Wisdom sounds good, but how does it work? If the way of wisdom involves searching the Scriptures, getting wise counsel, praying, and finally making a decision, how do we walk in this way when it comes to life’s tough decisions? In this chapter, we’ll look at two choices that tend to throw sensitive Christians into a tizzy of self-reflection and pietistic passivity: work and marriage.
Let’s start with the job question. Whether you’re facing a choice between two jobs or considering a career change or just beginning to explore your vocational possibilities, how does godly wisdom help you make a decision?
Step One: Search the Scriptures. Remember, you’re not looking for a verse that says, “Take thou the cashier position at the Piggly Wiggly.” You are looking for principles. So for starters you want to know whether the job is righteous. Assuming you’re not considering a gig as a hit man for the mob or a photographer (or model!) for Playboy, most jobs can be God-glorifying (but not all are, so do ask this question).
Besides searching the Scriptures to see if the job itself is okay, you want to be thinking about other biblical principles. The Scripture warns us, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). Some jobs may put your family at risk of discomfort or limited possessions (like missionaries, for example), and that’s not always bad. But you do need to be able to provide for your family.
A good Bible-preaching, caring church nearby should be a top factor in your decision.
You also want to consider the churches available where you are taking a job. Sadly, this is a part of obeying the Scriptures that most Christians rarely consider. Before taking a new job, we look at salary, benefits, school districts, commuting time, and cultural amenities; but if everything else falls into place and there’s no good church in the area, it’s hard to imagine how God’s revealed will—your sanctification—will be well-served. Obviously, you may intentionally take a job somewhere where there aren’t churches in hopes that you can evangelize and maybe even start a church. But for most of the people who will move somewhere else in the United States or Canada, whether or not there is a good Bible-believing, Bible-preaching, caring church nearby should be a top factor in your decision.
Don’t think only about safety or the resale value of your house or the school system. Think about what ministry you can do and what church you can be a part of and whether you can get there in a reasonable car drive. The more you read the Bible, the more your thinking will be transformed, and the more these kinds of issues will matter to you.
Step Two: Get wise counsel. Talk to people who know you well. What skills and abilities do they see in you? Do you like kids and have fun with them? If not, you probably shouldn’t be a kindergarten teacher. Ask your friends what your gifts are. Ask them, “Can you see me doing this?” Listen to your friends, your parents, your teachers, your leaders. Be teachable. It may be that you’re not very responsible and you’re not hardworking and someone will tell you that. Or it may be that you’re looking for work you’re completely unqualified for. Maybe you don’t have the proper training, or maybe you need work that offers frequent change, or something with more structure. If a couple of friends suggest you aren’t very natural with people, selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door probably is a bad fit. In any event, get good advice and be willing to listen.
Step Three: Pray. Let me give an example that may give you some ideas of what to pray for when considering a job change. I mentioned earlier the decision I faced as to whether to come to University Reformed Church or stay at the church in Iowa where I was quite content. I prayed a lot about the decision. But I didn’t ask God to tell me what to do. So what did I pray for? I prayed that God would make me honest in my interviews. I prayed that I would see a true picture of this church and that they would see a true picture of me. I prayed mostly that my heart would be right, that I wouldn’t be motivated by pride—either to stay because it was a big church or to move because I could be the senior pastor. I prayed that I wouldn’t make a decision based on fear: “What if I fail as a senior pastor?” “What if everyone in Iowa gets mad at me for going?” Or pleasing people: “I don’t want to let down the search committee that’s been working at this for so long.”
I prayed that I would make a decision based on faith, hope, and love—and not the praise of man and greed and selfish ambition. In other words, I prayed that I would be following God’s will of desire rather than praying to figure out His will of direction.
Step Four: Make a decision. Don’t over-spiritualize. You can serve the Lord in a thousand different jobs. We need missionaries and we need pastors. But we also need entrepreneurs who create jobs so people can make money so they can support missionaries and pastors. And we need entrepreneurs because work is good. Please don’t ever think you are a second-class citizen in the kingdom of God if you aren’t in full-time ministry. You can honor the Lord as a teacher, mother, doctor, lawyer, loan officer, or social worker; you can work in retail, fast food, politics, or big business; you can be a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker. You can be just about anything you want as long as you aren’t lazy (Proverb 6:6–11; 26:13–16), and whatever you do you perform to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Contentment says, “God has me here for a reason, and if He never does anything different, I’ll still serve and praise Him.”
