While a sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press, Mitch Albom reconnected with his college sociology professor from Brandeis. Morrie Schwartz had been diagnosed with ALS – Lou Gehrig’s Disease – and Albom believed there was more he could learn from him, nearly 20 years later.
Over the course of months, he spent 14 days with Schwartz; those days of discovery were the basis of Albom’s book, Tuesdays with Morrie – named in 2006 the bestselling memoir ever written.
Consider this the second of four wisdom transfers this month: Mondays with Bob-o. In nearly seven decades of life, I’ve been able to nail down some basics that are universally applicable to living life well. Don’t dismiss any of them until you can prove to me you have a better formula.
Last week was #1: Find Your God. Bob Dylan said it in 1979: “You’re gonna have to serve somebody. Well it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” I made the case last week: the only One who can lead you to life with Him in Heaven is Jesus, on His terms. Until you’ve found the way to follow Jesus, your #1 milestone in life has not been reached.
Today is #2: Find Your Mate. Once you have a relationship with God through Jesus, His plan for His creation unfolds with His counsel: find an opposite-sex fellow believer and commit for life.
The god of this world – one of the Bible’s names for God’s archenemy – always has an alternate and opposite directive. Speaking into culture – and in support of his ultimate intent to kill, steal and destroy – his deceptive alternatives are all over the oppositional map.
Deny the binary genders God created. Hijack the construct of marriage and reinvent it to allow its adaptation to people God would not sanction as husband and wife. Destroy the foundational family unit that presumes father / mother / sons / daughters as the reproducible model embedded in God’s design. Make the pledge to fidelity and faithfulness an archaic memory, replaced by casual hook-ups and terminated pregnancies – legalized murders of children in the womb – that reject God’s directive to reproduce godly generations and multiply the descendants of the human family.
Jesus reached back to the dawn of creation to validate the biblical concept of marriage: “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 flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matthew 19)
Once reconciled to God and alive in Christ, how will life unfold? The next critical decision: will we proceed alone, or will we align with God’s original proposition and find a partner?
Jesus’ disciples heard the non-negotiable nature of God’s marriage covenant – which had no easy-out clauses – and wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to just reject matrimonial responsibilities. When they proposed singleness as the better scenario, Jesus responded: “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” (Matthew 19)
Jesus used a severe scenario – a eunuch lacked the biological drive for sanctioned intimacy with another person – to describe the exceptions. If the desire for a partner is not there – because it was never present, or because of unhealed wounding from prior relationships, or because of a commitment to celibacy to enable high-risk Kingdom assignments – you should remain confidently single. If those exceptions don’t resonate with you, then finding your mate is Step #2.
Cheri and I started our til-death-parts-us marriage 50 years ago. Next to accepting Jesus, it was the most strategic and significant decision I would ever make.
Find your God. Find your Mate. Next week is Step #3 in Mondays with Bob-o. I can’t wait…