Let's Talk About Love ♡♡♡

 

  

Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them......"- Gen 1:26-27a (NIV)

Hey everyone, it's me again. Hope you all enjoyed a restful weekend, full of fun and frolicking. It's a new week and I'm honoured to have this opportunity to share some of my thoughts with you for another Monday blog post. I'm grateful to my wife for once again giving me this opportunity.

"So what do you have for us this week, Mr Rominiyi?" I hear you all asking, while furiously rubbing your hands together in eager anticipation. Fear not, your curiosity will be satisfied in due course, but as it stands, I bet you can already begin to guess at what the topic of today's post is? I'm sure you've already been hearing about it from the rest of the internet or various other media sources. And for those of us in relationships or married, I'm sure you're already acutely aware of the content of today's post (and if you're not, pssst, you still have time to go buy your partner a card and gift---don't end up in the dog house... lol).

Of course it's Valentine's Day. A day of the year where the whole world stops to celebrate the joys of love, companionship and romance that is shared between two people in an intimate relationship. It's really a universal concept that everybody, no matter what country or culture you grew up in can identify with. No matter who you are, as long as you're human, you will have a natural understanding of idea that there is a level of closeness in a relationship that is deeper, more profound and more motivating than any other type of relationship that a person can engage in. It's in-built and from as young as we can remember, many of us long to experience it as one of the many pinnacle goals of the human experience.

Love is sweet, for those of us who have experienced it. And many (I wish I could say most) of us have, through our relationships with family and friends, but that romantic type of relationship, shared between a man and a woman in intimate union, sure is special and stands out from every other type of loving relationship in our lives. Valentines Day is a day specially picked out to celebrate this special type of relationship, and the beauty of it is such that it very much deserves a day to be celebrated and thankful for. But it's also important that we don't get too caught up in the hype and commercialization of Valentines Day, as well as the overly-romanticized version of love we see in fictional stories in movies, TV and books.

Unlike the flawless princesses and handsome princes of the fictional world, that sweep each other off their feet and live happily ever after, our world today is positively filled with the scars of relationships and marriages that turned sour and even destructive; and not even just to the two main parties involved. The imperfection of people and their imperfect relationships/marriages have shaped the realities of many people whom have grown up in broken homes, in abusive situations, in pain, hurt and neglect.

So if love is supposed to be this incredible, romantic, inspiring and all-encompassing ideal, how come so many people aren't able to get it right in reality? How come so many fail, when it comes to putting things into practice in their real world relationships and marriages? And dare I say it, even in the sphere of the Christian world?

Well, I believe it has a lot to do with a lack of understanding of love and thus how to apply it directly in our relationships and marriages. In fact, I'd argue that most of us learn about love through the very practical examples of the loving relationships we've participated in ourselves throughout our lives. We learn about fraternal and sororal love through our relationships with siblings, and paternal love in our relationships with our own parents. We also learn about the love between husbands and wives through the relationship between our parents. But how many of us as Christians actually go back and revisit those lessons we've learned in light of God's scriptures? Or better yet, how many of us make a choice to radically redefine our understanding of love through the teachings and example of Christ and the word of God as contained in the bible?

If I buy a new gadget and I really want to understand what makes it tick, won't I read the manual? And surely all a manual is, is just a record of the intents of the designer? Well then, if God is man's designer... where is best to learn his original intent for man as it pertained to love? Of course, it's His word... the bible. Let's have a look what Paul says in the book of Ephesians:

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband - Eph. 5:31-33 (ESV)

The word mystery here as is used by Paul only two times in his epistle to the church in Ephesus, actually means something that was once hidden but is now revealed. So here Paul makes reference to a passage in the book of Genesis in which God declares that "a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." Paul is totally right here that it is indeed profound. The statement speaks to a unity between husband and wife in the place of a marriage (and any intimate romantic relationship should be a precursor to marriage) that is entirely unique compared with the spectrum of other types of relationships men and women will engage in through their lives. There is no more "she" and "I", "he" and "I", only "us". It's two whole people coming together to become one, and sharing a oneness that permeates through every area of their lives. How incredible is that?! But let's dig a little deeper shall we, and since the best place to start reading a story is always the beginning, let's go all the way back to Genesis to gain some more perspective:

Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." - Gen 1:26-28 (NIV)

What's amazing here is that God, who we think of as a singular being though expressing himself as three distinct personalities in the form of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, said "let us make man in our image". Oftentimes we can read this scripture and think that the image of God man was created to mirror was the physical appearance. But that's obviously not the case because not only does every man on earth have their own distinct physical appearance, but even the scripture makes it clear that while man is flesh, God is spirit, and therefore man could only reflect one single facet of that "us" God spoke of in this passage; evidently the Son. I believe that the "image" here that man was made to resemble was more the image of God's unity in His Holy Trinity; i.e. Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It's part of Paul's mystery, but there's a clear parallel. Even more so, he goes on to say in verse 27:

