“Tailgating”

“That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife, and they become one.” —Genesis 2:24

“As the scripture says, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife, and the two will become one.’” — Ephesians 5:31

These are familiar verses that pretty much sum up God’s design for marriage. God set the standard for the marriage relationship way back when Adam and Eve first got together, and then made sure that New Testament Christians also got the message about how it works when He had it repeated in the book of Ephesians. Basically, we become independent of our parents and become one entity together. I like how the King James version describes it–it says that we “cleave” to each other. The Hebrew word that “unite” or “cleave” is translated from is ???? (daw-bak), which describes clinging to one another, joined like we have been glued together or following each other so closely that we might seem to be trying to overtake each other – I guess this is the Hebrew word for “tailgating.”

I like that picture—my wife and I are traveling through life as two people but united in our goals, in our destination. We don’t want to get separated along the way, so we “tailgate” each other—not to harass the other, but to make sure that no one or nothing gets between us. It’s not that we always have to do everything with each other, but we do want to keep a very careful watch on our relationship.

When I was in Afghanistan I served in Kabul. Those who have been to Afghanistan and in the city of Kabul itself will understand the need to tailgate in convoy. The city is bustling and you never know who is around you and what their intentions are. One day I escorted a government official who was a guest of the Afghan Government. He rode in a government car and I followed to be there if something went wrong. The driver of the car knew Kabul like the back of his hand and did not wait for me—I had to glue myself to his tail lights for a hair-raising race through the city. At one point we went around a traffic circle near a market and were swamped by women in burkas, children, donkey carts, bread sellers and all manner of other people I couldn’t identify. I remember being hunched over the steering wheel, closing the gap between our vehicles so tightly that none of the pedestrians could squeeze between us. I was sweating.

Anyone who has driven in convoy through potentially dangerous places will understand the intensity that takes over as you focus on sticking to the vehicle in front. We do it to ensure that we do not allow anything to separate us because we know the risks greatly increase when we are isolated. This is how we should view our relationship with our spouses. We need to feel that intensity as we cling to each other knowing that it is dangerous to leave any gap between us.

Most of us need to sweat more about this rather than let work, friends, time-consuming habits, self-pride, or anything else that puts a wedge in our marriages get between us. It’s not that these things are necessarily bad (except for self-pride), but if they begin to become a higher priority than our spouse, then we are falling back and need to “tailgate” better.

Physical presence is very important and we should be with our spouse as much as we can, reinforcing that they are our priority. During these times we build the trust and emotional connection that sustains us when we are apart. Emotional “tailgating” is what glues us together when we are deployed and this is achieved through good communication. If we can’t physically be together, then we should be constantly reminding each other of our mutual commitment through letters, emails, phone calls, gifts and anything else that says, “I’m committed to sticking to you.”

The world needs more “tailgaters”!

Questions to Share:

1. What people/things are trying to squeeze between you and your spouse?

2. What can you both do to close the gap between you so that nothing can wedge itself in?

3. Ask the Holy Spirit to prompt you regularly to check that you are doing a good job of “tailgating.”