Myths About Marriage - "Pet's help with Lonliness"

The Myth That Pets Solve Loneliness Instead of Marriage

Well, each month we go through a different myth about marriage. This month's myth is a pet is a good way to deal with loneliness while pursuing marriage. A pet is a good way to deal with loneliness while pursuing marriage.

Fact, animals are no substitute for marriage. I've known people who as they've tried looking for a spouse have gotten discouraged and so they say, well, I'm going to go get a dog or I'm going to go get a cat and this is going to help.

Maybe you've done that. Maybe you know people who have done that and pets have become something that are very normal. So it seems very normal. Doesn't seem like anything that's unhealthy, but let me read you some statistics that should suggest to you that there is something unhealthy afoot.

First of all, now these stats are not per capita, so I'm not sure quite how meaningful they are, but I'll give you more stats after this. So first of all, millennials have more pets than Gen X, which has more pets than boomers.

OK, so millennials are 33 percent of pet owners, Gen X 25 percent, boomers 24 percent. Now, some of that could just be population, but in general, pets have gotten more popular each generation. One statistic on that is that U .S. household pet ownership has increased by 18 percent since 1988, so it has gone up over time.

And it's not just that pet ownership has increased. The stated intention of pet ownership is increasingly to be a substitute for family. Millennial pet owners are 17 times more likely than boomers to say that they delayed children to get and got a pet instead as a substitute for having children.

Right. You've heard the term fur babies before. Right. Some people really mean it. And that's six times more likely than Gen X. And from 2006 to 2011, so that's just one stat I have. It's very short. But just in that short period of time, there was an increase by seven point eight percentage points of singles owning pets.

So that's that's all pre-COVID, too. Now, I had another stat written down that I actually did not print out for myself. And I want to bring it out because it's so seems pretty significant to me. Ninety seven percent of pet owners consider their pets to be part of the family.

More than half of pet owners, that's 51 percent, consider their pets to be as much as the part of the family as a human family member. Now, I'm sure that push comes to shove. There'll be probably something that gives.

But the fact that people are willing to say something like that, that almost everybody says pets part of the family and then just over half say as much a part of the family as any other family member.

That's that's wild stuff right there. And all the while, marriage is down 37 percent since that same time period of 1988 that I mentioned earlier. Why is it that pets have increased that unrelated at all?

Well, as you see people relating with people less and families less, they have animals as a substitute more and more frequently. This is not something that is unaddressed by the Bible. The Bible does speak to the nature of animals, speaks to the nature of how we are to relate with animals.

Genesis 2 Shows God’s Answer to Loneliness

Let me go ahead and read to you from Genesis chapter two. Then the Lord God said, this is verse 18, then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.

OK, so God recognizes that man is alone. He needs a cure for his loneliness. What's going to be the cure? He's going to figure it out, right? He's going to. And he does this. He's God. He knows everything.

He knows what the cure is going to be. But he does this in an illustrative way. OK, just like he created the world in six days. OK, he doesn't just immediately create woman. What does he do? Now, out of the ground, the Lord had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was no there was not found a helper fit for him.

OK, so God lines them all up, says dog. Is this one going to be good enough? No. OK, cat. Is this one going to be good enough? No, none of these are a suitable helper for him. None of these are a cure for loneliness.

OK, and what is the cure for loneliness? So God, so the Lord God calls a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

And the man said this at last is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

That is the solution. It's not animals that are the cure for loneliness. It is instead marriage that is the cure for loneliness is other men and women, but the most quintessentially in marriage. And before consider what happened when God was creating the animals.

Verse 24. And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good. OK, so everything's being made according to its kind. It has its natural partners. It has its natural companions. Man, not made in the same way. Not made according to the kind of animals, but man made after the image of God designed for a different kind of connection that animals cannot provide.

What the Bible Says About Animals, Companionship, and Pets

Now, that might be something that is a new thought to you, and maybe there are some biblical objections that are coming to your mind. So I'd like to cover all the passages or at least all the categories of passages that I think address the notion of pets at all.

Perhaps the most direct is found in Job. So in Job, when it's talking about the Leviathan, it says, will you play with him as a bird or will you put him on a leash for your girls? So the idea being that someone might put an animal on a leash for their children.

OK, well, if you think about the nature of pets, treating them as a companion, there's kind of a reasonable to itness to it when it comes with children. Right. Children, you give them stuffed animals, they pretend like they're stuffed animals are real, right?

That pretend thing is a normal part of childhood. Children are very egocentric, meaning they kind of project their experience onto everything. I find it very interesting teaching kids to play very simple card games because they assume that you know all their cards and they assume you don't know any of your own cards.

That's that's just like a really common thing. If you play very just come up with a simple card game, even more simple than the ones that you normally would play, try playing it with a very small child and you'll find that that's that's what they think.

