Omar
11th May 2009, 03:47 PM
Marriage is like two oxen or two horses being yoked together and pulling through
In the beginning we get married or yoked together-- then, picture in your mind as our lives continue on day by day how we plough a field and like any pair of oxen or horses we give each other companionship and pull together. To do that well we have to learn to know each other and balance each other’s abilities and weaknesses. We find them out more through walking along and getting on with life, than by evaluating each other while stationary. Obviously if the oxen or horses do not pull together, then the plough goes everywhere. But note also the ploughman, as our Lord, always guiding and giving his commands to enable us to move in a common direction, (his by the way, not either of ours), and at the right pace. In this regard the analogy holds with the precept that we become one flesh when we marry. I would add that like the oxen or horses in the analogy, we submit to the ploughman putting the yoke on us. We don’t take it out of his hands and put it on ourselves, but he fits it on us to fulfil his plans and to give us a new purpose for our lives.
But from experience I'd say that I probably had an unconscious expectation that in marriage there would come times when the strain or toil gets too tough or too tiring and that the other partner would take over for a while. Yet when problems, in particular, wear me down, I cannot completely off-load them for a while on my partner, nor take them off my partner’s shoulders when the same affects him/her. Hence the ‘you two are one’ view still seems to be punctured by times when I feel alone in my situation, either because of the weight of the situation or because I have weaknesses and/or a lack of knowledge in handling those situations. Yes my husband/wife is there, but he/she cannot share the experiences I feel and likewise in reverse. I have to press on myself; I had wished/expected that by being one, his/her strengths would overlay mine and mine would overlay his/hers and that would pull us through. It often does not work that way in practice.
What the analogy above shows is that the "you two are one" precept can still be true, even when direct experience contradicts it. For a start, pulling together does go on the entire time even when it does not seem to happen. From the analogy it is clear that no plough (designed for two) can be pulled along by just one yoke animal. This replaces the expectation/interpretation that one will take the whole load for a while or somehow cover the other one in their weakness. You are never on your own because they are there beside you -- you are not left to struggle alone. Just as the horse or ox may only see what is in front of them and feel ground down by the drudgery of their task and not really be aware of their companion; yet in reality they are never on their own. If only for this reason, marriage is a blessing.
Marriage is not a bed of roses, it was created for a purpose which covers both good and bad times and follows the line given in Romans 8:28. Thus even the smelly bits can be made to become manure that can then be put to good use and increase the roses you can produce! Life does not have to always feel good for marriage to work – in some ways marriage works better when life is down. This is because you share life deeply with someone, deeper than words can express; it has a beauty and blessing for those in it. As with the plough animals, so you mutually face situations. Even though your personal experiences are different to each other, you make vows for marriage (and the biggest one is to vow to stay together), and you work out your way through life together, until one partner dies. Therefore you create the platform for mutual dependence and mutual respect to grow and keep on growing. Your love and trust are developing on a mutual basis. This sacrosanct base to marriage makes the big difference, like it says in Ecclesiastes 4: 9 – 12. These points apply to those who keep true to marriage even when outside of the faith.
All the same it’s a mystery how we become one yet remain two individuals. Its is as if the marriage is bigger than the parts and though we are important we do not count unless we are two. Because it’s a bit of a mystery we are giving a message through actions rather than words, that marriage is a part of an eternal plan. That is it is for procreation, companionship and for society’s stability while here on earth, but was and will again be for an eternal joining of a larger kind when in heaven with the Lord. Yet those who do not believe in him, while proclaiming that message, will unhappily not share in it in heaven.
However there is more to it. The oxen/horses are changing an untended patch of land into a pastured land. Every so often they can look back and see a difference to what they have just walked over, because of them and them alone. You may only rarely have a chance to stop in life and see what you have done and gain a sense of accomplishment that it is down to you, but the analogy seems to hold well that your marriage does plough pastures new. That may be bringing children into the world and raising them or conversely not being able to have children and helping each other through that situation. It may be having faced difficult times together (for instance financial trials) or individually in turn (e.g. problems at work, serious health problems), but still being alongside the other partner. The examples are legion. The point is that what you could see when looking back is what the Lord has called only you to do. The irony is that fulfilling what only you as a unique person, can not be achieved until you are joined as one to someone else inside the marriage.
You are always in tandem with someone else – your life and their life, your sweat and their tears, their joy and your peace, their achievements and your goals. So even though the path we tread is separate, and as said earlier can leave us very conscious of being alone, it is actually forever parallel in this analogy, (maybe instep as well, but not necessarily), to our partner. It is our field we plough, not yours and mine. Again it is like what will be seen from the outside is our marriage together being the result, rather than seeing our individual lives. I would add that often the joys we have are more full because of being experienced together.
