on your own, but skipping the short-term difficulties will only bring long-term problems.