The Same Fire that Produces Destruction, Produces Life

So God formed woman from man. God recognized that nothing outside of man was going to be comparable. So He did something different. He took 1 body, 1 soul, 1 will, and created 2. So the question is, what happens when you put two wills together?

There is a great deal of potential for 1 person. One person can spend their life sitting around doing as little as possible and just barely getting by, or one person can unite and drive entire nations or the world. Our his history books are full of people who changed the world by their actions. However, the only way to really build anything is by cooperation with others. When you take one person and create 2 from them, the potential is for the wills to unite and bond, to grow together. A two cord rope is not easily broken. Two people working together have a much greater potential than does one person alone. By working together they can accomplish and be more than either one could accomplish and be alone.

However, at the same time the potential and reality is that those two wills will conflict with one another. That conflict is natural and to be expected. It is a part of life. Two separate and comparable wills will produce conflict. Arguments and fighting will occur, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Where two wills unite that spark and friction produce the heat, oxygen, and fuel necessary for combustion. Fire is produced, and that fire can heat a relationship, purify it, and destroy it depending on what is done with it and how. Conflict is not necessarily bad, and it is also not necessarily good, but it is necessary and inevitable. Thus the same fire that produces destruction, also produces life.

Image from ndanger used under cc license.

Incomplete Yet Whole

It's important to understand that it is not good for a man or a woman to be alone. Neither are they complete in and of themselves. She needs more than herself, he and God alone is not good. Man needs woman and woman needs man. We are each incomplete alone.

However, it must also be stated that an incomplete man and an incomplete woman together are not complete. To understand this i will use 2 analogies. First, what most people who are single think is that when they meet the right person it will be like 2 pieces of the same puzzle put together. They will connect together, and they will be complete. The puzzle will be done. It's a nice concept. It's fun. It's romantic. It's a concept that seems to pervade today's young marriages, and if kept will destroy those marriages.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the reality is that when God separated man and woman He did not just leave them wholly incomplete. He made them each whole. God took from man, sealed him back up, and make him a whole being in and of himself. God took the rib / side / beam / part of man and formed woman from that. God made her whole as well. So now one whole and complete being (that needed more than just himself & God) is two whole incomplete beings that need each other (& God).

I stated earlier that i had 2 analogies. Well the second analogy that i had i realized didn't work. However, i did find this picture which fills in another analogy that i was considering. When a piece of glass (or in this case a mirror) is broken there is no way to make it complete again. The broken pieces are whole in and of themselves and in theory if you put them back together would make a complete mirror, however the reality is that no matter how perfectly the pieces of a broken mirror are fit back together, they will never be complete again. It works the same way with a man and a woman. Neither are complete in and of themselves. They need each other to be complete, but even by putting them together it doesn't make them perfectly complete.
Well, the analogy is still not all that great, but i think it gets the point across. Hope this helps.

Image from J. C. Rojas used under cc license.

"Make Him an Helper - - as His Counterpart"

It's interesting that in the passage where God says that it is not good for man to be alone that He talks about a partner that is suitable to him. I like how Young's Living Translation puts it "make to him an helper--as his counterpart.' " So He brought Man all of the animals and man named them, but none was found suitable for him. No other creation could be considered man's counterpart. There was nothing comparable to him. So God took a rib / side / beam out of man and formed woman from it.

Notice this, what most translations use is the word rib here. It is the Hebrew word meaning rib, side, beam, chamber, etc. Its implication is more than just as a small bone of little importance and significance, but rather as a whole section or part of Adam. It is not just something that by taking it from Adam would be a mere inconvenience, but rather that by removing this rib / side / beam man is now missing an important part of himself, that without it he is not, nor could be whole. A large part of who man is has been removed, and there is no way to regain it in and of himself.

Image from bleam used under cc license.

"It was good... It is not good"

I think the first step to really understand marriage is to look at the source. Why does marriage exist? Where did it come from?

For that we need to go to Genesis 1-3. First, God created the heavens and the earth.
1) On the first day God created light and separated it from the darkness.
2) Next He created a firmament & divided the waters from the waters.
3) On day 3 He created dry land
4 - 1a) After that He defined the lights and instructed them to rule over the day and night.
5 - 2a) On the next day He created the foul of the air and fish of the sea.
6 - 3a) Finally He created the beasts of the field and man. "Let Us make man in Our image"
So God created man in His image... and all of it was good!

Then in chapter 2 God makes an interesting statement; "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." I believe that this statement says reams about both man & God. God created man in His own image, yet it is not good for man to be alone. Man needs more than himself. Man needs more than himself & God! Not only that, but man NEEDS more than himself & God. It is not an issue of, it's probably not best for man to be alone. It's that it is simply not good for man to be alone. It is not good for him at all.

Well, the girls are awake now and i have to go. I was hoping to get a little further than this, but so be it. The note i want you to leave here with is this: Even though we have been created by the God and creator of all things (and in His image), we still NEED more than just relationship with Him. It is not good for man to be alone.

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What is Marriage?

That seems like a silly question. Everyone knows what marriage is. . . don't they?

You would think that it is a simple question with a simple answer, but that's not so much anymore. With the divorce rate so high and so many broken marriages, the concept of what marriage is seems to be much different than it used to be.

One of the books i'm looking at writing deals with this issue of what marriage is, and i am planning on posting some of my thoughts and concepts here as i work through them.



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Changes

Changes in the way we do business! I have not been very good at updating my blog lately so i'm going to attempt to make changes to how i do it.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that i don't write. In fact i write in one form or another almost every day. I just don't usually do it on my computer. So i decided that since everything we do (or don't do) is about priorities and making time for what is important, i would go about this a different way. What i will be writing is going to have to do with the notes thoughts and comments that i had throughout the week and already wrote on paper. This way the transition will be easier and less time consuming. Also it should make it so that i'm not consuming so much time arguing and debating. So, hopefully this will stick.

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