Now there will be times when the problems we face are due to internal causes, not external issues. Reasons like hurting each other, being unfeeling, or wanton or callous. Purposefully pulling the wrong way on the yoke affects you and unfairly affects the other person – they do not have a choice when this happens in marriage. That is difficult as being dependent on someone’s behaviour runs counter to the individualistic society – its answer is if you cannot put up with them, then leave them. For an individualistic society marriage is a very good balancing mechanism, but only if people will honour and cleave to it. If on the other hand individualism is honoured and predominates, then often both parties will purposefully pull the wrong way and it splits. Often one starts and the other follows suit after a season; although sometimes one pulls so hard --all the time --it is impossible for the other to be able to keep up. Society and individuals loose from that attitude; loneliness is one palpable result.
Another situation is that if when you are yoked in the first place you do not have the intention of putting the strapping on, that is not honouring marriage promises and the inevitable result, unless you repent from the heart. Lastly if you seek to be yoked with someone else whilst your partner is alive, it is wrong. Such is the thinking behind 1Cor 7:39, although 1Cor 7:15,16 and Matt 19:9 says the yoke can be broken in specific cases.
A further part of the analogy is that the Lord is like the ploughman. He is there guiding you from behind on the way you should go, or when you should turn, or when you should stop. A good ploughman knows how to adjust the yoke so that the different sizes and different strengths of the animals blend together rather than pull themselves off at a kilter. He is keeping you on the straight and narrow (furrow), whereas a disobedient yoke pair would go off at angles or trip each other or stop because they cannot work together. Like the ploughman he is always watching ahead of you, he is not in front, but he is watching your advance. The analogy probably does not fit here as he also goes ahead of you.
He does know how to yoke you together, as he arranges the marriages and has taught us to pay heed to 1 Cor 6: 14- 16.
The yoking together analogy also holds because as in life, the yoke is only made for two and children are not a part of it. They are part of the family, they are with you, but you did not make the marriage vow with them. Whether children leave home or die before you, the marriage still holds. When they are born you do not put another yoke onto them to join you. They are part of the family, but God joined you two together and he does not join them in the same way. You marry one person, not one and then two and so on (though for a time in the OT period God permitted men to be joined in more one than yoke due to lack of understanding).
For the single, God is still the ploughman and I believe he becomes your yokefellow in a way that a human partner would do if you were to become married. You have a field he wants only you to plough.
We can be more knowledgeable after 50 years of marriage and still wonder at the wisdom of it. In ending, all that the above can do is illuminate the beauty in the wisdom of our God, rather than explain the depths of that wisdom which created marriage. According to Rev 19:7 and 21:9 we will be probing those depths for all eternity.
In the beginning we get married or yoked together-- then, picture in your mind as our lives continue on day by day how we plough a field and like any pair of oxen or horses we give each other companionship and pull together. To do that well we have to learn to know each other and balance each other’s abilities and weaknesses. We find them out more through walking along and getting on with life, than by evaluating each other while stationary. Obviously if the oxen or horses do not pull together, then the plough goes everywhere. But note also the ploughman, as our Lord, always guiding and giving his commands to enable us to move in a common direction, (his by the way, not either of ours), and at the right pace. In this regard the analogy holds with the precept that we become one flesh when we marry. I would add that like the oxen or horses in the analogy, we submit to the ploughman putting the yoke on us. We don’t take it out of his hands and put it on ourselves, but he fits it on us to fulfil his plans and to give us a new purpose for our lives.
But from experience I'd say that I probably had an unconscious expectation that in marriage there would come times when the strain or toil gets too tough or too tiring and that the other partner would take over for a while. Yet when problems, in particular, wear me down, I cannot completely off-load them for a while on my partner, nor take them off my partner’s shoulders when the same affects him/her. Hence the ‘you two are one’ view still seems to be punctured by times when I feel alone in my situation, either because of the weight of the situation or because I have weaknesses and/or a lack of knowledge in handling those situations. Yes my husband/wife is there, but he/she cannot share the experiences I feel and likewise in reverse. I have to press on myself; I had wished/expected that by being one, his/her strengths would overlay mine and mine would overlay his/hers and that would pull us through. It often does not work that way in practice.
What the analogy above shows is that the "you two are one" precept can still be true, even when direct experience contradicts it. For a start, pulling together does go on the entire time even when it does not seem to happen. From the analogy it is clear that no plough (designed for two) can be pulled along by just one yoke animal. This replaces the expectation/interpretation that one will take the whole load for a while or somehow cover the other one in their weakness. You are never on your own because they are there beside you -- you are not left to struggle alone. Just as the horse or ox may only see what is in front of them and feel ground down by the drudgery of their task and not really be aware of their companion; yet in reality they are never on their own. If only for this reason, marriage is a blessing.
