Leave and Cleave

“Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.” (Ps 45:10-11 AV)

Over the years, I have had the privilege of helping young people unite in marriage.  Part of that process is counseling.  A practice, I am sad to say, is woefully neglected in today’s churches.  Part of the sessions is helping this young couple to understand they must distance themselves from their extended families, at least emotionally, for the sake of one another.  The ‘leave and cleave’ verses are often used.  However, inadvertently, the bride may make the comment that the husband is the one who is to leave and cleave.  The bride has no instruction.  In those verses, she is absolutely right.  Nowhere does it tell a daughter to leave and cleave.  Does than then mean she can balance her relationships of family and husband as though they are equal?  Not according to the above verse.  If she wants her husband to desire her greatly, she must forget her extended family.  Or, to put it in our language, the more she values her husband above her extended family, the more he will desire her beauty.

Applying this to the saint, we see how important our relationship is to the LORD Jesus Christ.  He doesn’t want to be one love among many.  He desires to be our greatest love.  He doesn’t want to have to share equal time with our human relationships as though He is of less value.  A husband doesn’t feel all that special of his wife honors her father more than him.  She becomes more of a sister then she does the love of his life.  So, too does it affect our relationship with Christ.  By treating Him with less than He deserves, it does affect how He feels about us.  Yes, He loves us unconditionally.  But we are not talking about love.  We are talking about desire.  We are not talking about sacrificial acts of benevolence.  We are talking about the desire of whatever beauty He has bestowed upon us.

Christ said that whosoever loved father or mother more than Him was not worthy of Him.  I wonder if He didn’t have this principle in mind.  I wonder if He was not trying to tell His bride that He should be number one.  I wonder if He was not trying to tell us that if we love our human relationships more than we love Him, it is a bitter insult to what He has done for us.  All that sacrifice and love; the provision and protection; the encouragement and correction; is presumptuously consumed that we might value our parents, spouse, children, grandchildren, and friends more that the Groomsman who bestowed those relationships to begin with.  If we want the LORD to desire us with all our hearts, then we must put Him first.