Losing Myself in Marriage
As I celebrate with my wife 22 years of growing together in marriage, as one in Christ I think of the many people who have yet to lose themselves in their relationships.
We were never designed to remain as we are. Yet it seems many of us enjoy where we are so much we never gain the next phase of our lives. Too often where we are to go requires a stripping of something we have and are so fond of. I can remember as a child, Parents who would take us from a house we loved and were familiar with, to a new place we didn't yet know. At 16 we as a family went from the city to the country, talk about an exchange. This is like thirty years ago but I can remember the thoughts of losing the friendships I had in exchange for the unknown. Today I can tell you I would not have wanted to go back to the citylife, but it took going through it to show this to me. I had much more in the country; a larger yard, ponds to fish in and even my mother was less worried and extended more freedoms to us. I could ride my ten speed for miles now not just on the street where she could look out and see me. I made new friends, new not better and I still remember the one's from the city. But had I refused to not let go of what I had in the city, I would never have realized what I could have. There are many stories like this in my past including choices to continue in the educational process or strike out in an employment venture. Jobs that I would leave for new ones. My own moving from state to state. I could write articles on each of these experiences.
Yet it seems in marriage we fail to comprehend that there has to be a losing of our single lives in order to experience fully the married life. Many of us try to hold on to the things in our single walk that won't fit in the marriage walk. I remember friends who refused to go from being a friend with me as being single to becoming friends of this marriage. I had to choose to walk away from them. I still love them I just could not separate me from the marriage anymore. This did not mean I could not do something without my wife it just meant that in all things, the marriage was considered before just planning or doing a thing.
The Lord designed marriage to be a blessing yet a marriage can be the closest experience to a heaven or a hell in this physical life. Look at the words God used in Genesis 2:18-25
18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman, '
for she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Not good to be alone.
Sometimes we need alone time to think or to meditate and this is only for a short time. What the Lord was saying here is not that type of getting alone to accomplish a thing. But he was talking of loneliness and how it is not a good thing. He made man first alone then declared that man should not be alone. He did this so we would know the truth and not believe the lie that often creeps up on us where we confess incorrectly I would be better off without anyone. I need my wife and she needs me. This applies to our heavenly marriage as well where we can all say we need each other.
A helper.
This one is abused so much in religion. We need a clearer picture of the Lords will. She is not given to be a helper to my self will; to do my bidding and my desires or as a slave to my needs. But the helper He referred to here is clearer in Christ in the New Testament where he declares the woman to be a joint heir or an equal partner in the marriage. She is not beneath but truly beside. Man brings the seed and woman the egg, but the woman provides the womb for these two to grow into a baby. Man cannot reproduce himself without the woman. And this is the first purpose in marriage, to be fruitful and multiply. Again this is a place we could explore for hours. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you to see the true ministry in the marriage where you are joint heirs in Christ.
Woman came from man.
The Lord God made man from the earth. Why did he not go back there and create a peer for Adam? What we need to see is in creating Adam, God had already made the highest form of creation. This one had His image stamped on him and His nature impregnated in him. To make woman from anything other than what was already in man would have been to make her inferior to man. Man possessed at that time both the feminine and the masculine and so in His wisdom he separated those parts and made male and female. Each part was an equal opposite of the nature and image of God separated.
For this reason
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Now the two separated have need to be reassembled in order to achieve God's will of marriage, becoming one again. This is why we are told to leave the former and to cling to the new creation, the marriage. Picture if you can two pieces of play dough, one ball of yellow and one of blue. Put the two together and mesh them into each other and you have a new ball of clay. I see this in phases. You can press them together and yet the colors don't mingle much and so looking at it you still see the old parts clearly one half yellow and and the other blue just joined at an edge. Work them together a little and you see change in process. You can now see some of the yellow and some of the blue but you also see some new coming bits of green appearing. Tear these two apart now and they will never be what they once were. They carry parts with them from the meshing together. Keep on meshing these two and the colors that came into this marriage soon are all gone. They are now a new color. The yellow and blue balls of clay are now one ball of green clay. Here we have lost our singleness and no longer desire the former life.
Naked and not ashamed.
This was said after he made them one. Many people see this as being mankind naked in public. This is not so. Man and woman here are naked now in marriage. Not just physically but a triune nakedness, spirit, soul and body. In this place her emotions are naked before me and I still love her, yet my logic is exposed to her for it's impurities and she covers and loves me. This is the place where self is lost in the marriage and love is the cover for many shortcomings. As it grows into the for-ordained goals for this new creature.
Just look at this scripture and let the Holy Spirit give you a fresh picture of what He intended marriage to be!
God Bless You!
Ephesians 5:22-33 (The Message)
22-24Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.
25-28Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor—since they're already "one" in marriage.
29-33No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That's how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become "one flesh." This is a huge mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.
