getting to the bottom of Broken Love

Does love feel broken? Maybe marriage seems out of reach or impossible. Maybe it’s full of nastiness and abuse. Sometimes, it’s great—most of the time; and when it’s bad, it’s really, really bad. Relationship advice comes at us from everywhere as we search for the fulfillment that somehow eludes us. What we want isn’t what we get, and love can just seem all wrong.

one verse, enormous potential

Brokenness is not what was intended. Created by a Loving God, we were created for love, intimacy, and a mission. And it’s all revealed in the first breath of creation. One of the great things about Scripture is that it packs so many layers of information in just a short space—in just a few words we can learn a lifetime of wisdom.

“Let us make mankind in our image”

“Let us”

Can you imagine a Being so great that the universe was created from the material at his hands? We can imagine, but we can’t fathom. In fact, we may never be able to completely understand God. It is enough to stand in awe. To even understand in part, we need descriptions that expand our mind, and here we catch a glimpse of the plurality of this One God. Later, the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit would be revealed, but for now, this is our first glimpse. With hindsight we understand that the depth of God’s character is rooted in the perfect communion of community, and it is in that likeness that humanity is created.

“Make mankind in our image”

Do you realize that since the beginning of time there has never been a pronoun in any human language to represent what God actually is? While He and Him have been used throughout history, and God identifies himself as “Our Father,” and the “Bridegroom” to the church, He also identifies himself as a Mother, and the femininity of the Holy Spirit whispered of in some theological circles. Here too, when creating humanity in his own image, it is not just a male that he comes up with, but both male and female, designed to live in perfect community with one another. God is the fullness of both sexes, and the marriage union was designed to be the complete image of God.

 

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.

Genesis 1:26