MARRIAGE GODS WAY Adam recognized immediately how distinctly different Eve was from him, and he was

excited about those differences. Adam also knew that Eve was part of him; she made him complete and drove his loneliness away. He called her ``bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.'' She was his helpmate and completer. It was love at first sight for Adam and Eve what we call a ``match made in heaven'' and with God's blessing they married immediately. Although it was Adam who gave us the introduction to marriage vows, the words were prompted by God. Verse 24 says, ``For this cause [because she was taken out of man], a man shall leave his father and his mother [Adam didn't have parents but would have left them for Eve], and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.'' That is marriage in a nutshell: leave, cleave, and become one. The great tragedy is that most people have heard these words many times but don't know what they mean. Let's take a closer look at this passage. The first step in marriage is for the man to leave his father and mother. If you are going to marry, you must be willing to sever ties. Women, if a man tells you he's going to marry you but is not willing to break with everything necessary to show you that there is nothing more important in life than loving you and spending time with you, that man doesn't understand marriage and isn't ready for it. Marriage means demonstrating a willingness to give up everything, because, as Adam said, ``This is now!'' Although a man might say he loves you, and as much as you'd like to think he's promising to share his whole life with you, he may only plan to work you into his schedule. He may not be planning to sever any ties, cut back on any activities, or give up anything for you. That kind of man doesn't know what marriage is about. God asks a man to give up the closest ties he has, because one of woman's greatest needs in marriage is for security. That is why a woman will sometimes ask her husband to hold her. Most men misinterpret that as a request for physical intimacy, but if the emotional need for security is on her mind, she is not thinking about physical desires. Because a wife needs to feel secure, a husband must leave his former ties. There must be something he gives up for his wife in order to demonstrate to her how deep a commitment he is willing to make. When he does that, he will begin to understand what marriage is all about.

Making Marriage Work: Cleaving

Second, a husband must cleave to his wife. The word ``cleave'' means to stick like glue or to attach oneself in a vise-like grip. In marriage, this is more than a literal, physical attachment. It is not only union with a body; it is union with a whole person. Too often a man's ``Let me love you'' means ``Let me please me.'' To

cleave to a woman is to work toward pleasing her, not yourself. She needs to know that her husband has her interest at heart and is willing to stick to her like glue. To some men, this sounds more like slavery than mere sacrifice. In fact, I'm reminded of a time when a man came to me to discuss a major problem in his marriage: his wife wanted him to spend all of his free time with her. With the exception of the hours he spent on the job, she expected him to be always at her side, with no time for friends or interests of his own. Although he loved her, he complained that he felt like a prisoner of his own wife. I suggested that he try a program for thirty days and promised him that by the end of that time his wife would give him the freedom he was hoping for. My instructions were simple: stick to her like glue. Wherever she goes, go with her. Whatever she does, do it with her. For one month, be her slave. The man seemed upset by my advice and accused me of adding weight to his burden. Nevertheless, he reluctantly agreed to give the plan a try. After a month had passed, he stopped me on the church grounds to tell me how it had turned out. For thirty days he had cheerfully done everything his wife asked him to do and had spent all his free time at her side. At first his wife had been puzzled by his cooperation, and then pleased, but as the days went by she began to want him out from under her feet. She discovered that she needed time for her own friends and interests. She wanted time to work and shop by herself. In less than thirty days she was suggesting that he go out with his friends and spend some of his leisure time away from the house and on his own. Thirty days brought him the freedom they both needed to give balance and greater harmony to their marriage. There is also a special way in which leaving and cleaving provides freedom. The answer is in the last phrase of verse 24, which says, ``Man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh'' (emphasis added). Did you notice the change in the pronouns from he to they? God says a man must leave and cleave before he and his wife will become one. That's a promise. They shall become one flesh. If a husband leaves and cleaves the way God intended, his wife will respond the way he (and God) wants her to respond. When God made woman, He made her to be a responder. He made her a little softer, a little warmer, a little more emotional in order to respond to man. In other words, when a husband leaves and cleaves to his wife, she will join him and begin to respond to him so that the very thing the husband wants, he will receive by giving not by demanding. God does not want a wife to love her husband and respond to him because he demands it; God wants her to do it as a natural response. God wants a wife to respond because a husband overloads her emotional circuits with loving care, because he wears her out with love and attention. I tell

