The first part of this article was posted just previous to the last one.  (Since the publishing of that last one, an update on my crazy life, at the end of September, my daughter and I were hit by another car in an accident that totaled mine.  I am slowly recovering.  In the mornin’, in the evenin’, ain’t we got fun?)

In Part 1, I focused on the fact that when God observed, “It is not good that man should be alone.  I will make a helper fit for him”, He did NOT say, “Adam is unfinished.  I better make the rest of him.”  Adam and Eve were each complete in God just as God made them.  Singles need not – should not – ever be considered as or consider themselves to be somehow “less than” because of their not-married status.

However, it’s not just single folks who get confused about what makes a “whole” life.

Our modern romantic expectations of marriage are far beyond what was expected in the past.  These days, we’re supposed to be each others’ “soul mate”.  Some in the church have compounded the confusion by melding that pop concept with the Biblical description of the two that become “one flesh”.  It’s quite an inaccurate reading of Scripture, since “one flesh” is not used only to describe marriage.  In I Co. 6:16, Paul warns, “Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?  For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’”  No, “one flesh” doth not a “soul mate” make.

Looking for a spouse to be our “soul mate” is dangerous.  Some of us have hearts that are easily misled – especially if we are too eager to find Mr./Miss Right.  Even if we marry someone who is, to all first experience, such a match, if we start judging our spouse on whether he is fulfilling that role, and he fails, we fuel the fires of discontent and feel ourselves to be incomplete because he isn’t meeting our needs.  If we judge our spouse on whether she is fulfilling that role, and she succeeds, we risk putting her in a position only God is meant to occupy.  At the root of the “soul mate” concept is the fallacy that ANY person apart from God can complete us.  When joined in the mystic union that is Christian marriage, something greater than the sum of its parts IS created – but that something will cease to exist the moment that “death do us part.”  Husband and wife are not “partial” people who only become “whole” together, and then are sentenced to live only “half lives” once one spouse has died.  Marriage has never been about completing us.

We are complete because GOD is the One Who completes us.

Parenthood has similar pitfalls.  Just as those in a marriage may unintentionally put their spouse in a priority where s/he doesn’t belong, those of us with kids may do the same thing.  If we have a great relationship with our kids, we may let that substitute for a relationship with our own Heavenly Father.  We may so immerse themselves in the lives of our kids that when the kids grow up and leave, all the we can see in our lives is emptiness instead of opportunity.  Our children may wound us, turn away from us, abandon us.  There are couples who struggle with infertility to the point of becoming so obsessed with it that, like unhappy singles, they define themselves entirely by what they DON’T have.

Yet, although Scripture certainly speaks often of children as a blessing, it just as certainly never speaks of children as making us “whole” people or their absence making us “less than.”  No matter what our relationship is with our children, no matter what our children’s choices may be, no matter whether we even have children, we are complete because GOD is the One Who completes us.

Married, single.  Parent, childless.  Any of these we may be called into or out of, but we must always recognize that our completion does not depend on which He calls us to, on whether He calls us to the role our heart desires, or on the outcome of that calling.  For those in an unhappy marriage or divorced or left behind by death; for those who are single but yearn to be married; for those whose children have spurned them or those arms are empty and aching for a child; however incomplete we may feel, we ARE complete in Him.  For those in a great marriage, for those close with their kids, however fulfilling those relationships, our completion is in HIM.  Content in singleness or childlessness?  Remember that “self” is never sufficient; we are complete ONLY in Him.  His first calling to ALL is the same as it has always been:  to follow Him and learn of Him and allow the Spirit to conform us to the image of the Son.  He has promised us that He has given us, is giving us, and will continue to give us, everything we need for this to be so.  “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and Godliness, through the knowledge of Him Who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the Divine Nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”  2 Peter 1:3-4

None of us are sentenced to a life of being incomplete.  In Him, we ARE complete, always.