Bible Science... |
The Lofty Place of Marriage in God's Plan (continued...) |
Elder Rick Howard |
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(continued...) But that's not the only reason why God began with creating only Adam in the beginning; the other reason was to show the primacy of the individual.
This is very important to understand, especially with respect to a marriage. How so? If a marriage ends in divorce, the individual can still survive, can build a new life - and most importantly, can remain faithful to the Lord! It is the primacy of the individual that will help one to survive should the group dynamics fall apart. The key to the survival of that individual is seen in Proverbs 4:23. How do I know this to be true? I know it because I come from a divorced mother. Her mom died when she was only seven years old. Her father worked in the Oklahoma oil fields, so she was raised mostly by aunts and uncles in California. Shuffled around and directionless, she married at age 16 and was divorced by 18 with one child; a precious little daughter named Wendy. My mom must have thought her future was bleak, just wanting some good man to love her and her little girl. Then, Louis Howard returned home from Korea; a broken man having spent two years as a POW in a North Korean prison camp under terrible conditions. No doubt, in his mind, his future also looked bleak. He was called "dead man walking" from his appearance. But, my mom saw something different. They married and made a good life together, raising five kids, serving Christ, praising Him for His amazing grace of forgiveness and mercy. Your life is not over if your marriage falls apart! Yes, I know the Bible says God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). But in looking at the whole picture, we also see that He allowed it. In fact, He ordered it to Hosea the prophet. And lest we forget, even God Himself practiced divorce - He divorced Israel - although He does plan to remarry her in the future. So, yes, while we need to remember that God hates divorce, He does not hate you for having been divorced! Listen, even the ones divorcing hate divorce! Why? Because of the violence it inflicts upon their soul. Your marriage may be over - but you are not over! Back to the primacy of the individual: God's grace reaches down to rescue you when you feel like your life is over -- and He cleans you up and sends you back in to this battle called life, useable to Him once again. "He has sent Me to heal the broken hearted" (Isaiah 61:1). Those tender words pointed to Israel's Messiah, which is why Jesus, after reading them, applied them to Himself (Luke 4:18). "heal" = "to bind up" for the wounds of a broken marriage are never quite healed completely and the divorced bear the scars of it. Yet, the Lord can overcome our failures, our tragedies, and make something beautiful - "beauty of ashes" (Isaiah 61:3). This is the kind of God Who can produce great things out of two broken people in a marriage. The Bible, at its heart, is a book about redemption - redemption from a terrible place in our life. Yet, it is in the brokenness of our lives that God does His best work. |
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