many men who come to me for marital counseling, ``Stop pushing so hard, and start loving a little more. Stop complaining so much, and start loving a little harder.'' If a husband lets his wife know she is loved and makes her feel secure, he won't have to worry about her fulfilling her responsibility to the home. He won't have to worry about their physical relationship. She will be right there, responding to his needs. But one must leave in the sense God intended. You must say, ``Fellows, I can't hang out with you tonight. I've got a wife at home I want to spend time with. I think I'll take her out tonight.'' I will guarantee you that when you are that kind of husband, you will get the kind of response you want without demanding. Some of you men may be saying, ``I'm trying. How come my wife isn't responding?'' It has to do with the different emotional ``wiring'' of men and women. A man can become angry with his wife at 10:00 and be ready to kiss and make up by 10:30. He previously was a powder keg with a short fuse, but in thirty minutes, his whole demeanor has changed. On the other hand, if a wife becomes angry with her husband at ten in the morning, she may still be angry at ten o'clock that night and sometimes the night after that! Her emotions take much longer to stabilize. A husband can shorten that recovery time significantly if he takes the time to learn how. It requires what some call ``tough love'' a decision to love with or without response, no matter how difficult the process. For many husbands, loving unconditionally will require an apology and a new start. ``I've failed. I haven't loved you the way I was supposed to love you, and I know that it has affected our relationship. I'm going to change. I'm going to love you deeply the way you need to be loved.'' It's going to take that kind of commitment to succeed in marriage. For some men, that will be a new decision; for others it will be a continuation of a commitment already made. New or old, it will be worth it. Psalm 128 contains an interesting note on the responsive nature of women and how it affects the home. The passage tells us that a man who fears the Lord (a man who walks with God) will find his wife becoming like a fruitful grapevine in his house. In a favorable climate, grapevines need no coaxing to grow. Given the right environment, they will grow and produce grapes from which wine (a drink symbolizing celebration and happiness in biblical times) is made. It is the same in the home. The husband is responsible for creating a climate in which his wife can flourish. When that happens, he can naturally expect a joyful response. The husband can anticipate joy from his labor. ``Climate control'' involves a number of requirements. First, the husband must be at home enough to create and maintain an ideal temperature. The husband who is rarely at home cannot do that because his absences frustrate his wife and damage

her self-confidence. Second, the husband must know what his wife needs in order for her to grow. That means he must spend quality time with his mate if he is going to receive a quality response. The west wall of a house in which I once lived was covered with a vine. Each summer that vine grew with incredible speed. Summer rains and the warmth of the sun called forth its best efforts to cover that wall with gorgeous foliage. In no time at all it had to be trimmed and then trimmed again as it began to grow under the window trim, through the brick exterior, and under the roof of the house. This vine delighted me with its exuberant growth. So it is with a wife who finds her husband providing the right climate. She will delight her husband with her love, providing him with the joy he needs and desires. The better and more constant the climate, the better, faster, and more consistent the wife's growth will be. As she grows and is fulfilled, her husband will benefit from her growth. Some will respond to these ideas by saying that this approach puts too much weight on the husband's shoulders. My answer is simple. The responsibility is already his because he is the leader of the home. Even if he is not the cause of all the problems, the responsibility still falls on him. This is clearly taught in Ephesians 5:25-27: ``Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also 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, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless'' (emphasis added). Look carefully at the italicized portion of that verse. It is the church that has the spots and wrinkles, but Jesus bears upon Himself the responsibility for identifying and removing them. That means it is the responsibility of the husband to enable his wife to overcome her faults. Why? Because that reflects the nature of Christ. If Christ responded to us in the way we respond to Him, we would have died a long time ago. Fortunately, Christ works with us in every way possible in order to mold us into His likeness. That can be a difficult and time-consuming task; in fact, it takes a lifetime. So does marriage. It takes a lifetime to become totally ``one flesh'' in marriage, and that is why marriage is ``till death do us part.'' If a wife has bad habits, it's her husband's job to change them. If she has a negative personality, her husband must accept the project of readjusting it. If she is overweight and he doesn't like it, he must lead the way by eating sensibly and exercising regularly. Many of the men reading this may be worrying about their wives' reactions to this plan. If we stop and think about it, we don't respond to Christ as we ought to either, but He still works with us, forgiving us for the same things over and over,

and continually coaxing us forward. That's the nature of covenant love. Marriage is a covenant, too a covenant in which a man and a woman agree to love one another through good and bad circumstances no matter what. Sure, that's difficult, but Paul gave us one rule for providing the kind of nurturing love that bonds husband and wife together. Continuing with the verses quoted above, Paul wrote, ``So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies'' (v.28). Simply stated, a man should do for his wife only those things that he would like to have done for himself. Since he doesn't slap his own body around, even when it displeases him, so a man has no right to hit his wife. If he does accidentally hurt himself, for example, in shaving, he takes great pains to ease the discomfort and stop the bleeding. In the same way, if he causes his wife pain, he ought to tenderly care for her to the best of his ability. Apart from this kind of tender care, the apostle Peter says men's prayers will be hindered (1 Peter 3:7). That is to say that God determines whether He will communicate with a husband based on his willingness to communicate in a sensitive and loving way with his wife. Why? Because husband and wife are one. To be at odds with one another is to be in sin, and that breaks fellowship with God. Given this kind of love over time, there are not many women especially those walking with the Lord who won't respond.