They think everybody kind of has the same information, the same experience that they do. So they project that on animals, they project it on their stuffed animals, right, et cetera. And that's that's kind of how kids pretend, et cetera.

But for an adult to do that very different, very different thing for an adult to pretend like a like an animal is a person. Very different. You have dogs in the story of Lazarus and the rich man eating from under the table.

You have the Syrophoenician woman who speaks of dogs eating under the table. So you have this picture occasionally of dogs eating under the table, but they're despised in Jewish culture, right? These are these are despised creatures.

They're also around for utilitarian purposes, right? They're there for guarding. They're there for hunting. They're there for herding. Why do people have cats for a long time? Domestic cats primarily to keep away the mice, right, to keep away the plague.

Very utilitarian purposes. So those pictures are not pictures of pets. The fact that the fact that there are dogs around, it's not really not for companionship. You could call them pets. I don't have a problem with the word pet, but it's not for substituting family life.

It's not for what human companionship is for. Okay, Proverbs 12 10 says that the righteous man has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel. So the Bible says that we should have compassion on animals.

Nothing wrong with that, but even for farm animals, et cetera, you know, you shouldn't be cruel to animals. Sometimes it's good that they would die to give man food or for whatever purpose, but you don't want to be cruel to them.

But none of that has to do with treating animals as companions. And then we also have 2 Samuel. So in 2 Samuel chapter 12, Nathan approaches David in order to confront him about his sin against Bathsheba and his sin against Uriah.

So he makes an analogy. He said, but the poor man had nothing but one little lamb, which he had bought, and he brought it up and it grew up with him and with his children. They used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms.

And it was like a daughter to him. And then if you know the rest of the story, someone else comes and takes the lamb. OK, this is maybe the closest thing you have to this. But what is this picture of?

This picture is of someone that you're supposed to sympathize with, of someone that you're supposed to find a little pathetic. OK, that's that's the picture that's being given here. It's not of someone who has a healthy relationship with animals being like one of his daughters.

It's someone who is kind of so sad and pathetic that they have nothing else. Don't don't look at any of these pictures and think that they are saying that it's a good thing to substitute animals for people.

OK, Genesis two makes it very clear foundational truth, God illustrating the nature of man and woman, et cetera. Animals are no substitute for people. All right. So what happens if you give your companionship to animals?

Well, there's a big resource strain. The average household that owns a dog spends one thousand seven hundred and thirty three dollars per year. Now, I found a bunch of different stats. This one's just representative.

The others are pretty close to that, too. But almost two thousand dollars a year on a dog. That's it's very wild. And increasingly, things like insurance for pets is a thing. So people have resources.

You know, they aren't able to do certain things because pets are draining their resources. Something to think about, you know, if you if you in pursuing marriage need to go to travel to a conference to meet people, if you want to sign up for a dating service subscription, all those kinds of things, they cost money.

Right. And the more money you have, the more freedom that you have to pursue marriage. But if that's getting drained by animals, then you don't have the same thing. OK. Also, your desires for companionship, if you are fulfilling them with anything like an animal, then you will not desire marriage the way you want.

And that desire is a good thing. It's good that God created man this way. It's not good for man to be alone, but it was good for him to be lonely because he was created to be with someone. OK. And so if you fulfill that and you mortify that good desire, then you will not pursue the good thing that you were supposed to pursue.

I knew a man one time who told me a story about how he had invited another family over for Thanksgiving dinner. And when the family arrived, they didn't really eat any of the food. They just kind of picked out a little here and there.

And he said, why aren't you hungry? What's wrong? They said, oh, well, we were hungry along the way. So we stopped at McDonald's. All right. That's a that's a very rude thing to do at Thanksgiving dinner.

But this is how a lot of people treat marriage when, you know, oh, OK, God's made this one thing for companionship. If I'm having a difficult, if I'm having difficulty waiting for that or finding it, let me just fulfill it with other things instead.

And, you know, that's that's good enough. No, you're supposed to be hungry for marriage. It's a good thing. And let's take animals and replace that with anything else. Right. Let's say and this is on the rise now.

Let's say someone has an AI companion, right? Sexual, not sexual, whatever the case may be. Right. And they're talking to this thing and they're fulfilling the desires for companionship. You know, there's this one service.

It's this little pendant computer that you hold around your neck. It's called Friend. And it talks to you and it listens to you. And I've seen videos of people using this, just kind of using it to fill this hole they have for companionship.

And I think the vast majority of people watching any of those videos would just be really sad for this person who is filling that hole of companionship with this little pendant AI robot. Right. Why don't we feel the same way about animals?

