An interesting observation.

Well, it's one of those epiphany moments, kind of, if you know what I mean. Usually these happen in baths (Archmedes) or on the toilet (or on the toilet on the top of a building if you watch Scrubs - good telly if you like that kind of thing and I do) .

Anyway to the revelation. Our relationship to God is described in the Bible in a variety of ways one can 'be' so many things as far as God is concerned but two particularly notable things are Father - Son and Bride - Bridegroom.

God is our Father, it's all over both the New and the Old testaments in so many ways. We are his children, Sons in many places. He is our Daddy (Abba is Hebrew(or is it Aramaic?) for daddy - look it up in Galatians4:6).

The church as the Bride of Christ is simply everywhere in the New Testament, Jesus is often referred to as the Bridgroom all over the place too.

Here's the kicker.

With children the object of the game is to encourage self-reliance and eventually independence as the relationship, not to mention the child, grows older. A loving healthy parent-child relationship grows apart as it grows older - it's why there is something wrong about still living with your folks when you are thirty; how wrong depends on how much you are still depending on them.

With a marriage the object of the game is to grow together, to become more and more part of each other. I don't mean more dependent on each other but it does sort of come in to it. It's the whole intimacy thing. A couple that grow apart, who lose the intimacy that should grow between them as the years go by, is a sad thing to see.

Do you see the 'paradox'? The Parent-Child relationship of growing towards apart-ness and the Bride-Bridegroom relationship of growing towards Unity.

Wild huh?

for the more logical amonst us that's going to be hard to resolve. How can both be right?

I'll leave that to another post when I've got more time, until then think about it yourself.