Looking for Your Better Half? You Are Whole

Whenever I hear a sermon on Adam and Eve or marriage I always remember the Jovan bottles of the 70s. As absurd as it may seem (and in the 70s, as obscene as it was considered), the concept of two people complementing one another is pretty well expressed by that design. The men's aftershave and the women's cologne seemed to fit together in such a way as to celebrate the differences and the union of the sexes. One without the other functioned as it should. You would never know one was only "half" unless you saw the two together. Neither bottle would fall over without the other. No point in buying both if you had no need to share, but one without the other was intentionally asymmetrical; it looked incomplete. The premise was, the pair were definitely better together. What is best, however, isn't always that simple. 

Have you ever tried to find your "other"? All those cliches: There's someone for everyone and There's plenty of fish in the sea. When you're alone and you're looking, finding your other can seem to take forever. You wonder if it will happen at all. You think about the past: Should I have tried harder to make it work with her? You think about the future: What will happen if I never find him? You may question your standards: Am I expecting too much? You may question your beliefs: Maybe the kind of love I'm looking for just doesn't exist. 

Genesis 2:20 says,

"So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him."

The animals were brought to Adam to name, not in search of a partner. God knew there would be none among the animals that would be a suitable counterpart to Adam; He is not ignorant of anything. Up until the creation of man, all God had done He called "good;" after man's creation, He called all He had done "very good." God breathed into Adam His own breath to give him life. God created Adam in His very own image. God formed him from the dust as a potter would tenderly sculpt his creation. Man was to be a special creation, different from and superior to all others. The account of Adam's naming the animals simply points out there was none comparable to Adam. Like a father meeting his daughter's boyfriend for the first time: he's not the best, right? And God had actually made these animals Himself! God wanted the best for His man, but what did the man want?

We don't get to know what Adam was thinking at this point. Was he longing for a friend? Was he looking at these pairs of animals as they appeared before him, wondering where his soulmate was? Was he so busy working and hanging out with God that he never really spent a lot of time dwelling on it? What if he had asked God for a companion and decided not to wait? What if he had struck out on his own and decided to find his own companion out of the masses? I'm not trying to be vulgar, but how many of us have done that? We don't want to wait for what God is doing and we find ourselves crawling in the dirt with a snake. We are terrified by the possibility of being alone forever so we yoke ourselves to an ass. We give up hope in God and place our hope in a rat. We think if we try hard enough, or lower our standards, or pry open a door God has clearly shut we can make it work. We may not admit it, but we'd rather have the wrong somebody than nobody.

How could Adam have imagined what God was going to do for him? But God had a plan for Adam, and He has a plan for you as well. Trust His timing. If you are His child, He is working all things out for your good. He is faithful. Whether your counterpart is waiting in the wings or God is asking you to stand alone, you have been made in His image and for His glory. You are not broken or less than in any way. In Christ, you are made whole. And for you, He wants the best.