Sex, Love, and Marriage

For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them and they with you . . . they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the LORD your God has given you. Joshua 23:12-13

We’ve all seen those romantic movies in which narrow-minded parents forbid their offspring from dating anyone outside their religion. It’s usually not my religion and so I feel free to invest emotionally in the story, cheering for the young couple who, despite being from different worlds, fall in love. In this story, love is the ultimate value, trumping every other value. The narrow-minded parents with their myopic, faith-centered view of the world are actually the villains of the story. Love (specifically romantic love) conquers all, and anything or anyone standing in its way must be rejected.

The problem is that infatuation, romance, lust, and even true love, often make terrible decisions. Love, if it wasn’t such a universal experience, would likely be considered a mental illness, often causing those who experience it to behave irrationally. I recall listening to a man, who in all seriousness, said this, “God put a love in my heart for this woman, but my wife just doesn’t understand”. His pursuit of this other woman (which involved drugs and restraining orders) eventually landed him in jail. It was obvious to anyone listening that his behavior was insane, but to him, those feelings were the most real thing in the world, and he simply had to follow his heart.

Today’s passage reveals that love doesn’t always make healthy choices and that our propensity to make unhealthy choices when we’re in love is nothing new. In the story, as the Israelites settled the promised land, Joshua warned them not to intermarry with those who didn’t believe in God. He knew that romantic attachment to those who didn’t follow their faith would lead them away from that faith. If God was the most important thing in their lives, then they were supposed to make all of their decisions, even romantic decisions, accordingly.

I thank God every day for my wife. She and I share the same beliefs, but when I fell in love with her, I’m afraid it wasn’t her beliefs which I found attractive. Looking back now at all we’ve been through though, I’m desperately thankful that we share that which we both consider to be the most important thing about ourselves. I’m not saying love isn’t important. Thankfully, we both share a tremendous romantic love for each other, but our marriage works because we love each other and our lives are pointed in the same direction.