Who's your Eve?

In Genesis chapter 2, God allows Adam to discover that he’d been created alone.  Despite perfect fellowship with Almighty God and despite an earth teeming with enough flora and fauna to flabbergast the mind, Adam was alone.

When the light bulb went on over Adam’s head, God turned it out, put him to sleep, and crafted that which would complete Adam.

God didn’t make another animal.

God didn’t make another tree.

God didn’t make another man.

God made Eve.

Take special note; God did not create five lassies from which Adam could pick his favorite.  He didn’t create a few lassies and a few lads for Adam to try and determine his gender.

God.

Created.

One.

Woman.

For one man.

For Adam.

“But what if they hadn’t clicked?” you might ask.  Or how about sexual incompatibility?  What if he snored?  What if she was a winter and he liked summers?  What if he liked ski vacations and she liked Broadway?

Acck –ptooey!!  Hairball.

For Adam, God made Eve and presented her to him.  She entered the world created from and as the unique and special gift for one man, the only man.  She for him.

Adam had NO choice.  Eve had NO choice.  In breathtaking understatement, Adam exalts, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”  If I may loosely paraphrase, “WOW!  Are you kidding??  That’s for ME??”  You can use your imagination with the rest.  Some would argue that they could have rejected each other, but that would be as likely as Sarah Palin opting for Dillards over Denali National Park.  Or me aching for Jerry Jones to become owner of the Vikings and the Twins.  Not gonna happen.  Ever.

God himself indicated a few thousand years later that his intention had always been that what he had joined together man had no business tearing apart (Matthew 19:6).  In other words, God joined Adam and Eve together.  Adam for Eve.  Eve for Adam.  Christ equated that union with the union of every man and woman of his day, and because it transcended those four preceding millennia, it reaches forward two more and applies to us today.

*Revelation warning*-- God’s not surprised that you’re married to the one you married.  Jesus exposed that he joined you two together.

How’s that flesh out (so to speak)?  One woman for him.  One man for her.  No other.  God ordained.  God designed.

Really, I could and should be able to end right there, but we in our sinful nature immediately vomit out, “Yeah, but…”  In all honesty, a lot has happened since Genesis 3.  There’s a lot of filthy water that’s passed under that bridge.  Why do we not sit at work and think about what awaits us at home with an “ooh, boy!  She’s for me” kind of Adamic excitement.  Why does our woman not have excitement and anticipatory butterflies hammering her stomach while she waits for her man’s eyes to fall upon her face and form after being apart for the day? 

Two things thwart our hunger for one another.  The first and biggest problem is you (and "I" as I write this, that pronoun sticks an enormous finger out of my monitor and into my chest).  We carry so many scorecards around in our pockets regarding snubs and neglect from the past that we cannot love our spouse.  Love keeps no record of wrongs.  That hurts.  Yep, it might.  God's command to love my wife and lay my life down for her and his command to her to respect and submit to me do not come with an “If only they love me to my satisfaction” clause. 

Face it.  We are selfish, but Christ calls us to servanthood.  My life is not my own.  It’s Christ’s.  He purchased me.  As such, I lay myself down for him in submission by laying myself down for my wife.  The wife does so in respect and honor to the husband.  Until we get rid of all of our scorecards, our marriages will only be mediocre…at best.

The second roadblock to a Genesis 2 thrill about our spouse is trust.  In a jaded, post-modern, post-Christian 21st century America, we don't trust God.  God made us.  In marriage, he made the other for us.  He knows how best that marriage thing should work.  He went so far as to write some of those things down for us.  Problem is, we don't trust him.  Don't believe me?  Chomp on 1 Corinthians 13 for a few days and see how you measure up.  Gnaw on your part of Ephesians 5 and let God have his way with you (5:25-33 for the men and 5:22-24 for the women). 

If I really trust the God who made me, I will live out his guidance for me and my marriage in loving trust that he knows what's best.  I will keep no scorecard.  I will lay down my life for my wife to the glory of God...and trust him for the rest.

If the passages in 1 Corinthians 13 and Ephesians 5 do not exemplify my marriage and I call myself a Christian, I am the hypocritical Christian the world so loves to hate, that James speaks out against  in James 2:14-26, and that Jesus himself indicts in Revelation 3:1-3.

Trust God.  Love your wife.  Honor your man.