Friday, March 26, 2010

March 26, 2010

"And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and 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 be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Genesis 2:23-24
How many would say that it is important to know why you are doing what you do? Can I see a show of hands?
Now, I am painfully aware there are those moments when you walk into another room and can't remember why you came there. I occasionally have those moments. Maybe you have - or do. If you can relate to the feeling of that experience can you imagine living like that?
When speaking to Adam and Eve about their brand new relationship God says, "For this reason....". I think God wanted to make something clear. And it really wasn't intended for Adam and Eve since they didn't have a mother or father. God, at the very beginning of marriage as an institution, spoke to men and women through the ages to make an important point - "oneness is only possible if you first leave and then cleave".
Have you sensed the importance of this truth?
Yesterday we talked about God's marital math - one plus one becoming one. Here we see that this "oneness" process cannot happen unless it is preceded by a subtraction. Leaving is a subtraction - or at lease a separation. The word "cleave" infers that you are chasing after or pursuing someone".
Let me use this analogy to illustrate. God intended marriage to be like bungee jumping without the elastic cord.
Who would do that?
Depends on what you are jumping into and what you are trusting to catch you.
I have seen people jump off the bridge over the Zambezi River, at the foot of majestic Victoria Falls, that connects Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is hundreds of feet down to the river and there river is filled with rocks and crocs.
Why would they do that?
Because they are tethered to a strong elastic cord that will stretch to its limit and snap them back up to safety. Hundreds have jumped and paid good money to do it and everyone has lived to tell about.
Here's the point, God is saying at the very beginning of marriage as an institution that marriage should be just like jumping off the bridge with no bungee cord because you know you are falling into the unconditional love and grace of God.
Let me ask you this, "If you and your spouse were free-falling from your previous source of security into a new an untested one do you think you would cling tightly to each other?"
That is what God is talking about! Marital oneness requires two people to literally take a leap of faith from their previous security into a new dependence on God clinging to each other while they fall into the grace of God.
Could it be that you aren't cleaving because you aren't leaving?
Could it be that you aren't leaving because your security is rooted in the past and not in Him?
What do you need to leave in order to cleave?
Take the leap!