Beautiful. . .

A couple of week I attended a second wedding in the last month and it's made me do a lot of thinking. I actually sat down at my computer Labor Day weekend and started this post, but my brain still had much to think through. I have been thinking and dwelling on this for the past month now and can hopefully get out some semblance of what God has put on my heart.

So these weddings were amazing. One was Sara and Ryan who got married about a month ago now and the other was a friend who I went to college with for a year. Both weddings were beautiful and showcased God and His design for us along with the covenant of marriage. As I sat there at the second wedding, my thoughts turned to the first couple, Adam and Eve.

The first chapter and a half of the Bible is God creating and everything being good. God makes something and sees that it is good. He makes something else and that was good. Moving forward to Genesis 2:18, "Then the LORD God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.'" So now we see that everything up until this point has been good and beautiful and right, but then we see that this one thing, for man to be alone, is not good. So to remedy this, God brings all the animals and we see in verse 20, "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 not found a helper fit for him." I think God knew this was coming. I don't think he was crossing His fingers saying "Oh man I hope Adam finds something as a suitable helper!" He is God. But because he did this what happens next becomes more beautiful.

After seeing that something to be done, God did one of the most beautiful things ever. "So the LORD God caused 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.Then the man said,

'This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.'
(Genesis 2:21-23)

How beautiful is this scene. God sees that it is not good for man to be alone, and He creates this counterpart for the man. Not that He was forced to, not that He had to, but out of overflowing love and joy within God, He created the woman. He could see right from the start that man couldn't do it alone and needed a helper.

We see this distorted all the time, where the man takes this idea to an unhealthy level and marriage is essentially signing the woman into servitude. On the other side, we see this distorted by an overbearing woman who the Bible says "Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife" (Proverbs 21:9) and "A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day" (Proverbs 27:15) But neither of these are what God had designed in the Garden. We live in a broken world and those things God made beautiful are now tainted by our depravity.

So now what? How do we take this thing that was beautiful and then was destroyed, how do we make it beautiful again? This relationship between husbands and wives, like everything else, now needs to be reconciled. Paul addresses this in Ephesians 5.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

Here we see Genesis 2 being lived out. She comes alongside and helps (cause we all know he can't do it alone). He loves, cherishes, and leads her, not lording it over her. There is mutual love, respect, honor, and it is beautiful again.

I know that this is the way it is supposed to be now and therefore not easy at all, but that doesn't dismiss these commands.

Paul in this passage ends with the conclusion of the Genesis 2 passage, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed." (Genesis 2:24-25)

I know I am not married, but I see this being lived out in the lives of those around me and I see the beauty that God made it to be and it makes me smile and hope for my future. See, when you don't have something, you want it. Once you get it, and have been married to it for a while, it can loose it's beauty in your eyes. Please don't let it do that. If you are married, please take time to tell your spouse how special they are to you. Please don't forget how beautiful God made this thing. Live out how He commanded you to and show those of us who aren't married that not only is it possible, but that it is beautiful. . .