Each week during the Rekindled Challenge, we are asking members of Faith Fellowship to share a memory, thought, or something God has taught them through their marriage. Check out Amy and Colby’s story.

As a couple that has been dating for around 4 years, and is planning on being married sometime within the next few, it was an eye-opening experience to read Chapter 7 of “The Meaning of Marriage” together. The title of the chapter is “Singleness and Marriage,” and while we are technically single in the eyes of the book, as a couple ultimately seeking marriage, it seems that we might be able to provide a bit more of a unique perspective.

On the surface, it seems like we have managed to follow many of the principles that Tim Keller lays out in this chapter, but it still has led us to be convicted that we need to be seeking God much more than we are seeking each other.

When we were both single, we definitely struggled with feeling the ‘incompleteness’ that Keller talks about in this chapter. He writes that many times the modern church mistakenly suggests that single people are “incomplete,” and singleness is almost something to be ‘solved’ rather than appreciated and valued. However, the early church viewed singleness as a gift, and an opportunity to be used uniquely by God, in ways that a married couple may not be able to.

We are in the unique position of not being completely single, but also not being married. While Keller seems to be focusing on the single Christian as someone not in any sort of relationship, we are still able to relate to and take to heart many of the ideas he presents in this chapter. Some things we did right, and other things we struggled with and continue to struggle with today.

Let’s begin with the positive.

One thing we did right as a new couple early in our relationship was finding a way to get to know each other and spend time together through serving in the church. In Chapter 7, Keller briefly reviews the history of dating, including the concept of chaperoned “front porch” courtship. As a modern alternative to this long-outdated practice, he presents the idea of the church as the metaphorical modern-day “front porch” for the single Christian.

When two Christians participate together in the same Christian community, however, there are plenty of opportunities to enter the worlds of one another in the older way. By serving the poor, or going to Bible study and fellowship groups, or attending worship you can come into each other’s “front porches” and “parlors” in a way that is difficult outside a community of faith.” -Tim Keller,

As one example of this, at the beginning of our relationship we attended separate churches and both happened to be on the praise team where we each had separate weekly practices to attend. Amy’s practice was on Saturdays, which also happened to be one of the few days that we were able to spend time together. As a result, she often found herself, quite frankly, feeling disappointed and sometimes even a little annoyed to have to be spending her Saturday mornings at practice instead of tending to this exciting new relationship.

Every few weeks Colby would sit in on a few of these practice sessions and a few months later, ended up becoming a permanent part of the worship team and our church. At that point, serving in the church and building our relationship no longer felt like separate tasks; instead, they became one and the same. By finding a way to spend time together while simultaneously serving in the church, we were able to apply Keller’s concept of the “front porch,” to use the gift of our Christian community to simultaneously build up our relationship with each other and with God.

Now for the negative.

Although we have found an abundance of happiness and positive growth in our relationship with each other over the years, Chapter 7 of Keller’s book forced us to acknowledge that in our race to build our relationship with each other, we lost sight of the fact that our earthly love is nothing compared to the much greater love that can only be found in God.

“We should be neither overly elated by getting married nor overly disappointed by not being so because Christ is the only spouse that can truly fulfill us, and God’s family the only family that will truly embrace and satisfy us.” - Tim Keller

We are now nearly 4 years into our relationship and, as a result, have experienced many of the ups and downs of any healthy relationship. In fact, as we were planning out what to write in this blog post, we nearly got into an argument when we couldn’t decide on what to write about!

Reading this chapter and listening to Keller speak about the limitations of our earthly relationships had us feeling convicted. In all honesty, despite having built our relationship on what we believed was a solid foundation of the church community and biblical foundations of marriage and relationships (like serving on the praise team together), we came to realize we had forgotten that the love we had found in our relationship will never be able compare to the love that Christ has for us.

There is some comfort that we can find in knowing that when we get into arguments or when things don’t go right in our earthly relationships we shouldn’t feel discouraged because we know that we have a much greater love, and greater relationship waiting for us with God.

That is not to say that there is no hope or no point in having earthly relationships.

A marriage is an opportunity to share that mutual understanding of a greater love outside of this earth that you and your spouse are both waiting for together. In acknowledging the limitations of our relationship with each other, we are able to put God first, before even each other.

Reading this chapter together was both encouraging and convicting. We may have done a lot of things right, but we still have a long way to go. Like many young unmarried Christian couples, we are in the unique position of being both ‘single’, but also on the path to becoming ‘married’. For that reason, our experience during this period is an important one. It is a forgiving time where we can learn from our mistakes, and prepare for the emotional and spiritual complexities of marriage.

This chapter of Tim Keller’s book has provided us with a better understanding of the true purpose of our earthly relationship with each other, and now we can move forward to bettering our earthly relationship and, more importantly, our relationship with God.