God calls His people to lots of different things. Sometimes you feel a sense of calling to your job and, you know what, sometimes you don’t. You just work. I’m extremely thankful that I love what I do for a living. I feel badly for people who only tolerate their jobs, or worse. But we must all serve the Lord with heart, soul, strength, and mind wherever He’s placed us. Unfortunately, we’ve turned the idea of calling or vocation on its head. The Reformers emphasized calling in order to break down the sacred-secular divide. They said, if you are working for the glory of God, you are doing the Lord’s work, no matter whether you’re a priest or a monk or a banker. But we’ve taken this notion of calling and turned it upside down, so instead of finding purpose in every kind of work, we are madly looking for the one job that will fulfill our purpose in life.
I’m not arguing for complacency in or bitter resignation to your present circumstances. I am arguing for what the apostle Paul advocated: godliness with contentment. The two together form “great gain,” he declared (1 Timothy 6:6). Complacency and contentment are often confused, but there is a difference between the two. Contentment is saying, “God has me here for a reason, and if He never does anything different, I’ll still serve and praise Him.” Complacency is saying, “Things will never change, so why bother trying?” The complacent are like wine left with the dregs, like coffee sludge at the bottom of your cup, like the wicked “who say in their hearts, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill’ “(Zephaniah 1:12). Nothing is impossible with God, so go ahead and run hard after your big plans and take a shot at your dream job. But remember that in almost any job, God can be pleased with your work so long as you are taking pleasure in Him as you do it.
It seems that getting married is getting harder to do, or at least harder to commit to. In 1965, the median age at first marriage was 22.8 for men and 20.6 for women. By 2002, a little more than a generation later, the median age for marriage rose to 26.9 for men and 25.3 for women.1 Delayed marriage occurs for numerous reasons: longer life spans, the drive for more education, transient lifestyles among the young, greater discretionary income, a desire for more experiences before marriage, and greater (and habitual) independence. Add to these the opportunities to meet hundreds of potential mates, leading to more second-guessing and indecision.
For Christians there is another delaying factor: searching for the will of God in marriage. What decision, we think to ourselves, is more important than picking a husband or wife? Surely, God wants to, in fact, must tell me who is the right guy for me.
Such an approach sounds spiritual, but wisdom points us in a different direction. The four steps we applied to the job search can also be used in the pursuit of marriage. (That’s the thing about wisdom; it’s less of a detailed road map and more of a way to make decisions in many different situations.)
Step One: Search the Scriptures. The Bible won’t tell you whom to marry, but it does tell you something about marriage. Marriage should be between one man and one woman. Christians should marry Christians (cf. Malachi 2:11; 1 Corinthians 7:39). We should not be unequally yoked (2 Corinthians 6:14). I wouldn’t advise a very mature believer to marry someone who converted yesterday, nor would I recommend a Protestant marry a Catholic, nor an evangelical wed a more liberal Christian. Those marriages still work out sometimes, but that’s not the model. You want to yoke yourself to someone who is going to be plowing in the same direction you are.
Christians should also be circumspect before marrying someone who has been divorced. If the divorce did not take place on biblical grounds (e.g., sexual immorality [Matthew 19:9] or desertion by an unbelieving spouse [1 Corinthians 7:15]), then Jesus says you are committing adultery because you are marrying someone who should still be married to his or her spouse (Matthew 5:31–32).
Step Two: Get wise counsel. Do your friends think this marriage makes sense? Do they see you growing and flourishing when you’re around him, or do they sense that you get moody and frustrated whenever you are together? Even more importantly, what do your parents think? It’s true that sometimes parents object to marriages for all the wrong reasons. But in this country we probably honor our parents less than we should and are too impatient with them and try too little to bring them along and hear them out when they aren’t excited about a boyfriend or girlfriend.