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground." - Genesis 1:27-28

What's even more profound here is the mention of God creating them "male and female" on the sixth day, when in fact we know from Genesis 2, that God created Adam first before creating Eve by forming her from the rib of Adam. Again I think this speaks to a mystery surrounding the profound unity God intended between man and woman, given that if you take the text at face value, the suggestion is that male and female were created with the creation of the first man, Adam. So though the first woman, Eve, didn't exist at that point, her essence existed within the body of the man she would eventually call husband. So from the creation story, we see a picture of male and female as One, even before the first man and women were created as physically distinct persons. So if we originated in oneness with each other as men and women, marriage simply serves as God's way for us to find our way back to that spiritual state of oneness and unity that comprises God's perfect picture of love and marriage.

There's also another important aspect of love in marriage and relationships that is oft neglected by our learned experiences and certainly the way the world teaches about the subject. And that is to do with submission and sacrifice.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. - Eph. 5:21-28 (NIV)

Here we see a very beautiful scripture that is oft considered controversial in the culture of today's world. Earlier we prefaced today's post on the premise that as wonderful and heart-melting this romanticized, Hollywood version of love that is endemic in the world today is, there remains the question about why so many in the world today just can't seem to replicate it in reality in their own lives. And it's clear that it's because it was always an unachievable end, because none of us are the perfect heroic paragons of virtue that are depicted in these fictional accounts. Being imperfect beings we're prone to error and that just makes it all the more difficult for us to live with each other in love. That being said, in God's own standard of love in a marriage or a committed relationship leading to marriage, one of the keys to making it successful, alongside the striving for unity that we already mentioned is submission.

The passage in Ephesians 5 from verse 21 begins with the call for us to "submit ourselves to one another out of reverence to Christ". So the real cost of a successful relationship or marriage, is submission. In today's culture, this can be seen as a dirty word, but Jesus himself provided the ultimate example of this when he submitted himself to evil men, to be brutalized and ultimately murdered, so that he might fulfil the will of God and ultimately save those same men who struck and crucified him. Jesus, who was part of the "us" of God in Genesis 1:26, could have called down legions of angels to smite mankind and wipe him off the face of the earth. But instead, because of his great love he chose to submit himself to God, submit himself to tirelessly teaching and equipping his disciples---even when they frustrated him---and ultimately submit himself to his accusers to be flogged, tortured and killed for crimes he was innocent of; i.e. the sins of you and I. So from that perspective, when Paul says "wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord". He's not really asking for much, in comparison to what he endured for us. And it's not as if the men get off scot free either. He says:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. - Eph. 5:25-33

The role of the husbands is even deeper. Yours is to so submit yourselves to your wives in love, devotion and commitment as to be ready to do so even to the point of death. It's an even greater call than to that of the woman. Paul draws an all important parallel here between the man in the marriage and Christ in his relationship with his church. As the church, our role is easy. We're loved. We're forgiven. We're blessed and redeemed. Our only role is to follow the leading of our Lord Jesus. We're safe in his hands and so we can trust him to lead us and its easy to submit to him. Christ's role was much much harder. The suffering he had to endure for us makes anything we have to do positively pale in comparison. This is the mystery of marriage, once hidden, that Paul was revealing in Ephesians. The key points thus to take away here are that neither side should be particularly invested in making sure the other party fulfils their role. Everything we do in our loving relationships and eventually marriage needs to be predicated upon unity, submission, sacrifice and a reverence for Christ. 

Ladies, you should focus on the ways you can submit yourselves to your man in love, devotion and understanding, not being afraid to make your voice heard, but understanding that being willing to forgo your own wants and desires sometimes, in the face of a disagreement with your husband doesn't make you weak or oppressed in your marriage, rather it is a willing choice you make out of courage and strength to revere Christ by following the leading of the man who is trying to make Christ the head of your entire household.

Gents, you also should focus on your own role to love your wife as Christ loves the church and gave himself up as a sacrifice for her. There should be no good for your wife and family you are not able to give up your own wants, needs and desires to attend. Like Christ, you must humble yourself, and give up everything to serve the bride the Lord has prepared for you. That means she comes first.

If we both play the roles that God originally intended, and we're able to catch the reality of the principle of complete matrimonial unity that God uses his own image to describe in the first book of the bible, then Valentines Day on the 14th February each year, will truly be a cause for celebration when it comes around annually. Not only for the man and woman loving, serving and submitting themselves to one another in the marriage, but also by the many lives touched and shaped by that wonderful blessed marriage that achieves the Lord's original intent for it.

May the Lord strengthen each and every one of us as we strive for and in the case of the singles prepare for the original plan for love and marriage that God so intends for us. And as we get there may we enjoy all the beauty and joy that it brings us and those around us. Amen.

                          "There is no remedy for love, but to love more" - Thoreau

Love,

Wale R