Perfect Marriage Partner? (cont.)The answer is pretty simple. We see in God's word that it is more important what a couple does after they get married than how they met one another. What goes on after the ceremony is more important than what went on before. Let's compare the "match made in heaven" Isaac/Rebecca to the "chaos-couple" David/Bathsheba. Abraham did not want his son to marry a heathen Canaanite. So the patriarch sent his trusted servant to Ur in Chaldaea - his hometown - to search for a bride there. It got time, for Isaac was already pushing forty and was still single. (Genesis 24.) After a long and dusty journey the servant arrives in Ur and looks around. Now what? How should he go about finding just the right girl for his master's only boy? She is supposed to be beautiful, intelligent, of a good family. She should display good manners, be industrious, polite, of a cheerful disposition, and above all, she has to be willing to leave everything behind and travel many hundreds of miles to a strange land to marry a total stranger. How do you find somebody like that? So the man prays. Fervently. And almost immediately afterwards he meets Rebecca, who displays all the desired attributes and even comes - Heaven be praised! - from Abraham's family! She is the granddaughter of his brother Nahor. And she consents to come and marry this fabulously rich heir of yet greater fortunes, Isaac. Their getting-together has all the trappings of divine appointment. God's fingerprints are all over the finding-story. You could say that God had ordained Rebecca to become Isaac's bride. But did that insure their nuptial happiness? Was their family life indeed the "wedded bliss" one would expect? After all: these two were selected for one another not by a mere servant, but by the big Master himself! The plain and simple answer is No! First Rebecca remains barren for twenty years. In those days that put an unbelievable pressure upon a couple, since infertility was considered a curse. Beyond that, children were the old age insurance of folks back then. (Remember the first of the ten commandments with a promise?) Finally God hears Isaac's prayer and his wife gets pregnant with twins. But these two start fighting while still in their mother's womb! When they are born each parent chooses a favourite child. (What utter folly!) The sons don't get along very well at all. Which reflects on the relationship of their progenitors. We all know how wily Jacob bought carnal Esau's birthright with a mere mess of pottage. Later Mom and her boy conspired and tricked Dad into believing Jacob was Esau. Together they stole the elder's patriarchal blessing. Rebecca was a very manipulative person. And Jacob inherited that trait from her. It ruined their family. Follified Esau was so mad, he swore he'd kill Jacob. Jacob had to flee. Who knows how mad blind old Isaac was at his conniving wife? Their start together was a dream, but their marriage developed into a cataclysmic catastrophe. Compare that to David an Bathsheba. (2 Samuel 11.) Those two weren't led to one another by a benevolent providence, but rather by blistering sensual heat. At the beginning of their relationship we find adultery and murder! Middle-aged King David had observed the young wife of his officer Uriah bathing on a humid evening in spring. Since she on one hand was very beautiful and the king on the other was very bored, an affair erupted. David invited the voluptuous nymph for an intimate tête-à-tête, where the unspeakable transpired! Bathsheba left the encounter pregnant, which induced David to get rid of her husband, a very loyal soldier. The kind ordered a military "accident" to happen to him, which killed Uriah. Then David married the mourning widow. How utterly appalling. But despite their horrific start, both of them decided to work on their relationship. This must have been exceedingly hard for both of them, considering what stood between them. But they did it. God in his mercy forgave them and blessed their aspirations, as they tried to make their union work. And they succeeded! David and Bathsheba count as one of the best couples in the biblical narrative. Their son Solomon ascended to the throne and became the wisest ruler ever. He ushered in the Golden Age of Israel. Wouldn't it have been a shame if David and Bathsheba would have given up? The world would never have experienced the enrichment it received through Solomon. So, we see: more important than finding the perfect partner, is, to be continually working on your relationship once you are married. God-ordained Isaac and Rebecca couldn't make their's work. Devil-induced David and Bathsheba did. Let's end with a couple of observations, which will help us in our marriages. First: men and women are so vastly different that you could sometimes think they come from different planets. Here are some of the differences: Men are generally task-oriented, while women are relationship-oriented. Men are goal-oriented, women are detail-oriented. Men relax by keeping silent, women relax by talking. Men comprehend by receiving information, women by intuition. Men want power, women want security. Men want to conquer their competitors. (Motto: "There can only be one! And that's going to be me!") Women want to win their competitors over. (Motto: "Shared joy is multiplied, shared sorrow is cut in half.) Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. (Ephesians 5, 33.) What men need most is respect. Men feel best when they have completed a task, solved a problem. The best thing a husband can do for his wife is to listen to her. If you consider these points you can't help but grow in your marriage. Wishing you God's richest and best, Gert Hoinle Copyright (c) 2000 by Gert Hoinle |
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