Step Three: Pray. Ask God for pure motives. You don’t want to get married for lust or money or for fear of being single. You certainly don’t want to get married to spite an ex-girlfriend or show an ex-boyfriend that you are desirable after all. Ask God that He would help you be honest about who you are and that you might know the other person for who she really is. Ask God for help not to make a decision based on your hormones, and that you won’t refuse to make a decision out of cowardice.
Finally, pray less that God would show you who is the right husband or wife and pray more to be the right kind of husband or wife. If everyone was praying to be the right spouse, it wouldn’t matter nearly so much who is the “right” spouse. Dump your list of the seventeen things you need in a wife and make yourself a list of seventeen things you need to be as a husband.
Step Four: Make a decision. I know this may sound crass, and your parents might not appreciate the advice, but guys, if you like a girl and you’re both Christians and your friends and family aren’t alarmed and she actually likes you back, you should probably get married. Let me be quick to add that singleness is not a disease in need of a cure. God can lead you into a time (or lifetime) of fruitful ministry as a single person. And if you at times feel frustration over an earnest longing to be married, remember this time of being single is part of God’s good plan too. The church, for her part, needs to do a better job reaching out to singles, not treating them like misfits or as simply married people waiting to happen.
So I want to be clear: There’s nothing wrong with being single. But gentlemen, there is something wrong with waiting around for God to pluck a woman from your side. He did it for Adam, but He’s not going to do it for you. No matter who you marry, it will be hard work. So find someone to marry and work at it. You may get cold feet before walking down the aisle—that’s normal. But don’t overthink yourself into lifelong celibacy.
Gentlemen … be the relational and spiritual leader God has called you to be.
Too many young guys are waiting for writing in the sky before they make a relational commitment. It doesn’t have to be that complicated. My grandpa DeYoung met my grandma on his paper route. Then they worked at the bowling alley together and started hanging out at the soda fountain. Eventually my grandpa proposed and they got married in 1948. When I asked him if he agonized over the decision to get married, he paused for a moment and said, “Uh … no. Was I supposed to?”
Gentlemen, there are wonderful Christian girls waiting for you to act, well, like a man. Stop waiting for romantic lightning to strike. Stop waiting for the umpteenth green light. Stop “hanging out” every night without ever making your intentions clear. Go ask a girl on a date, or ask her “to court,” or whatever you think is the appropriate language. But do something. If you want to be single, that’s great. Jesus was single. I hear it can be a pretty good gig. But if you want to get married, do something about it. Take a chance. Risk rejection. Be the relational and spiritual leader God has called you to be.
There are always plenty of exceptions, but as a general rule, Christians are waiting too long to get married. There are too many great Christians out there who should be married to one of the other great Christians out there. I remember Elisabeth Elliot saying one time that while speaking at a large Christian singles ministry, she desperately wanted to line up all the men on one wall, all the women on the other, count off (1, 1; 2, 2; 3, 3) and pair up those singles, and get them married.
Let me say it one more time: There is nothing wrong with being single. It can be a gift from the Lord and a gift to the church. But when there is an overabundance of Christian singles who want to be married, this is a problem. And it’s a problem I put squarely at the feet of young men whose immaturity, passivity, and indecision are pushing their hormones to the limits of self-control, delaying the growing-up process, and forcing countless numbers of young women to spend lots of time and money pursuing a career (which is not necessarily wrong) when they would rather be getting married and having children. Men, if you want to be married, find a godly gal, treat her right, talk to her parents, pop the question, tie the knot, and start making babies.
And while I’m jumping on toes, let me explode the myth of “the one.” Yes, in God’s secret providence, He has just the right person picked out for you. And yes, once you meet the guy of your dreams, you won’t want to be with anyone else. He’ll be the only one for you. I know this will sound very unromantic (especially to some of the ladies), but don’t think that there is only one person on the whole planet to whom you could be happily married. You’re not looking for that one puzzle piece that will interlock with yours. “You complete me” may sound magically romantic, but it’s not true. Yes, men and women are designed to rely on one another in Marriage. However, the biblical formula for marriage is not half a person plus half a person equals one completed puzzle of a person. Genesis math says one plus one equals one (Genesis 2:24).
