Becoming One

Becoming One

When was the last time you were at the ocean? I want you to think about the ocean, what it is like. Can you smell the salt water, and taste the salt in the air? Can you hear the seagulls?

Think about walking on the shore, barefoot. The sand is squishing between your toes. Every now and then, a wave is lapping upon your feet.

Look out over the water. Are you taken in by the immensity of the ocean? How great, how vast it is. It has a power, a force. Continuous and never-ending, always moving, always changing, always living.

As you walk along the shore, the waves come up higher and higher upon your legs. You may come to a point where you decide to walk in the water up to just under your knees, or even go in for a swim. As you are walking in the ocean, or swimming in it, you are becoming one with the ocean, and one with its power.

The same is true with a relationship with Christ. At first, you may have “dipped your toes” into Christianity. Try it a little, as one of your options. Or maybe when you discovered Christ, you just dove right in, like swimming in the ocean. You just went right on in, and never once looked back. Maybe you were gradually taken in by Christ, little by little, like walking on the shore, going a little farther in, bit by bit, and then before you knew it, you were in fully.

Just like with the ocean, as time goes on, you become one with Him. We can even get caught up in the immensity of the family of Christ, how large and vast it is, just as we get caught up in the immensity of the ocean.

A similar process happens in a marriage, a process of becoming one. It’s like taking two pieces of paper, gluing them together, and leaving the paper there for the glue to set and dry. Once that glue has set and dry, you can’t separate those two pieces of paper. Not without leaving little bits of the one piece on the other, tearing and ripping.

That’s the problem we are going through. You can’t separate what God has joined together. No matter how hard we struggle against what God joined, it can’t be separated.

"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (Matthew 19:4-6 NIV)

If we try to separate what God joined, you end up with messy pieces, holes and tears in those pieces of paper, bits of one and the other stuck to the opposite site.

But praise God, despite how hard we struggle against what God joined together, He still can put it back together again. Not only does He put it back together again, it is even better than it was before!

Trust Him. He made us one with Him and He made us one with our spouses. He can and will restore and redeem our situations.

You will no longer be called Deserted,
and your land will not be called Desolate;
instead, you will be called My Delight is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the LORD delights in you,
and your land will be married.

For as a young man marries a virgin,
so your sons will marry you;
and as a bridegroom rejoices over [his] bride,
so your God will rejoice over you. (Isaiah 62:4-5 HCSB)

Passages marked “NIV” are Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked HCSB are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible ©, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.