The Wonder of Cleaving

Did you ever wonder? Did you ever wonder?

I do. Did you ever wonder? Why the sun always rises but the stars never fall?

Why dry land is never satisfied by water? And why fire never says enough? The wonder of cleaving today. And I'm not talking about a meat cleaver or beaver cleaver. I'm actually talking about, you know, a man shall cleave unto his wife. And become one flesh, that idea. And, of course, those who followed us during the 119 Psalm study, you might recall that the Dalit section starts with my soul cleaves to the dust, you know, quicken me according to Thy word is that verse that is in my heart, no doubt. And I think about it often. And interestingly, this morning as I had a similar experience with Jesus, as I talked about yesterday, he said for me to go revisit this idea of cleaving. And as I certainly was doing that with him this morning, and as I looked at it, I immediately just my heart, of course, leaped out of my chest, as it often does when I see a word that he has me go check. And the word cleave ends in a cough.

I know you're not shocked, but, you know, that that told me something. But then, interestingly, and I knew it started with the Dalit. You know, the fourth letter in the Hebrew alphabet.

And you may know that it looks, you know, pretty much like an upside down L when you see it in most Hebrew scripts. But there's something about the Dalit that Jesus wanted me to learn, and so I had to go revisit. Like, I was trying to think of why would the Dalit be the first letter in the word cleave. I also, you might recall from our study in the Song of Solomon that the Beloved, or even the name David itself, it starts with a Dalit. A Dalit and a vav and a Dalit. And so this idea of love somehow or another is connected to the Dalit. And I know that the idea of servanthood is connected to the Dalit, but I was trying to understand why it would be here in the beginning of cleaving. And the Dalit has got a lot to do with humility.

And, of course, that idea that, you know, in order to need a hug, I guess you got to realize you need that hug. You know, that's how that works. You know, to cleave onto your wife or to cleave to the dust, as David would do. You know, that cleaving to the dust idea is very humble.

And, of course, David was known for being tremendously humble. And so when I revisited the Dalit, I revisited the idea of why that letter is so humble. And there's a reason that, interestingly, that the Jews teach that the Dalit is actually made from the letter Resh.

Which has to do with your mind or your intellect or your head, or it's often the headwaters of something or the beginning of something or the considering of something. But, interestingly, what they teach is the Dalit is made from a Resh, which looks about like it, with the exception of there's a yud on the very end of the L, so to speak, that would go across the left. And that yud is the idea of humility. The yud is the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, so obviously you get the idea of humility there.

And God had to greatly contract himself in order to create a finite universe. And I never had really seen the humility of the letter yud before until I started to study that this morning, and I was like, oh my goodness, look here. So here we're taking this mind and all this consideration and seeing everything in the fear of the Lord. In other words, when you begin to see how big God is, what he's capable of, the power and all that's involved in, like, oh my gosh. And that idea of your mind considering that, you see yourself pretty small and very, very needy, especially if you've been trying to walk with the impossibility of even wrestling with him and all those things that you have an opportunity to. And all of a sudden I realized that, wow, the Dalit has got so much to do with wisdom and why David started out with that, my soul cleaves to the dust.

In other words, you've got to cling to that idea. And interestingly, he didn't use the word dust like Adam was made out of. He used more like the dust that would be powder, the powder that a fire would leave or that kind of thing.

And Shimei threw that powder and that dust at him and cursed him as he walked by. You may recall the story that David did not forget. Interestingly, he asked Solomon to take his life later for what he'd done, but he was not going to do that while he was alive because he felt like God wanted to humble him, which gets again back to that idea of seeing yourself as this small person. And I find that that's throughout the 119th Psalm that he does that. But wow, to the idea of cleaving requires humility.

Right. And my mother, she told my wife when I married, you know, Robbie is not a hugger. She says it's like hugging a tree.

It's just not something he does. And I think, wow, my mother was describing this to my wife. And it obviously had I really understood the Bible, I would have seen the necessary that how how much I need to be able to cleave to my wife. And I was listening to a podcast over the weekend that talked about a wife needs to know her husband's strength and needs to feel his arms around her in order to feel her husband's strength.

And and and like, wow. So when we can be in Jesus's arms and feel his strength, you see, that's the God hug. But that God hug, you only get it if you need it. If you if you like Jesus, I really need your strength.

Like my soul cleaves to the dust. I really, really, really need your strength. Then all of a sudden, like, wow, then then a hug is actually possible. And I begin to see how much my daughters need my hug, my wife needs my hug and a heartfelt hug. Like here, I want to flow Jesus's strength through this hug to whoever it is that I can do that with.

But in order to do that, obviously, I got to have Jesus's strength. Right. The other two letters that are in the word cleave are a bet, which has to do with obviously this house that you're going to come into or being separated, which does have to do with a cleaver. But you are being separated.

Right. As you cling to Jesus that you're being separated into his household because his household is separate. And then that letter cuff in as far as proximity and time and intimacy and the reflection of Jesus. All those things fit into that idea of the idea of cleaving. And I am just really enjoying thinking about those things today and and praying that you can go out and hug somebody or receive a hug today and feel the humility of that in view of how big God is and how much we need him. Thanks for listening.