the big snit

There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage. (Martin Luther)

God set this one up- talk to him. looking upon all of creation, God noted that it was not good for the man to be alone and that a suitable helper was the solution. historically, many have missed God’s point, concluding that ‘helper’ is an assistant rather than an associate. however, the hebrew word ‘ezer from the original text brings with it the idea of relief and aid, not simply help.

it is a word of collective strength and equality.

No marriage- no matter how good- is immune to bad things. We all suffer private problems and sometimes public pitfalls. Sexual unfulfillment that quietly hardens our hearts. Financial debt that shrouds us in shame. Hope deferred by the anguish of infertility. Communication meltdowns that tempt us to quit trying. Ugly addictions that drive us into secret lives. Problems with anger that cause loved ones to walk on eggshells. Personal pain from an abusive past that keeps us from loving in the present. The list could go on and on. The bad things, both big and small, that interfere with a good marriage are countless...

If we were to ask you where on a continuum- from very bad to very good- your marriage falls, chances are you would say somewhere in the middle. And chances are that your self ranking has propelled you, at one time or another, to ask a potentially painful question about your marriage:

Is THIS as good as it gets?
(Les and Leslie Parrott)

king david may very well be thinking this as he, the great warrior king of Israel, leaves his house following one of the biggest battles of his career- one he has with his wife over worship style (2 samuel 6.14-23)… however, if we look at the back story, we can see that the marriage of david and michal has been a ticking bomb waiting to go off…

• 1 sam14.49: michal is the youngest daughter of saul, israel's first disappointing king.
• 1 sam18.20-1, 27-8 as a girl, she is smitten with david, and then strategically betrothed
• 1 sam19.11-17 she chooses faithfulness and protection to david over supporting her father's insecurity
  
• 1 sam25.44 she is given to another by the king to punish both her and david for 'treason'
  
• 2 sam 3.13-15 for political reasons years later, she is taken out of what appears to have been a good marriage and dragged back to the house of david, now king. her husband follows the royal procession for miles, weeping and begging in vain for clemency.

now whether she has been keeping a candle burning in her heart for dave or not, the reality is that she is a different person now, as is he. the thrilling young giant killer is now a man of power and consequence, and she is now another man's woman, regardless of having been betrothed to the king in her earlier life. her heart has been broken a couple times by politics before she comes to be legislated into the king's household as another of his many brides.

whatever the case, over the next 3 chapters of samuel's 2nd book, david and michal grow further apart, as the demands of his job and some unresolved conflict take their toll. there is a thickening plot repleat with many job-related challenges. it's tough to be a king (or a king's wife) amidst:

a civil war
two major assassinations and their political ramifications
the uniting of the country
the taking back of jerusalem
the defeating of the philistines
the returning of the ark of the covenant (God’s physical presence) to jerusalem, symbolizing the restoration of the people and the promise...

so when david comes home to bless his own household after the great celebration in the streets of jerusalem in which he stripped down to his umbros and danced in worshipful joy in front of God and everyone, he walks right into that which has poetically made the very fury of hell seem like a nice breeze- a woman's scorn.

marriage expert gary smalley, in his video ‘The Art of Communication part 1: Forgiveness’, identifies anger’s Big 4. they are clearly part of david and michal’s big snit. now, i realize there's no need to somehow draw attention to the fact that, within this story, there is anger. the idea here is to explore the shape and the structure of this example of anger with the hope of more clearly understanding it and taking measures to prevent it within our own relationships.

1. withdrawal: michal is detached, watching from a window. (6.16) she does not come down and participate in the festivities as the wife of the victorious king might. she remembers being drawn into the street dances as a young girl, singing with the crowd how 'saul has killed his thousands, david his ten thousands.' all these years later, david's still the celebrity, but she is seeing it all through older, embittered eyes, perhaps feeling like one of the ten thousand. was that old song about breaking hearts, she wonders?
   
2. escalation: michal despises him in her heart, and does eventually come out when the crowd has dispersed and david is once more not a returning king but just a man coming home. (6.16, 20) the anger has been steeping for quite awhile, now, and is about to be served.
   
3. belittling: michal uses sarcasm, attacking both david’s kingship and his worship expression. (6.20) she knows his heart, knows that the dance wasn't about her, but also knows that the dancing king who has once again captured not only jerusalem but the hearts of its people has a soft spot when it comes to personal worship. she attacks him in a place where he is most vulnerable- his worshiper's heart.
   
4. negativity: michal sees this as reinforcement of her negative thoughts. (6.20) she has come to believe things about her husband that are probably not true: that he is intentionally breaking hearts and seeking celebrity among the lusty hearts of the young slave girls of jerusalem in one of those brad pitt scenarios where all the men want to be him and all the women want to be with him. her defaults have been reset and she now sees her husband through the eyes of well-maintained pain, disappointment and heartbreak.

david, for his part, strikes back fairly well.

having been on the run for so many years, his limbic system is sharp and he is not to be overcome by one of the women in his world. if he's taken aback by michal's words, he bounces back fast (6.21) with a strong reminder that the dance in question was for the same God that had rejected her father as king. if michal has somehow thought of or eluded to the past, david cites it outright.

he is, after all, a great fighter of battles. he knows how to win. and as far as the insulting nature of michal's attack on his publicly demonstrative worship expression, the public humiliation delivered to michal by establishing her as a wife of the king who fails to give the king an heir to the throne in a culture where this is really her only real function (6.23) is like returning a slap in the face with disfigurement. yes, david wins, i suppose.

sadly for both of them, though, marriage isn't about winning. it's about being there for one another- being that helper; that God-intended relief.

clearly, david and michal had become disconnected long before their big fight. the challenge for those of us reading the story over 3000 years later is to not take sides in the conflict, but to see the mutual sadness and work at preventing it from taking root within our own relationships.