I recently sat in a tight wooden pew in the back of a Catholic church thinking about past relationships and future commitments. I thought about how my dad divorced my mom to marry a stranger three months later. I remembered my senior year of high school when my first serious love interest left me for a guy who played in a bigger band and drove a cooler car. My mind cringed in thinking about the more recent girl who I thought I wanted to spend my life with. After a few years, she said she didn’t want to be in any relationship, then started dating one of my good friends a few months later. That one hurt. I felt the temptation to become cynical and callous. If genuine love and enduring affection do not exist outside of heaven, I thought to myself, why the hell should I make a long-term commitment? I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way. Sadly, many guys in their 20’s have fully given into this cynicism. When combining this with selfishness, prolonged adolescence, indecisiveness, passivity, discontentment and peer pressure to stay single, commitment starts to seem as desirable as a rusty ball-and-chain. The alternative certainly seems easier, in away. Mindless hook-ups, independent flings and cohabitation offer instant gratification without any strings attached. These may not satisfy deep relational desires, but at least they numb them for awhile, right? As I breathed in the aroma of frankincense burning in the church, I thought about the way scripture defines relationships. Genesis says that a man should leave his mother and father to become one flesh with his wife. Ephesians says a man should love his wife as Christ loves the church through absolute sacrifice. 1st Corinthians says true love never ends. These verses offer beauty, depth and hope, but can they ring true in modern relationships? Our individualistic techno-driven culture tells us all of our wants and needs should be fulfilled every hour of every day. If we feel dissatisfied, there’s an app for that. If our significant other fails to meet our expectations, we can end the relationship in search of something better and easier. As a result, commitment often seems irrelevant. My thoughts continued to war against one another as I sat in the pew, but then I looked up and noticed the white advent candles burning on the church’s marble alter. They reminded me of the candles that flickered at my grandfather’s funeral just a few weeks prior. Although my grandfather had a prestigious career as a Navy captain, worked in the Pentagon and owned a red 1968 Thunderbird, his greatest legacy was being married to my grandmother for 56 years and raising four great children. In his will, he specified that he did not want a five-gun salute or a grandiose memorial at his funeral. He understood that his legacy resided in the way he loved his wife and children with sacrificial commitment for the majority of his life. My [...]
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