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I am going to say this with some frustration; I hope you forgive me.

And if I quarrel a bit, pray I repent quickly. I am risking speaking like this for the man you last met, the man God is calling to step up in his pursuit of marriage. Or maybe you are the man?

But first tell me, is it like this where you live? Young marriageable women drive home, sometimes retiring to bed with more memes and unclear texts, and even if (big if) they make it to the restaurant night of two, more months of unclear intentions follow, with no clear direction of where ‘everything is going’ but just a little ‘situationship,’ padded with random breakups and sometimes hints of promised revival, as you wonder what all this was about in the first place!

I understand these ends. I live among a people of marriageable age too, fine working young men rich in Christian conviction, but little to say about their vision for a family.

Happy to text and offer car rides, happy to hint, but still unable to commit. Some indeed quote John Calvin more than Cupid, but still fail to learn from the latter.

I now pray grace interrupts them, because even when they eventually commit to pursue a woman, they struggle with clues on how to win or fill her heart.

I suspect because in prior Christian circles, they learned that opposite-sex relationships are often next to immorality, so ‘proceeding with care’ soon grows and becomes a lack of romantic tact. Problem, problem!

They may understand that “find” is a biblical ‘doing word,’ but they can’t discern its synonyms in Solomon’s language: “He who finds a good wife finds a good thing.” (Proverbs 18:22)

I mean, ‘finding,’ as the ancients envisioned it, is about being proactive; arranging your life with cultivation of a family as part of your life goals, not as an add-on.

It’s going back to the Genesis blueprint to realise a man cannot pursue oneness with a wife until he has left father and mother (Gen 2:24); it’s knowing what stands between being parented and seeking parenting, namely, movement, motion, and opened lips.

It’s thinking of your graduation, yes, but also thinking of the next generation you might foster, yes, and the cash balance on your account, but also the non-material provision you were made for.

Well, the pushbacks are many, Eddie. Marriage is not ultimate; yes, it is not. In fact, Jesus limited it to earth, but shouldn’t that cause men to want it more?

Do we want to continue our parents’ “sexual accidents” that brought some of us forth? Or shall we be more intentional, seek a wife, win her heart, and invite her to play the long game?

Are we still okay with settling into our Najeera apartment every workday evening, to battle porn for the sixteenth time, while God prescribes marriage as a possible cure to immorality?

Shall we still watch our beautiful godly sisters hit their 30s, suffer resulting reproductive complications, and go into a third job, while the rate of date nights they‘ve been to has never risen beyond two? If at all.

Men, we say we are about the Great Commission, but do we see the potential to spread the mission of God through family life? Do we see the dots?

But Eddie, weddings have been hyped and commercialized. True, work hard or count on God for meaningful work, while you pray and seek for a less materialistic spouse. Have you tried that, yet?

Christian men are eager for sex but are reluctant about the long-term commitment that safeguards it; they are paralysed by material preparation for marriage, while they are inactive to the present and urgent work of asking the currently readiest woman among those throngs that lift holy hands with us every Sunday.

Okay, okay, finally.

See, in the 2000s, Rhionah and I were graced to have a church community that pushed us towards accountable dating.

Now 11 years into this union, we have barely seen anything like what we experienced then; there are not many spiritual spaces where the guy in the pews is challenged about what’s next for the girl he texted thrice this week!

Yet we both currently know Spirit-filled ladies in our circles (many in their ripe twenties) who only need a courageous, faithful Christian guy willing to look in their eye and invite them on a journey John Piper defines as “a parable of permanence.” Even if all ducks are not yet in a row.

But where is this guy? Is he still downloading a Series, reading Fabrizio Romano, or giving vibes online every 9pm? And who has prepared them? That’s where my volunteer offer comes in.

I mean, if indeed marriage is an imitation of Christ and his church, what then shall we do when the trouser-clad potential groom is increasingly reluctant, unlike his Saviour Jesus?