Marriage is not a bed of roses, it was created for a purpose which covers both good and bad times and follows the line given in Romans 8:28. Thus even the smelly bits can be made to become manure that can then be put to good use and increase the roses you can produce! Life does not have to always feel good for marriage to work – in some ways marriage works better when life is down. This is because you share life deeply with someone, deeper than words can express; it has a beauty and blessing for those in it. As with the plough animals, so you mutually face situations. Even though your personal experiences are different to each other, you make vows for marriage (and the biggest one is to vow to stay together), and you work out your way through life together, until one partner dies. Therefore you create the platform for mutual dependence and mutual respect to grow and keep on growing. Your love and trust are developing on a mutual basis. This sacrosanct base to marriage makes the big difference, like it says in Ecclesiastes 4: 9 – 12. These points apply to those who keep true to marriage even when outside of the faith.
All the same it’s a mystery how we become one yet remain two individuals. Its is as if the marriage is bigger than the parts and though we are important we do not count unless we are two. Because it’s a bit of a mystery we are giving a message through actions rather than words, that marriage is a part of an eternal plan. That is it is for procreation, companionship and for society’s stability while here on earth, but was and will again be for an eternal joining of a larger kind when in heaven with the Lord. Yet those who do not believe in him, while proclaiming that message, will unhappily not share in it in heaven.
However there is more to it. The oxen/horses are changing an untended patch of land into a pastured land. Every so often they can look back and see a difference to what they have just walked over, because of them and them alone. You may only rarely have a chance to stop in life and see what you have done and gain a sense of accomplishment that it is down to you, but the analogy seems to hold well that your marriage does plough pastures new. That may be bringing children into the world and raising them or conversely not being able to have children and helping each other through that situation. It may be having faced difficult times together (for instance financial trials) or individually in turn (e.g. problems at work, serious health problems), but still being alongside the other partner. The examples are legion. The point is that what you could see when looking back is what the Lord has called only you to do. The irony is that fulfilling what only you as a unique person, can not be achieved until you are joined as one to someone else inside the marriage.
You are always in tandem with someone else – your life and their life, your sweat and their tears, their joy and your peace, their achievements and your goals. So even though the path we tread is separate, and as said earlier can leave us very conscious of being alone, it is actually forever parallel in this analogy, (maybe instep as well, but not necessarily), to our partner. It is our field we plough, not yours and mine. Again it is like what will be seen from the outside is our marriage together being the result, rather than seeing our individual lives. I would add that often the joys we have are more full because of being experienced together.
Now there will be times when the problems we face are due to internal causes, not external issues. Reasons like hurting each other, being unfeeling, or wanton or callous. Purposefully pulling the wrong way on the yoke affects you and unfairly affects the other person – they do not have a choice when this happens in marriage. That is difficult as being dependent on someone’s behaviour runs counter to the individualistic society – its answer is if you cannot put up with them, then leave them. For an individualistic society marriage is a very good balancing mechanism, but only if people will honour and cleave to it. If on the other hand individualism is honoured and predominates, then often both parties will purposefully pull the wrong way and it splits. Often one starts and the other follows suit after a season; although sometimes one pulls so hard --all the time --it is impossible for the other to be able to keep up. Society and individuals loose from that attitude; loneliness is one palpable result.
Another situation is that if when you are yoked in the first place you do not have the intention of putting the strapping on, that is not honouring marriage promises and the inevitable result, unless you repent from the heart. Lastly if you seek to be yoked with someone else whilst your partner is alive, it is wrong. Such is the thinking behind 1Cor 7:39, although 1Cor 7:15,16 and Matt 19:9 says the yoke can be broken in specific cases.
A further part of the analogy is that the Lord is like the ploughman. He is there guiding you from behind on the way you should go, or when you should turn, or when you should stop. A good ploughman knows how to adjust the yoke so that the different sizes and different strengths of the animals blend together rather than pull themselves off at a kilter. He is keeping you on the straight and narrow (furrow), whereas a disobedient yoke pair would go off at angles or trip each other or stop because they cannot work together. Like the ploughman he is always watching ahead of you, he is not in front, but he is watching your advance. The analogy probably does not fit here as he also goes ahead of you.
He does know how to yoke you together, as he arranges the marriages and has taught us to pay heed to 1 Cor 6: 14- 16.
The yoking together analogy also holds because as in life, the yoke is only made for two and children are not a part of it. They are part of the family, they are with you, but you did not make the marriage vow with them. Whether children leave home or die before you, the marriage still holds. When they are born you do not put another yoke onto them to join you. They are part of the family, but God joined you two together and he does not join them in the same way. You marry one person, not one and then two and so on (though for a time in the OT period God permitted men to be joined in more one than yoke due to lack of understanding).
For the single, God is still the ploughman and I believe he becomes your yokefellow in a way that a human partner would do if you were to become married. You have a field he wants only you to plough.
We can be more knowledgeable after 50 years of marriage and still wonder at the wisdom of it. In ending, all that the above can do is illuminate the beauty in the wisdom of our God, rather than explain the depths of that wisdom which created marriage. According to Rev 19:7 and 21:9 we will be probing those depths for all eternity.