Settling
by Scott Croft

In this article, author Scott Croft continues unpacking themes first explored in "When to Settle," by Candice Watters.

* * *

My advice is this: Settle! That's right. Don't worry about passion or intense connection.... Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.

Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment.... It's not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it's downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize ... and the theme of holding out for true love ... permeates our collective mentality.¹

We've talked a lot in this column and related comment threads about a biblical approach to dating and finding a spouse, but we've never directly addressed the idea of "settling." Before we dig in, let's define what we mean. Let's use the following as our working definition of "settling": a willingness to date or marry someone who clearly fails to meet all the major criteria on your "list" to the extent you dreamed about when picturing your spouse, and/or doesn't appear to be your "soul mate" in the Friends/Sex in the City/fill in vacuous worldly movie/show here sense of the word.

Think Christians don't deal with this? Think again. I can't begin to tell you how many single believers I have spoken to and counseled who are trying to avoid settling, worried that they are settling, think it's "wrong" to settle, etc. Good relationships have gone down the tubes or never gotten off the ground because of this issue. The question for us is whether that approach to dating and marriage gels with the biblical approach to life and love we've tried to outline here.

It doesn't, for at least three reasons.

A Selfish Premise

I wrote about this at length in this space many moons ago. The highlights are worth repeating:

I don't mean that such an approach [looking for a spouse based primarily on my own "list" and attraction] involves malice or the intent to hurt anyone. I simply mean that such an approach is self-centered. It conceives of finding a spouse from the standpoint of what will be most enjoyable for me based on my tastes and desires. What will I receive from marriage to this or that person?

The apostle Paul agrees. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes the biblical definition of love in detail, and he lets us know that love isn't just felt, it does

[According to scripture], marriage is a beautiful (if distant) analogy of the way that Christ has perfectly loved and sacrificed for the church, and the way the church, His bride, responds to her Lord.

The Bible calls us to reject the world's approach to love and marriage. That may require a pretty radical rethinking of your own approach. If it does, join the club. If you can manage that rethinking (with the Lord's help), it will drain much of the angst from any discussion about "settling."

Everybody Settles

after marriage because they will only be revealed in that intimate context. And don't forget, your spouse will have married the same type of person. As sinners, we all "settle" for marriage to a person who will not always meet our sinful, individualized, selfish whims, who will not be the spouse we "dreamed of" every day, and who likely entered the bargain with some level of expectation that you were going to be the one for them.

any earthly relationship what the world tells us to seek from "romance" and marriage. We all settle.

Nobody Settles

What's more, nobody really "settles" in a biblical marriage because God has designed marriage as a wonderful gift that gets better with age. This is what people worried about settling don't seem to get. They think joy in marriage is all about the original choice one makes about whom to marry, rather than how the nurture and build their marriage. Again, this misses the picture of biblical marriage.

Read Song of Songs. Look at the implied deepening of a marriage that has to take place if Ephesians 5:22-33 is to be lived out. Sure, it takes hard work. But if two people are truly faithful as spouses, growing in God's word, studying one another deeply and attentively with an eye toward uniquely ministering to and serving each other, both will find that 10 years in they are known and loved and cared for better and more deeply than when they were newly married. That doesn't hinder passion, people. It builds it. More on this in later articles perhaps.

Bottom line, the real danger for God's people in pursuing a spouse is that we will "settle" for the world's vision of self, love, marriage and even romance, rather than a vision of those things steeped in scripture and rooted in the love of Christ. Biblical love and marriage ask more of us than the world's selfish pursuit of non-existent perfection. But the rewards are infinitely richer. "Keep your eyes on the prize"? Sure. Just make sure it's the right one.

* * *

1. Gottlieb, Lori, "Marry Him!", Atlantic Monthly, March 2008.

Scott Croft serves as chairman of the elders at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, where he wrote and teaches the Courtship & Dating and Biblical Manhood and Womanhood CORE Seminars. Scott lives with his wife, Rachel and son, William in the Washington, D.C. area, where he is also a practicing attorney.

Copyright 2008 Scott Croft. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. The complete text of this article is available at http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001784.cfm