LEAVE AND CLEAVE
Carey Madding
Today's Scripture: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24, ESV
Theme: Prioritize your spouse, encourage your children to learn this as they marry. Allow marriage to modify the way you relate to your family of origin.
A GOOD DADDY/DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP
In so many ways, having a good father sets you up for understanding the Father God’s love. But it’s not absolutely necessary. People who don’t have that life experience can also really appreciate and thank God when He fills that void. In the same way, you don’t have to have come from a perfect home to understand marriage. It helps, but you can also learn “what not to do” by seeing the mistakes and harmful habits of others. One problem I found in having a good birth family and good relationship with my dad was the “leave and cleave” part. It wasn’t a matter of leaving home and getting homesick: I had been at college and away from my military parents for a few years, seeing them a few times a year. It was the transference of influence. I felt I needed my dad’s approval and opinion when we needed to buy a car. I was hesitant to move forward to and buy a house because my dad couldn’t come and inspect it with us .Learning to trust my husband as the leader of my family, and to trust my discernment and God’s leading was a huge trial for this new wife.
WHEN THE KIDS COME
If (and when) you add children to the mix, women specifically have difficulty keeping the marital relationship as the priority relationship. If the marriage isn’t strong, the children suffer. Although you may feel that these small, needy, demanding humans should take precedence, they cannot. Prioritize your marital relationship and make time for each other. Give each other grace and assistance and support. Then childcare, discipline, carpooling, and other child-rearing distractions are survivable. This in turn blesses your children beyond measure: far more than having every activity and all the attention they want. Seeing the inner working of a marital partnership will give them a firm foundation for godly relationships of all kinds as they age, date, marry, or remain single. They will feel loved...but not the center of the whole world’s existence. They need that balance.
Make It Personal: Where do you need to make a change? Do you need to honor your parents, but partner with your spouse on decisions? Do you need to prioritize your spouse over career, children, activities, or even volunteering at church? God will make it clear to you...if you ask His guidance and direction.
Pray:
Father God, as someone who is single, help me to focus the extra capacity and time I have in a strong relationship with You. Help me support others, both married and single persons, as they seek to find You and grow in their faith. If You have called me to singleness for this moment in time, help me to be content in my relationship with You and ready to move or go or serve as You lead. Help me to prepare for my next step, if that is my heart’s desire and within Your will.
Lord God, as a married person, I want to honor You. I want to love my spouse as You the Church. As a wife, I want to submit (though most often, this partnership is a gentle yoke, not a subjugation or denial of my opinions). Thank You that You love us, Your Church, as a spouse and a lover, with an everlasting, all-encompassing love. Help us to love one another as well and show any children born of this marriage the power and beauty of a godly marital covenant and partnership.
Read: Ephesians 5:15-33
Weekly Memory Verse: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” 1 Corinthians 13:7-8a, ESV