Is Your Spouse a Good “Helper?”

7 Then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
15 The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” 18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is like him.” 19 So the LORD God formed out of the ground each wild animal and each bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found who was like him.
-Gen. 2:7, 15-20

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God’s creation of the world had a soundtrack. The recurring theme sounded like this: God spoke, it happened, God said it was good. Concerning everything created, the same song emerged. Everything God created was good because the Creator was good. What else should we expect from such a good God?

In Genesis 2, God allows us to see a deeper layer of the story. God is displeased with one of his creations. Ironically, the only creation he is disappointed in is the one that he creates in his own image. When God stated, “it is not good for the man to be alone,” the implications are very heavy. God has placed a void in our heart that he alone can fill, but this passage reveals that he has also placed a void in our hearts that he chooses not to fill. He designed us to need a helper.

What’s interesting is that God says he will “make a helper who is like him.” God is talking about someone who can relate to Adam. Someone who can identify with his hurts, his weaknesses, his insecurities, and all of his successes and failures. While God would love Adam and provide an example for Adam, God knew that Adam was going to need someone beside him that was like him. God is so not like us, we needed someone to walk beside us to help follow him.

You might be tempted right now to think of the ways your spouse is not a helper to you. Maybe your marriage is difficult right now, and you can think of ways your spouse could change to make things better. Instead of looking at their issues today, what would happen if you sought to be a better helper to your spouse? How could you help your spouse today – physically, emotionally, or spiritually?