“Some of us set ourselves up to eventually emotionally (and eventually physically) leave the marriage because we’ve never properly “cleaved” to our spouse in the first place.” (Cindy Wright)

The Bible says in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” As author Dennis Rainey says of this verse, “The word, ‘cleave,’ in the Hebrew language means to literally ’stick like glue.’ It means to cling. Perhaps a modern-day illustration would be to take two metals or objects and super-glue or weld them together to become inseparable — bonded together.

That’s what God wants us to do in the marriage relationship. He wants us to leave our father and mother. He wants us to forsake dependence upon them, and He wants us to turn to another person, our spouse, & be committed to one another for a lifetime.”

We’re going to be looking at the subject of cleaving or being united with our spouse through something that Dennis Rainey discussed along with his co-host Bob Lepine on a radio program for “Today’s Family Life.” We’ll be giving you excerpts of their discussion (and will give you details afterwards about how to read more on this subject). Here is a portion of what they had to say that we think we can all learn from:

Bob: When you talk about us cleaving to one another, some people have the idea of becoming dependent upon one another? That’s not exactly the meaning is it?

Dennis: No, a more popular term would be commitment. We’re talking about a pledge of remaining loyal, faithful, and committed to the other person, no matter what, until death do us part. I think what God is really trying to do in our lives is He’s trying to help young men and young women grow up, and that means that we’ve got to face some tough issues in our marriage that may challenge our cleaving.

It means that we’re going to face circumstances where we may be tempted to be pulled apart from our spouse and be isolated from one another. We get married for intimacy. But you can’t have intimacy without first being committed to one another and the marriage relationship.

Bob: I was talking with a young husband who was going through some of the pulling apart that you’re talking about. He was very frustrated with his marriage relationship, and they were going through a lot of tension. He said to me, “I want you to know I’m committed to our marriage.”

I said, “That’s good. My question is, are you committed to your mate?” There’s a difference between being committed to the institution of marriage and sticking it out and being committed to the other person. It’s cleaving to a person that God has called us to — not cleaving to an institution.

I would imagine there are some listeners who think, “We’re committed. I said the words at the altar, I meant them, and we’re going to stay together.” Are there hindrances to the ongoing aspect of cleaving to your mate?

Dennis: There really are, the first hindrance to cleaving is an inadequate understanding of love, or an immature understanding of love. Most people today equate love with being a feeling. Yet, if you look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, verses 4 through 7, you don’t really find feelings anywhere in the list.

It reads: “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous, love does not brag and is not arrogant, love does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, it is not provoked, it does not take into account a wrong suffered. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.”

In a word, love equals commitment, and the commitment that we must have for another person is to seek God’s best for them. And what some couples have to realize is, when they finally feel like they have fallen out of love, they finally can replace it with real love. If I had been dependent upon always feeling in love with Barbara, our marriage would have been in trouble a long time ago.

We had six kids in 10 years, and I’m going to tell you something, there is not room for a lot of romance and a lot of feelings in the process of having six kids in 10 years. There are a lot of years there that form a season that’s just a season of challenge, of young children, and meeting the needs of kids, and yet love is a commitment, and we remain committed to one another.

There’s a second hindrance that keeps us from cleaving to our spouse and this one plagues me all the time — it is selfishness.

Philippians, chapter 2, verse 3 and 4 would be good if a married couple would read this verse to one another every day before they left the breakfast table. It says, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests but also for the interest of others.” And who is the closest “other” in your life— your spouse. The issue is to meet another person’s needs and to deny your own needs.

Bob: I think 95% of the issues we deal with in marriage would be resolved if we would practice Philippians 2:3 and regard the other person as more important than ourselves. It was the Puritan writer, John Owen, who talked about the idea of mortifying the flesh — putting to death our selfish impulses.

I’ve found that I have selfish impulses not only in marriage but also outside of marriage. I can’t feed them in one place and hope that they will die somewhere else. I can’t feed my flesh in relationships at work and hope that I will be selfless when I head home. It’s a constant part of our spiritual struggle to put to death the flesh. I think oftentimes we kind of try and shoo the flesh away; rather than killing it, we just ask it to leave politely.

Dennis: We do, and we do feed it. We are of the fabric of being totally selfish to the core. Get your Bibles tonight before you go to bed and read Philippians, chapter 2, verses 3 and 4, together as a couple, and then memorize it.

There’s a third hindrance to really cleaving to your spouse, and that’s circumstances. Someone has said, “We are worn down less by the mountain we climb than by the grain of sand in our shoe.”

Every marriage has seasons. We go through times where there are difficult circumstances that come against the marriage commitment. It’s our cleaving to that other person in the presence of God—it’s the fulfilling of our vows that gives us the capability of moving through these difficult periods without rejecting our spouse, without opening the door to divorce, without moving towards isolation in the marriage relationship, and leaving ourselves open and vulnerable to temptation.

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Next week we’ll continue on with this subject of cleaving to each other in marriage. We pray this has been a blessing to you.

If you have access to the Internet we’d highly recommend for you to read the rest of the transcript that Family Life Today makes available or to listen to the original broadcast (if your computer has the capability of projecting sound). They give several good illustrations and additional information you might find enlightening on this subject. Just go to www.familylife.com.

This particular transcript can be found by clicking on “Past Broadcasts” and then entering the program “Family Life Today” then enter in the month of August and 27 as the date, with 2004 as the year and hit the button “Show Me.” You then make your selection from there as to whether you want to read it, listen to it, (which are both free) or purchase the CD or Cassette.

We pray God’s blessing upon your marriage,
Steve and Cindy Wright

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