Jessica’s post and its accompanying comments (sorry, it’s a protected entry) made me think, and my thoughts are too tangential to make as a simple comment on her entry. Discovery first: I think differently than most of these people. Which means that the following random thoughts aren’t in disagreement with the above link; they’re about me, and mostly, only me.
I’ve mentioned my philosophy about accepting marriage proposals elsewhere. (And more Elsewheres, I know.) And I’ve only ever met maybe three or four guys in my entire life who posess the depth of spiritual character I’m looking for, and I’m not settling for less — I’d be much, much happier to be single for the rest of my life than to marry someone who isn’t completely consumed with glorifying God. I mean, people mess up and aren’t perfect, and I’m not looking for perfection. That’s God’s business, not mine. I just want to marry somebody who’s a true servant of the King — it’s an are/aren’t thing; there is no matter of degrees. And men who truly are completely His are rare, and they have an alarming tendency to be married/engaged/girlfriended already.
My “best friend” and I have very little in common. I’m an English freak (i.e., major); she isn’t. I’m a history buff; she isn’t. I’m somewhat into computers and geekishness; she isn’t. She’s into biology stuff; I’m not. She’s a lot of (good!) things I’m not. We’re two very different creatures. Our personalities could hardly be more different, and I can’t think of a single interest or hobby we share. But we relish our time together, limited though it is because of the very different lives we lead. We have that strange kind of friendship that belongs in books written centuries ago. I don’t tell her everything, but I could, and I do when I need to, which is a strange confession coming from a person well-accustomed to keeping as many of her own secrets as possible. I trust her completely. Not that she’s perfect. Would she ever betray my interests? Possibly, although I doubt it. I don’t think that she’ll never make mistakes; that’d be expecting too much from any human. “Complete trust” doesn’t mean that someone expects perfection from someone else; it means that they’re willing to overlook imperfection because they know there’s something larger and more important at stake. I know she isn’t perfect, but I know that she is devoted to serving my King, and so He becomes the only Foundation for our relationship. As long as we’re both striving for Him and Him alone, we’ll always be in perfect harmony with one another; sister “partakers of grace”. We have yet, to my knowledge, to have a single disagreement, but even if we do, I have confidence that He will draw us back to Himself and thus back to each other.
Okay, that was a very-much related tangent. I’ve learned so much from her, but I think maybe the most important thing I’ve learned is that a relationship like ours automatically (and, I might add, helplessly) exists between two people who are committed to God’s glory. So few people seem to experience a friendship of our depth, and it’s a shame, because the unavoidable realization that flows from such a relationship is that Christ is the only basis for any true friendship (or, more pointedly, any marriage). And I don’t mean that both bride and groom have to be “Christians” and go to the same denomination church; that doesn’t come anything near to cutting it. It’s deeper than that, and higher. It’s not about what we believe or how much we believe it or live it — any more than Christianity itself can be summed by those trite phrases. It’s about grace, and it’s about God, and it’s about people whose only identity is that they’ve received God’s grace and are bound to Him forever.
My “best friend” and I wouldn’t be friends if we didn’t know each other. But once we did know each other, the more we learned about each other, the deeper our friendship grew. We really had no choice in the matter, either; neither of us was looking for a friend, and neither of us expected to find a friend in the other. But it wasn’t about us. We’re two sisters in Christ; that’s all and that’s everything.
Obviously friendship is an essential component of marriage, but they aren’t the same thing. The relationship I have with my friend is not the same as the relationship I expect to have with my husband. But the standard, the foundation, is the same. And so, I think, is the inevitability. My youth pastor in high school compared his then-future marriage to two travelers with the same destination. No matter where the two travelers begin, ultimately they’ll find that they’re both moving in the same direction. And the nearer they come toward their mark, they’ll find that they can’t help moving closer to each other, because they both have eyes only for their destination.
So, the idea of “clicking.” I’m not worried. The beauty of the destination idea is that it never stops. If the focus of a relationship is on the people in it, then it’ll waver and be uncertain. But if two people truly share a joint and all-encompassing devotion to delight in the glory of God, then they can only grow closer. The more I learn about God, and the more I understand and grow in His grace, the nearer I’ll inevitably become to anyone else who shares that delight.
I know a few guys who seem absolutely “perfect” — common interests, philosophical, weird, sweet, etcetera — seemingly hand-crafted, except for the not-so-little thing that they think about Christianity as their philosophy, instead of Someone Who’s extended grace to them unearned. And I know a few guys who seem to be the opposite of all the “little things” I like in men, but they actually honestly care about glorifying God. And the latter group, in spite of their utter un-Prince-Charming-esqueness, are far more attractive than the first group. I don’t mean just rationally, either; I’m talking about an instinctual gut-reaction that says I like this. And the first group, despite their adherence to my mental picture of the perfect husband, hasn’t got a chance. It kind of makes sense, anyway; there’s not really any other scriptural “husband requirements” I could add, and it makes sense that God could curb our instincts to allow us to be “in love” — in the gooey sense — with anyone He chooses.
So, somewhat conclusively, I know that deep friendship is based on mutual servanthood in Christ, and really nothing else. And I can’t imagine anything more enjoyable than spending the rest of my life with someone whose delight is serving the one Person that is also my delight to serve. How much more “common interest” can we get than that? If everything I do is for His glory, and everything he does is for His glory, then don’t we get to spend every minute of the rest of our lives doing what we love to do best, and doing it together? What’s more, we get to serve Him in a way we couldn’t have alone, and share in the constant joy of watching a fellow believer draw ever nearer to our journey’s final end — and to our ultimate beginning of perfect life in the constant light of the Son of God.