It's because it's become so normalized. If AI got that normalized in our society, maybe we'd think so little of it also. But once again, it's pets, not people should not be replacing our needs for companionship.

OK, so as you own animals, maybe you already own animals. Maybe you're thinking about owning animals. You can think about the good ways that you can have animals. Right. For utility. Right. A guard dog, cat for chasing away mice, that kind of thing.

You know, even for entertainment. Right. Maybe you just really like horse racing or something like that. Or you have, you know, pet or fish for the aesthetics. You know, there's all kinds of there's all kinds of good use of animals.

God put them here for man to have dominion over and to use them and enjoy them. So it's perfectly all right to enjoy animals, but they should not become part of the family. They should not be something that fulfills that desire for companionship.

Right. Shouldn't replace children, shouldn't replace husband or wife. Now, and that is the bad sort of way to use an animal, right, is to replace family members or to mortify good desires that you would have for family members.

What to Do If a Pet Has Become a Substitute for Family

OK, so what should you do? I'm going to be straight with you. If you have a pet that you are using for these purposes to fulfill those desires, you should just get rid of it. Now, I could say other things about other steps you could take.

Well, maybe if you kind of change the way that you're using the animal for other purposes, you know, for think about your cat less as a friend and more as something to chase away mice. Maybe maybe there's some people that make shouldn't make that transition.

But I think most of the people that got a pet for companionship don't really have other uses for it. You know, if this is something where you're hearing this and you're realizing you're doing the opposite of what Genesis 2 is calling you to do, take whatever steps necessary.

Jesus said, cut your hand off, poke out your eye, you know, do what is necessary in order that you do not violate the principles that God provides us. Cut out any substitutes for companionship. Right.

If you are if you have online relationships that are not healthy. Right. Because they're mostly designed just to kind of fulfill your desires, talk to somebody without actually investing in people in person.

Now, online relationships could be good with friends. I've got lots of friends online, but I'm just trying to help you think more broadly of what kind of things could be fulfilling your desires for for the kind of companionship that God would hold out for you in different places.

Right. Like marriage or in-person church relationships, things like that. No, just think seriously about this. You know, people make the joke about the old cat lady who never gets married. Right. That's a real phenomenon.

That's not that doesn't come from nowhere, comes from a real place where someone does not pursue the companionship that God has called them to pursue and instead pursues one with animals instead. Now, the good news beyond the good gift of marriage that God has given is that in the gospel, we have an incredible way of relating with God.

The Good News of Relating to God Through Christ

It's already the case in Genesis one that all the other animals or all the animals being made after their own kind, mankind being made after the image of God. Man was made in a way to relate to God the way that the animals were made to relate to each other.

In fact, we can relate with God better than we can relate with others in some ways. Then there are some ways that we can't. But God in his infinite wisdom sent his son. God became man in order that we might know him.

No one has ever seen God, but the only God who is at the father's side, he has made him known. Jesus Christ has made the father known by becoming man. We can have companionship with God Almighty through the man, Jesus Christ.

He did not become an angel. He did not become an animal. Hebrews 2 says it was not angels. It was not for angels that he came to save. He came to save man. And so he became a man. And this is a wonderful and good thing.

Let us not nullify the goodness of the gospel in relating to God and to man the way that he has called of us and that he has enabled us in his gospel by substituting it with other things. Amen. Let me go and pray for us.

Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word. It contains many things that are countercultural, many things that are difficult. But I pray that you would give us humility to receive your truth. In Jesus' name.

Amen. OK, so, yeah, animals teach you things. Yes, the Bible has lots of illustrations from from animals, you know, go to the ant, oh, sluggard, et cetera. Lots of lots of things we should be learning from the animals.

So definitely it can teach about responsibility. Absolutely. There's a lot of responsibility that you can learn from taking care of an animal as with taking care of trees and other things. And yes, animals will teach you things that trees won't.

But those are all very different from the notion of fulfilling desires for companionship. So I would agree with what you're saying. And I don't think it really changes what I'm what I'm describing. I do think it would be weird to get an animal just for the point of having an additional responsibility.

Like there it seems that there should be some actual positive thing. And other than I have no responsibilities and would like to add one to myself, it seems like there could be more productive ways of going about that.

But yeah, if you have if you have a cat for whatever purposes a cat is for, if you have a dog for whatever purpose dog is for and you learn responsibility in the process, fish to fish can be a lot of work.

You know, yes, those can be those can be good ways of developing responsibility. Yeah, I think I think most people have that association and I don't know what the stats are on men versus women owning dogs or cats, but I imagine it is mostly men owning dogs and women owning cats because of kind of shared attributes.

Right. Et cetera. So, yeah, I would I would agree that there seems to be some kind of relationship there. I don't know if that was designed by God as those are the two primary, you know, animal categories or anything like that.

