FOFOMO

The third discourseman

FOMO, or the ‘fear of missing out’. It’s a word I’m sure many of us know, and a feeling almost all of us do. It manifests itself in many ways: the indecision until the very last minute, just to make sure you don’t make plans before something better comes along; the sadness or frustration or anxiety when your friends are all at an event you either weren’t invited to or couldn’t make; the sense that there must be more to life than what you’re getting right now, that maybe there’s something you’ve missed or overlooked; the fear of dying or growing old before you’ve achieved the things you want to and reached the milestones you dream about. FOFOMO is not a typo. It is the ‘fear of the fear of missing out’, the fear of FOMO. Let me explain…

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I feel like I have noticed, among the Christians I have spent time with at church recently, a hesitancy to label anything as ‘missing out’. Probably the most common example I can think of is regarding marriage and singleness. If you’re single your whole life, so the argument goes, you’re not really missing out on anything. Of course, you are missing out on marriage, but that’s not really missing out. Marriage is just a picture of something better, the marriage between Christ and the Church, which all Christians will be a part of.

I think there are other examples. One milestone that usually follows marriage is children, and again I think we can see the same types of argument. If you’re childless your whole life, whether by choice or by tragedy, you’re not really missing out. There’s church family. Evangelism gives you the opportunity to make new family members, not just your own children but children of God. Of course, you are missing out on biological family, on offspring you can truly call your own flesh and blood, but that’s not really missing out. As Christians we have greater, spiritual, family ties.

Or even when people suffer from an injury or disability, or miss out on a promotion, or fail to make the university first team, and so on. Nothing should ever really be seen as ‘missing out’. We have a whole new creation to look forward to, where you’ll have the perfect body and life you crave. You’ll be able to make up for lost time and do anything you missed out on, and more. That’s the reality. The world now is just a picture or mock up or broken mess.

However, at least in the case of singleness, marriage and children, I think this fear of FOMO must be dropped, for one simple reason. Single people are missing out on marriage! Of course, married people are also missing out on being single, and 1 Corinthians 7 is a well-known passage in favour of singleness (though there is disagreement as to the metric by which singleness should be deemed ‘better’). And being single is clearly a noble way of life, when done in service of the gospel. Jesus and Paul, two of the most influential men in world history, were both single during their ministries. And single people can look forward to the great wedding banquet of Christ and the Church, and can enjoy relationship with him now (though of course married people can too…), which should be a real comfort.

But unlike some of the other examples, marriage and procreation are some of the few things we know for sure will not be in the new heavens and the new earth. Jesus makes that clear in the Gospels (see for example Matthew 22:30). In fact, I venture that evangelism to unbelievers and marriage/sex/childbearing are some of the only day-to-day, positive and God-glorifying activities we are certain that we won’t be doing for all eternity. So if anything, marriage is one of the few things you really can miss out on. One of the few things you won’t be able to do once Jesus returns.

I feel like the reasons behind FOFOMO are pastoral and theological. Pastorally, it springs from a desire to protect single people from the negative emotions of feeling like you’re missing out. Theologically, it springs from an emphasis on marriage as a picture of Christ and the Church, and the Genesis 1-2 goal of humanity to fill the earth and subdue it being replaced (at least for the church) by the Matthew 28 goal of making disciples of all nations.

Both are problematic. Theologically, marriage is not just a picture of Christ and the Church, and evangelism has not replaced having children. Even a moment of logical thinking demonstrates the second point easily enough- there will be no people for you to convert unless humanity goes on having children. In order to be born again, you have to be born the first time round. There will be no saved sinners in heaven without some sort of human, biological, mother and father (even if the sperm and egg came together artificially in some way). Marriage is not just a picture of the new creation wedding banquet, it is the only God-appointed means for the people at that banquet to be brought into existence in this life and given a chance to make it there.

And whilst marriage is certainly an important picture of Christ and the Church, that argument can be taken too far. Consider for a moment that you have a starving man in your church, begging for bread, and you respond thusly:

‘My brother, I know your sadness. But do not worry, bread is just a picture of the Lord Jesus! In John’s Gospel, the Lord tells us that he is the bread of life, and that anyone who feeds on him shall not go hungry. Physical food now is just a picture of that spiritual reality, which is yours in Christ! At the new creation there will be a feast! You are missing out on nothing, my friend.’

Now to some extent that’s all true. But to a greater extent, it’s totally ridiculous! The fact of the matter is that we’re spiritual and physical beings, and physical food is important. Whilst believing in Jesus is satisfying, it doesn’t solve physical hunger in this life. And while being united with Christ is extremely intimate, it doesn’t really scratch the itch when it comes to people who desire physical intimacy, who want to have sex. Now I don’t want to overstate my point. The key difference is that food is essential to staying alive, sex is not. But I don’t want to understate it either. When I first wrote that sentence, I said, ‘food is essential to life, sex is not’, before realising that actually sex is just as essential for life. As stated above, no-one comes into being (at least not without extreme medical assistance) without sex. And sex and marriage and procreation, along with work and food, are part of the absolute basics of creation life laid out in Genesis 1-2. So whilst any individual can go forever without sex in a way that they can’t with food, I do believe that the desire for marriage is a good, natural, physical desire, that doesn’t obviously get met just by thinking about what it’s a picture of. There is a difference between real bread, and Jesus. Being united with Christ is not the same as having sex. And of course Jesus is more important. It is in fact he that is ‘True bread’, and even if we do starve to death, he can give us eternal life. And even if we stay single for life, we can honour and serve him. But that doesn’t mean that just thinking about the picture should remove our physical desires or bring total relief in this life.

And pastorally I think it’s dangerous too, because it denies real and natural feelings of loss, sadness and missing out. If you say too often ‘You’re not really missing out, cheer up!’ to Christians struggling with singleness, you’re in danger of adding guilt about feeling sad on top of the sadness itself! When in reality there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be married, and feeling sad if that hasn’t happened for you. And I don’t think anyone is fooled. As much as you repeat the same message, people know if they’re sad about being single. I don’t actually think that meditating on what marriage is a picture of removes that sadness for most people.

With all that being said, there is something amazing about the argument I’ve thus far been criticizing. It really is true that one day marriage will come to an end, that it’s not what will last for eternity. It really is true that single men and women can live amazing Christian lives, often more single-mindedly devoted to their mission than their married counterparts. It’s true that church family provides fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters for those without natural family. It’s true that we can trust that the Lord gives and takes away, and sovereignly works all things for our good, and that if it’s his decision for us not to marry, that is good enough for us. It’s true that single people aren’t victims or pitiable wretches, to be treated as charity cases or social outliers. And it’s true that not everyone wants to get married, and lots of marriages are miserable, and some may well live a much happier life single.

And whilst all of that means we should never encourage single people to mope around or sulk or be self pitying. And that we should hold out to them all of the much greater joys of the Christian life as a source of contentment, peace and happiness. And that single people can be just as godly and fruitful in the service of the Lord as anyone, potentially even more so. It does not mean that we should trivialise the theological purpose of sex and marriage, or undermine that natural desire most of us experience for it (at least at times), by acting as if there is nothing to be lost by remaining single. By acting as if there’s no good reason to be sad about not having children.

The new creation doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to miss out on now. It means that, even when we do miss out, we can have great joy and hope and peace and contentment and boldness and strength, in the knowledge that one day, the days of missing out will be over.