Forget your soul mate this Valentine’s Day
Zeus isn’t real
It’s no secret that the sports and entertainment world have a significant number of stars that are anything but excellent or praiseworthy. With as many young people that there are who look up to them, it’s so disappointing to consistently see stories like this:
It’s a solemn reminder of a number of biblical principles, including the fact that no amount of wealth, power, or privilege inoculates us to the temptations of the flesh and the sin that so easily entangles.
But I think it’s important to also remember that like all other professions, right alongside the bad seeds, there are a number of good ones as well. I could be wrong, but I think this story might bring a smile to your face on a Monday:
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Philadelphia Eagles safety Anthony Harris went out of his way to help out a teenager last weekend. He flew to Austin, Texas to escort 11-year-old Audrey Soape to a church daddy-daughter dance. Soape tragically lost her father last year and her grandfather died of lung cancer shortly after.
Such an act of grace, compassion, sacrifice, and love…it doesn’t get much better than that.
And speaking of love, today is Valentine’s Day. Yes, of course I know that this entire holiday is a pure marketing scam job by the Hallmark people. But I also don’t mind taking a day to concentrate on the blessing of romantic love. No, I’m not going to get all gooey and sentimental because I like reading that from other people about like I enjoy witnessing their gratuitous public displays of affection. That said, I’d be remiss not to take a moment to acknowledge how blessed I am to be married to Jenny. It’s hard to imagine anyone working harder to serve her husband and children as selflessly and as lovingly as she does.
For those of you who have ever been blessed by anything you’ve read here or in a column I’ve written, or that you’ve heard in a speech or sermon from me, it truly would not be possible if it wasn’t for her faithful dedication to our family, and the inconceivable levels of patience she exhibits that allow me the chance to do these things. I love our life together and I’m thankful that she’s the one I get to spend my life serving in our home.
I admit it’s kind of funny to look back at that picture and remember all the dumb things I thought about love at the time. Things that were demonstrably false, and biblically unsound, but yet so culturally ingrained that it just seemed true. Ideas like how Jenny was my “soul mate,” the one person in the world that God had picked out for me to marry. I’m sure I said that to her at some point - that I was glad she was the one God had set aside, waiting for me. It’s remarkable that I never saw the gaping holes and shocking arrogance in such a profession (luckily, Jenny took it as it was intended – a declaration of love, rather than how she could have heard it).
First of all, far from being biblical, the idea of a soul mate has its roots in Greek mythology. I’m not sure the last time you brushed up on your Iliad or Odyssey, but according to Homer and other Greek mythologists, Zeus created human beings with two faces (front and back), four arms and four legs. At some point, this “captain of the gods” became concerned how powerful these human creatures were becoming, and decided to do something about it.
He sent down one of his lightning bolts and split humans into two pieces, and scattered them across the earth, thus locking humanity into a life-long pursuit of their other half – the one that would literally “complete them.” It was Zeus’s hope that by confining humans to an exhausting search throughout the world for their soul’s mate, they would be too preoccupied to worry about rivaling the gods.
So how does such an idea become ingrained in American culture to the point where virtually every love song conveys it, every movie magnifies it, the entire culture amplifies it, even ministers preach it, and countless marriages have been ended because of one partner’s false belief that they “married the wrong person” and “found their soul mate” at work?
I think the answer goes back to what I was saying earlier about telling Jenny she was “the one” God had set aside just for me. Notice the object that is being served in that equation. Me. God is blessing me with a person to love me and serve me. This thought becomes ingrained in our society because it fits perfectly with our own human nature whose first love is self.
It’s why, once again, Christianity is the perfect antidote, teaching us to put self to the side and live lives of service and sacrifice for another. What’s funny is that if I preach that message to a congregation in order to inspire them to build wells for the thirsty in the third world, to give generously to disaster relief, or to volunteer their time at the Rescue Mission, no one bats an eye. We all accept that is the lifestyle of Christian “service” we all signed up for. But truthfully, there is no one we as Christians should be “serving” more than our own spouse – the sinner that we swore before God to love, have, hold, forgive, and honor every day until death do us part.
For my money, two humans faithfully obeying that command even when they don’t feel like it? That’s a far better love story than anything Hollywood or Zeus would ever come up with.
ICYMI…
Some very concerning realities are now publicly known about what Francis Collins presided over as former director of the National Institutes of Health. That’s why I wrote this about these high-profile Christians who have promoted him:
Also, I’ve come down on CNN quite regularly for the nonsense they churn out. When they get it right, I want to acknowledge that too. So I wrote this: