Scripture
(Hebrews 13:4-6)--Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?"
Observation
"Going down?" The motion within the design of this paragraph provides valuable insights. Each phrase moves us increasingly deeper from our behaviors into our core emotions and values--not only of marriage, but of life itself (of which marriage is a metaphor). By the way, the gold mines in South Africa are the world's deepest mines. Over 2.6 miles deep already, the AngloGold Mponeng mine is being excavated another 300 meters deeper according to answers.com. According to God's Word, the insights from this text, if brought back and applied to the surface of the daily routines of our lives, give us a wealth of benefits.
Ready? The Holy Spirit starts this movement with the marriage bed, requesting that we honor it with all its rich, positive images and meanings. The Holy Spirit immediately puts the reader into an an attentive mental state and heightened emotional state. Each of us, He says, should hold that bed in honor and place value on it. How do we do that? His explanation is like an elevator that takes us deep into our spirit's innermost needs and treasures--the yet-to-be-mined gold. The bed represents that place where we experience the most vulnerable, familiar, and intimate aspect of marriage. Honoring it leads us further into the sacredness of relationship; dishonoring it pollutes it and keeps us shallow and unfulfilled.The sexual use of that bed is perhaps the most obvious use, naturally. How do we dishonor and devalue it? First, we're told, by committing fornication (i.e., "sexual immorality") or adultery--seeking satisfaction by going outside the marriage for pleasures that belong in marriage. The meaning here includes both our illicit behaviors and our illicit imaginations. These violate the bed just as thoroughly as a literally contaminated bed disgusts our imaginations and emotions. These wasteful and misguided behaviors and desires are further explained in Matthew 5:27-32; James 1:12-18.
Let's go deeper. A less obvious destroyer of the marital bed is an inordinate lust for material pleasures and securities. A belief that stuff--property, houses, clothes, bank accounts, retirement funds (metaphorically silver and gold)--will provide us with safety and satisfaction. It is a misguided belief that ultimately proves to be destructive. This belief defiles the marriage bed, it corrupts marriages and prevents all its victims from enjoying an even more basic use of the bed: sleep. Contentment is an essential guardian of good night's sleep and rest. We can rest comfortably without having to guard our storehouse or relentlessly seek more stuff for security because the Lord Himself if our all-sufficient supply, which is what Paul's letter to the Colossian Church was all about. David wrote in Psalm 121: "He that watches (guards and guides) you will not slumber or sleep (grow indolent or drowsy).
Finally, the Holy Spirit brings to our attention our most hidden and valuable treasure. It's what makes the marriage bed work. It's what gives rest to the secret, sacred, vulnerable spaces of our souls. It speaks to our basic human terror--being abandoned and alone. It's where we're most vulnerable--far more deeply than our sexuality, far more deeply than our material security. Here, the Holy Spirit wisely redirects the readers’ attention to the Lord, the only perfect model for relational safety. He will never leave us (literally, that means, He will never let up, slacken, desert, or withhold Himself). Nor will he forsake us (literally that means He will remain fully dedicated, consecrated to us). In marriage, this is the greatest gift any husband can give to his wife or any wife can give to her husband. This permanent presence is not the threatening, intimidating burden of an oppressor, but the life-giving resource of an excellent ally. Just for fun, be encouraged by reading carefully these other passages that describe the Lord's presence in our lives; it's a picture of how we be best serve people: Deuteronomy 31:6-8; Psalm 118.
Application (Personal)
Caves are almost irresistable to me. Dr. David Manock, referring to Dr. Susan Johnson's method of marital counseling, uses an old Irish story of a cave and a dragon to describe our relational needs in life. According to this metaphor, life is described as standing in the back of a cave, with your back against the back wall, waiting for the dragon to come and attack. In this story, realizing that death is inevitable, the Irish person asks his partner not if they can work together to defeat the dragon or escape, but, "Am I alone or are you with me?" Manock explains that the deep relational bond "answers the existential question in the human heart. Psychologically, the most toxic and terrifying experience in all of life's problems is that deep sense, experience, and fear that somehow a person is thrown back upon themselves and are utterly alone, rejected, and abandoned in relationship" (Oregon Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, Spring Edition 2011, p. 5).
Being alone--abandoned, uncared for, forsaken--is the great terror of life.That's the central message of Hosea's life, his miserable marriage, and his prophetic writings. That's the cry that shook all corners of creation when Jesus took our sins and hung with them on the cross: "My God! My God! Why have You forsaken me?" That's the essential description of Hell (Mark 9:42-50; 2 Thessalonians 1:9).
So, instead of serving and helping Eve, Adam passively stood by while she fell to the Dragon's temptations. Making his sin worse, he then blamed her instead of being responsible for his own failures. Thus, he forsook and dealt treacherously against God when he abandoned Eve (Genesis 3; Hosea 6:7; Ephesians 5:21-33). In a similar way, instead of using her uniquely god-given gifts to help Adam, she actively engaged in destructive disobedience against God when she failed to help Adam remain righteous (Genesis 3; 1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:21-33).
In my unregenerate state--when I live by my natural reasonings instead of by putting on the mind of Christ--I live in the likeness of my original parents, both Adam and Eve. Christ is the second Adam (dare I say, the second Eve, since both were made in His image). In Christ, can enjoy never, ever being forsaken or abandoned. In Christ, I can learn what it means to not be an abandoner or forsaker of people, as my old habits had been. Just as you went to the cross to redeem my parents' sins (Adam and Eve's), I can be encouraged that your work on the cross can also redeem where I've messed up.
Application (Psychological)
Susan Johnson’s created a therapy model that includes in its conceptual foundation the Attachment Theory of Human Development. This theory holds that successful human maturation--even successful brain development--is determined by the nature of a child's primary care giver during the child's earliest years: appropriate, caring responses by the care-giver (also called the attachment figure) lead to healthy development for the child and inappropriate responses by the care-giver negatively affect the child's development. I suggest that the the elements of this theory are consistent with biblical descriptions of our need for intimate, caring communities and our healthy fear of abandonment. Below, is my paraphrase of how Dr. Johnson summarized the ten central tenets of attachment theory (The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, 2nd ed., 2004, pp. 25-32).
1. Attachment (intimate, loving relationships) is an innate motivating force. Seeking and maintaining contact with significant others is a primary motivating principle in human beings across the life span. The fear of isolation and loss is found in every human heart—when the wind blows, it stings the eyes of all.
2. Secure (healthy) dependence complements autonomy. There is no such thing as complete independence. There is only effective or ineffective dependency. Secure dependence fosters autonomy and self-confidence—the more connected we are, the more separate and different we can be. Health in this model means maintaining a felt sense of interdependency, rather than being self-sufficient and separate from others.
3. Attachment offers an essential safe haven. Contact with attachment figures is an innate survival mechanism. The presence of an attachment figure, which usually means parents, children, and spouses, provides comfort and security, while perceived inaccessibility of such figures creates distress—proximity to a loved one tranquilizes the nervous system. It is the natural antidote to the inevitable anxieties and vulnerabilities of life. For people of all ages, positive attachments create a safe haven that offers a buffer against the effects of stress and uncertainty and an optimal context for the continuing development of the personality.
4. Attachment offers a secure base. From this secure base, individuals can explore their universe and most adaptively respond to their environment. The presence of this base encourages exploration and a cognitive openness to new information. It promotes the confidence necessary to risk, learn, and continually update models of self, others, and the world so that adjustment to new contexts is made. Secure attachment strengthens the ability to stand back and reflect on oneself, one’s behavior, and one’s mental states.
5. Emotional accessibility and responsiveness build bonds. In general emotion activates and organizes attachment behaviors—the building blocks of secure attachment are emotional accessibility and responsiveness. If there is not engagement, no emotional responsiveness, the message from the attachment figure reads as: “Your signals do not matter, and there is no connection between us.” Attachment relationships are where our strongest emotions arise and where they seem to have most impact. Emotions tell us and communicate to others what our motivations and needs are; they are the music of our attachment dance.
6. Fear and uncertainty activate attachment needs. When the individual is threatened, either by traumatic events (the negative aspects of everyday life such as stress or illness) or by any assault on the security of the attachment bond itself, powerful emotions arise. Our need for comfort and connection become particularly salient and compelling. Attachment behaviors, such as longing to be with a loved one, are then activated. This is a primary, inbuilt emotional regulation device. Attachment to key others is our “primary protection against feelings of helplessness and meaninglessness.”
7. The process of separation distress is predictable. If behaviors designed to promote attachment fail to evoke comforting responses from an attachment figure, the process of angry protest, clinging, depression, and despair occur, culminating in detachment. Depression is the natural response to loss of connection. In secure relationships, protests at inaccessibility is recognized and accepted: “I’m so sorry that I …” and mutual attempts to reconnect follow. It’s a common dance step.
8. A finite number of insecure forms of engagement can be identified. In other words, there are only a few ways of coping with a negative response to the question, “Can I depend on you when I need you?” Attachment responses tend to be organized along two dimensions: anxiety and avoidance: (1) anxious, preoccupied clinging (hyperactivated overdrive), (2) detached avoidance (deactivate the attachment system and suppress the attachment needs), and (3) disorganized, fearful avoidance (seeking closeness while also fearfully avoiding closeness).
9. Attachment involves working models of self and other. We define ourselves in the context of our most intimate relationships. Secure attachment is characterized by a working model of self that is worthy of love and care and is confident and competent, and indeed research has found secure attachment to be associated with greater self-efficacy. Securely attached people (who believe others will be appropriately responsive when needed) also tend to have working models of others as being dependable and worthy of trust. These models of self and others (distilled out of thousands of interactions) become expectations and biases that are carried forward into new relationships. They are procedural scripts for how to create relatedness and ways of processing attachment information.
10. Isolation and loss are inherently traumatizing. Attachment theory is essentially a trauma theory. It describes and explains the trauma of deprivations, loss, rejection, and abandonment by those we need the most and the enormous impact it has on us. Traumatic stressors, and the isolation that follows, have a tremendous impact on personality formation and on a person’s ability to deal with other stresses in life. Attachment theorist Bowlby believed that when someone is confident that a loved one will be there when needed, “a person will be much less prone to either intense or chronic fear than will an individual who has not such confidence." Distressed partners who are dealing with the traumatic helplessness induced by isolation and loss tend to adopt stances of fight, flight, or freeze that characterize responses to traumatic stress.
Prayer
Lord, teach me how to be a person who continually and truly cares about people. Teach me how to "be with" people even when I--in myself--don't have the specific answers they need. Teach me how to effectively encourage people to know you, to trust you, and to love you more and more with each passing day. I'm learning to do that--ever so slowly--and I am ever grateful for your promised presence with me.
Scripture (Philippians 4:4-9) 