I’m not saying you shouldn’t “fit” with your spouse. And, of course, once you’re married he or she will be the only puzzle piece for you. But before that don’t think that I’ve met this great gal, but what if she’s not the one? What if the one is in Boise and I haven’t found her yet? Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t fret about finding your soul mate. And especially after you’re married and you’re having difficulties, don’t tell your pastor, “I’m going to file for divorce; he just wasn’t the one.” The problem with the myth of “the one” is that it assumes that affection is the glue that holds the marriage together, when really it is your commitment to marriage that safeguards the affection. So ditch the myth and get hitched.
Delayed marriage can lead to a number of problems. For starters, it often lengthens adolescence and the youth culture that goes with it. In his Short Life of Jonathan Edwards, George Marsden points out that as far as Edwards was concerned, “the most formidable challenge to church piety was a well-developed youth culture, which intersected with the tavern culture.”2 One of the main reasons for this youth culture, Marsden notes, was the postponing of marriage in Northampton. Because the supply of land had run out in Edwards’s town, there were few places for new couples to start their new families. And as result, new families just didn’t get started. The average age of marriage had risen to twenty-nine years old for men and twenty-five for women. This meant that young people, instead of getting married, settling down, and having a family, found it difficult to establish themselves independently of their parents and generally made silly and sinful decisions, as twentysomethings tend to do when they have too much time and too little responsibility. That can happen to us too.
Delayed marriage complicates career decisions, especially for women.
One of the other problems with delayed marriage is that it complicates career decisions, especially for women. There are too many fine Christian women sliding into careers they aren’t sure they want to pursue, while they not so secretly wish they could be married and raise a family. I’m not saying women can’t work outside the home, let alone that they aren’t capable of doing the work quite well. My beef is with the men. While young women are going along with their career path because marriage doesn’t seem imminent, young men are meandering through life, putting off marriage, struggling with lust (and sometimes masturbation), and doing nothing much in particular on the job front. When I’ve spoken on this subject at my church. I’ve had a number of women tell me afterward, “Preach it, Pastor! We want men to do something. Pursue us. Ask us out. We want to be married, but they need to take some initiative.”
Meanwhile, it is all too easy for women to pursue a career and accrue lots of debt while they are single and getting an advanced degree sounds like a good idea. But then they get married at twenty-eight and want to start a family, except now they are in their last year of residency, and they figure they can’t quit and “waste” all their training. Plus, they’ll need to work at least five years just to pay back school loans. Please do not misunderstand. This is not a criticism of women doctors, nurses, or businesswomen. It’s just that their lives are much more complicated because marriage has been delayed. A young woman may feel that she can’t get married until she finishes school and pays off her debts.
Sometimes when a couple with debts or young careers get married, their decisions about birth control and family planning—difficult decisions on which Christians can disagree—seem to already have been made for them. This is a tough spot to be in. There are always hard decisions to make and choppy waters to navigate, but I suspect some stories would turn out differently if growing up happened sooner, and men were thinking seriously of marriage at twenty-one instead of thirty-one.
I know I’ve been pretty hard on my generation, especially the men. I don’t write as one who is the model of manly courage or decision making. And I don’t write to crush your spirits. Remember, even if we have made mistakes—or are in the middle of mistakes—God loves to help the helpless. He loves to forgive the brokenhearted and give second and third chances to those who’ve gone through a dozen mistakes already. The Spirit is stronger than our timidity and wiser than our foolishness. But instead of “letting go and letting God,” we need to make every effort to grow up in our faith (2 Peter 1:5ff).
As a fellow undershepherd, I encourage all the pastors reading this book to preach to the young people in their congregation to start acting like eighteen is twenty-eight, instead of thinking thirty-eight is eighteen. Do not coddle them (or me!) with low expectations.
Next, I encourage older Christians to set a good example of steady, faithful responsibility; to model Christ-centered consistency and risky decision making for the glory of God; and to be honest with the rest of us about when you have failed and where you are struggling to live up to the good example you want to set.
I encourage the women to consider the long-term ramifications of their decisions when they are twenty-five and single, hoping to be thirty-five and married with children some day.
Finally, I exhort the men reading this book to pray for wisdom (James 1:5–6), get a job, and get married. And do it sooner rather than later. To do so would be good for your sanctification, good for your purity, good for the church, and good for some godly woman out there who would be your wife, though she’s probably already better than you deserve, just like my bride was for me.