The Husband/Marriage idol

By: Jamie Lamb/VirtuousReality.com staff

When was the last time you checked out the prayer board on the VirtuousReality.com site for teen girls? There's a twelve year old girl who writes in every month because she's struggling with depression and loneliness and she's decided that a boy is the answer to her problems. She thinks that if she can just have sex it will make everything better. Unfortunately she's not the only girl out there who believes this. Thanks to Hollywood and our obsession with romance and romantic comedies it's sort of an epidemic. I've talked to girl after girl whose hopes and dreams rest solely on finding the "one perfect guy" (whom God has created just for her). Sadly, they are under the misconception that they will not be complete until they say "I do." If ever we've set our girls up for huge disappointment, it's in feeding this lie.

Perhaps in our desperation to keep our daughters from making the same mistakes many of us have made, we've gone overboard in drilling home the message that they should save themselves for "the one" that God has set aside for them. Oh sure, saving yourself for marriage is good advice, but must it always be given with the underlying assumption that marriage is 100% guaranteed to every young woman? Biblically speaking, we've been "set aside" for Jesus, not for one another. When we emphasize the message that God has "one special person" set aside for a blissful marriage, our girls logically conclude that their future happiness is directly linked to finding that man and tying the knot. But what if God's plan for them is to be single? And how many of us know someone who waited for "the one" and married him only to have the marriage end in disappointment? Our one true soul mate is Jesus and Jesus alone. To put a person in that place is idolatry.

When we peddle the fairy tale myth to our daughters, we set them up for disappointment when they marry and it doesn't live up to their dreams and expectations. When their Prince Charming doesn't deliver, will they wonder if there is another one out there who will? Let's not forget that the divorce rate is about the same for Christian marriages as it is for non-Christian marriages. The fairy tale myth can also lead a girl to give herself away to the first guy who comes along and makes her heart go pitter-pat. I've talked to many Christian girls who justify sex because they honestly believe they will eventually marry the guy, so what does it matter? If they have latched onto the fairy tale myth, especially the culture's version, sex is just part of the package.

I'm not saying we should stop encouraging our girls to hold out for a good man who loves Jesus. Rather, the emphasis needs to be in helping them to see Jesus as the one true love of their life and key to their future happiness. After all, a genuine wholehearted love for God does more to curb behavior than all the sex talks, purity rings and scare tactics combined. It probably wouldn't hurt for us to squash the romantic dream a little and teach them that marriage is more about God than it is about us. Marriage is supposed to be a picture to a desperate and lost world of unconditional and faithful love.

Let's spend more time teaching our girls that Jesus is everything they've ever wanted and everything they'll ever need. Let's remind them that His love is the greatest love they will experience. If our daughters can come to understand these truths, it won't matter what the future holds in regard to marriage. They will rest content knowing they have already found their one and only "soul-mate." And this soul-mate will keep His promise to love them unconditionally and remain by their side indefinitely...unlike so many Prince Charmings.