But yeah, it does seem that one has more qualities that a man enjoys and the other more qualities a woman enjoys. Yeah, you pray for the things that you can pray for, right? You can say, you know, so and so is going through a hard time.

I pray that you would give them wisdom in their circumstances. I pray that you would give them the comfort of the spirit. You know, they would know the the comfort of the gospel, et cetera. Those are the kind of things I would pray for.

I would avoid praying for anything that you can't. Amen. Yourself. You know, the yeah, the idea that God would grant every kind of, you know, selfish prayer for your own desires. Right. It's just and I'm not saying that every prayer for the health of an animal would be selfish, but a lot of them, a lot of them are right.

A lot of times when people are praying, they are praying, like James says, not to pray right for their to spend it on their own desires. They they kind of want everything to live on forever. And that's just not how God has the world.

Right. He has given us guarantees that things will not live so long as sin is infecting the world. And it's good for there to be repeated evidence that we need an answer to death. So, yeah, I would I would pray for the things that you can pray for and then maybe follow up with a conversation after.

Yeah, I mean, God can God can answer any of those things. But when we're praying, we have to be praying in a way that is according to God's will. Right. That's what James 5 says, that if you ask anything according to his will, it will be done.

It doesn't when when the Bible says to have faith. Right. The idea isn't that you would just believe that something is true regardless of whether or not it's true. The point of having faith is believing something that actually is true.

Right. That God wants a certain thing. That that is the kind of faith that we're supposed to have, that God is able and that he's willing. Right. And so if, for example, you pray really hard for, you know, a Lamborghini and you say, I believe with all my heart and soul that God is going to give me a Lamborghini.

Right. It doesn't matter how serious you are. You know, the Bible says if you're just going to spend it on your own passions, et cetera. Right. You have no reason to have any kind of confidence in that.

So, yeah. So God gives small comforts, you know, even a very good example of this is Gideon. He already received a sign from God and he asked for more signs. We're not supposed to put the Lord to the test, but the Lord is kind.

He was kind to Gideon there. So but just the fact that God answers some of those prayers does not mean that, OK, therefore we have license to ask all kinds of things regardless of what the rest of the Bible says about his character and about his will in the world, et cetera.

That's what that's what I would say. And, you know, talking about health again, even the way people pray for their own health is often very contrary to the way the Bible would have them pray for their health.

Someone is sick. The elders are supposed to lay hands on them and pray for them, especially that they may be forgiven of any sin that they've committed. Right. And usually when people are praying for their own health, they're not doing the introspection that would be called of them.

Right now, we're talking about more serious sicknesses, you know, just the everyday kind of paper cut or whatever might not give you reason to be introspective about your own spiritual state. But so anyway, yes, God is God is merciful and he often answers prayers that were not so wise.

But at the same time, does that that does not commend to us just all kinds of prayers. And in particular, as you're thinking about pets and especially now that you've heard some biblical principles about pets, if there's someone who has a pet, the whole purpose of that pet is to fulfill, is to be some substitute for a human.

Right. And then you pray for that to continue on. You know, you're at that point, if you know that that's what's going on, you're almost praying against God's will, depending on how you frame that prayer.

So, yeah, just reasons to be careful. Yes, women have a maternal instinct that applies to a lot of different things. Yes, sometimes, sometimes pets, sometimes criminals, et cetera. Yeah, you see that in society quite a bit.

Maternal Instinct, Pet Family Language, and Compassion Toward Animals

Yeah, it's interesting how, I mean, a lot of people's instincts for compassion get misdirected away from the true victims towards other ones. You know, one that I don't personally, I think it's an overblown discussion point.

But women and men's sports, you know, the number of people who want to be compassionate or men on women's sports, the number of people who want to be compassionate on the man who wants to be in the women's sports versus the one who want to be compassionate for the women who have to put up with the men and the sport.

It's interesting because both are operating on some kind of compassion, but one is obviously more sensible than the other. So, yeah, where is that coming from? And a lot of times it is, you know, good sensibilities that God made in people, especially in women that are just being misdirected.

Yeah, so the number I got from Forbes was insane. 97 of pet owners consider their pets to be part of the family. Now, this is all just survey stuff, right? So, yes, part of my family, you know, but then more than half of pet owners, 51 consider their pets to be as much a part of their family as a human family member.

That's probably the more meaningful stat, right? Because I imagine everybody would say, oh, yeah, part of the family, but then to say it in that way where as much as a human family member is a little more meaningful.

But that's crazy. More than half would be willing to say that. Yeah. Yeah, I quoted Proverbs 12 .10. The righteous man has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel. So, yeah, the Bible even acknowledges there's a pairing between cruelty to animals and humans versus compassion towards animals and humans.