Making Marriage Work: Oneness

God concludes His description of marriage by saying, ``The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed'' (Genesis 2:25). When you think of nakedness, naturally physical nakedness comes to mind. But the idea is broader than that. Adam and Eve were unclothed, but, more important, they were transparent, open to one another in friendship. Is your wife or your husband your best friend? Is your mate the person with whom you share your total being? If not, why don't you begin to share yourselves more fully with one another, remembering that you are one in marriage and one in God's sight? Some of you may be asking what to do about marriages that have lost their luster. Can they be revived? The answer is a resounding ``yes!'' In fact, the formula for success is quite simple, although the application may be difficult. It is the same formula God gave to the church at Ephesus, which had lost its zeal for the Savior (Revelation 2:5). The relationship between Christ and the members of that church had become so dead that Christ was ready to walk out and leave them to their loveless rituals, but God offered them a formula for revival of their first love: remember, repent, and return. First, they were to remember their previous situation. To put it another way, they needed to turn back the hands of time to reflect on the early days when love ruled their lives. Can you remember that time in your marriage? Husbands, do you remember how you used to open the car door for your sweetheart? Now she may

be lucky to get into the car before you drive off! And wives, do you remember how much you enjoyed cooking your husband's favorite meals? Now you may not care whether he eats or not. The problem is that we forget those initial days of joy, happiness, and wonder the same symptoms that often affect our relationship with Christ. The point is that if you will remember how your relationship was, you'll know that it can be that way again. Take time together to remember and smile at the memories. Second, the formula calls for repentance. To confess that you are wrong is tough, especially when words are not enough. To repent means not only to change your thinking, but to change the actions that result from your thoughts. To repent is to turn and go in the opposite direction, the right direction. In this case, the right direction is probably the early stage of your marriage. It is the direction of the past where your relationship with one another took precedence over your careers, other friends, and even your own interests. To repent you must stop, turn 180 degrees, and return to the relationship you should never have left. Finally, the church at Ephesus was told to return to the works it did at first. For couples that means returning to that former relationship to redo it. You can't return to the past, because those days are gone forever and can never be reclaimed. But you can bring the works of the past into the present and the future simply by redoing them in a consistent, loving fashion. You can go on dates together. You can send those special love notes, flowers, and cards. You can make those surprise calls and do those little, but all-important acts of caring and sensitivity such as opening the car door and helping her up the steps, or complementing him and letting him lead the way. Granted, it may be a little tougher now, since you'll have to go against the winds of tension that have plagued your relationship, but it's a question of how much you want the feelings of love back. The prize is worth the effort. I know some of will say that it's your mate's fault and that he or she should do the remembering, repenting, and returning. That's probably not altogether true since it usually takes two to fight. But even if it is true, remember that Jesus bore the penalty even though He was innocent. He bore our sins to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18). Following His example may take a willingness to go to the limit to win our mates back. I realize that following the formula above is not easy. That's where your dependence on the Holy Spirit comes in. Without His enabling, you are merely trying by human effort to produce a supernatural response. God has give every believer the power to accomplish whatever God commands not through human effort, but through the Holy Spirit's work. Husbands, love your wives whether you feel like it or not, because God commands it and the Holy Spirit can accomplish it if you will yield to His power by faith. Wives, submit to your husbands by the Holy

Spirit's power. Let him know you respect his position as head of the family. Let the Holy Spirit work to bring back that first love and to develop the relationship you want.

A Union of Three
The Trinity is made up of three co-equal persons who are one: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Marriage is an earthly replica of this divine trinity three persons who are one: a man, a woman, and the Lord. You cannot leave God at the altar and expect to have a happy marriage.Christ's resurrection power operating in your life is the only power that can save your life, your marriage, and your home. When Christ arose from the dead, He gave mankind access to the power of His resurrection. That power can enable you and your mate to live together, love one another, trust each other, and share life with one another until death parts you. God alone has given mankind the ability to do that. You may say, ``Wait a minute. What about the divorce rate? What about all the broken homes?'' The divorce figures in the United States are astronomical and the number of broken homes heartbreaking. The fact is that people don't know God. The problems in these homes are ultimately a reflection of men and women's estrangement from God. But there is good news. God sent His Son Jesus Christ to earth to die on the cross as a substitute for mankind's sin. Whenever men or women respond to Christ in faith, trusting Him alone as Savior, He not only forgives them but empowers them to live new resurrection lives as they live in obedience to Him. It's this power of God operating in your life that makes marriage work. If you haven't made that personal decision to turn the totality of your life over to Jesus Christ, you don't have that resurrection power. But you can have it if you believe Christ rose from the dead to give you power to be the kind of husband or wife that He has called you to be. When you give Him your life, then you will experience marriage as God planned it. God made marriage, and He can make it work. I challenge you to commit yourselves to the Lord. Let Him remake your marriage into a marriage, God's style.