The Right Kind of Clingy: What Genesis Says About Love, Growth, and Becoming

We were driving through the open safari landscape of Kenya on a recent mission trip, representing City of Life's partnership with Compassion International, when our driver slowed the vehicle and pointed to a clearing just off the road. There were impala, gazelle, warthogs, and baboons all gathered together in the same space. Not one species, but many. I leaned out the window and asked our driver why they were all together like that.

He said, "This is what we call an aggregation. It's when multiple kinds of animals come together and stay together."

"Why?" I asked. "Is it food? Water?"

He smiled and said simply, "It's better when they're together. Some can see the predator. Some can hear it. Some can smell it. But together, they're safe."

I felt a sermon rising up right there in the African bush. Because that's the church. Your testimony doesn't have to match mine. But I can tell you the roads I've been down. I can tell you where the enemy likes to set his traps. And together, we can protect each other. That's community. That's the family of God.

And that's also what marriage, at its best, is meant to be.

The passage we want to start in today is one of the most foundational in all of Scripture when it comes to love and covenant. Genesis 2:24 says: "Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

It's short. It's ancient. And it holds a map for transformation that extends far beyond marriage.

Leave: Authority Is Clarified Before Anything Else Can Be Built

The first word in the sequence is leave. And most people read that as a geographic instruction, as if it's simply about moving out. But leaving isn't about distance. It's about authority.

When you enter a marriage covenant, you're not just changing your address. You're creating a new family, which means a new authority structure. The covering, the communication patterns, the unspoken rules about money or conflict or affection that you absorbed growing up, those don't automatically transfer into your new home. And if you try to run the new on the old operating system, you're going to create a lot of friction.

Amanda often tells couples this in premarital counseling: traffic laws in New York and New Jersey aren't the same as traffic laws in Florida. When we were visiting New York, I turned right on red at an intersection because that's just what you do in Florida. The camera flashed. There went the budget.

You can laugh, but the point is real. If you try to apply the rules from where you came from into a place with a completely different jurisdiction, you're going to run into problems. Not because you're a bad person, but because the authority doesn't transfer.

This is why leaving is an internal shift more than an external one. It's where old authority loses its governing power. And for a lot of us, that process requires some honest reckoning with what we're still carrying.

When you feel yourself getting reactive, defensive, or completely shut down in a conversation with your spouse, we want to offer you a simple tool: name the voice. Pause and ask yourself, "Whose voice am I actually hearing right now?" Is it your mother's way of handling stress? A harsh voice from an ex or from someone who hurt you? A wound that never fully healed? A place of guilt or shame from your own story?

Because at the name of Jesus, every other name must bow. But you have to name it before you can release it. You cannot leave what you refuse to name.

Your spouse is not your healer. They're not your savior. They're a person who needs Jesus just as much as you do. When we expect our partner to fix what our past broke, we put them in a seat that only Jesus can occupy. And we will be angry at them with the full weight of every person who ever failed us. That's not fair to them, and it won't give us what we're actually looking for.

Leaving begins when we stop expecting our spouse to be the answer and start allowing Jesus to do the healing work that only he can do.

Cling: Choosing Attachment When It Costs You Something

The second movement in Genesis 2:24 is cling. And clinging is not passive. It is an active, deliberate choice to stay connected under pressure.

Marriage has a way of revealing your attachment style in ways that singleness never quite does. I tend to be more anxious in conflict. So when Amanda goes quiet and needs space to process, my brain immediately goes to the worst-case scenario. "Are you mad? Is this it? Are we okay?" And Amanda, who is a little more on the avoidant side, is simply thinking, "I just need five minutes before I say something I regret."

Two different styles, two different interpretations of the exact same moment. Neither of us is wrong. But without understanding each other, we'd be fighting about something that isn't even happening.

Clinging says: even when I don't understand you, I'm staying. Even when we disagree, I'm not going anywhere. I'm leaning in.

On a family trip to a children's museum, I stepped up onto a spinning platform with a bar to hold onto. The attendant spun me and then said, "Okay, now lean in." I didn't know anything about centrifugal force, but the moment I leaned in, the whole thing accelerated. I went from a slow spin to looking like a completely confused Olympic skater in a matter of seconds. Because leaning in changes the momentum.

That's what clinging does in a marriage. When things are hard and our instinct is to lean back and protect ourselves, leaning in actually increases the momentum of the relationship. Most marriages don't fall apart because of the conflict. They fall apart because of disengagement. One person starts leaning back emotionally long before the marriage is technically over.

So here's a practical tool we want you to try: always affirm. When conflict arises, before anything else, affirm the relationship. It sounds like: "I'm really angry right now, but I love you and I'm for you, and we're going to figure this out." Or maybe: "I need some space, but I want you to know I'm leaving the room and not leaving you." Even with your kids, it works the same way. "What you did is not okay, and there's going to be a consequence. But I love you."

Affirming doesn't mean you're agreeing or minimizing the problem. It means you're choosing the relationship over the conflict. It creates safety in the middle of hard conversations. Because something deep in all of us is waiting for the signal that says this is over, and affirming tells that voice: not a chance.

Become: The Process Nobody Posts About

The third word is become. And becoming is not a checklist item you check off after the first two. It is a slow, developmental process. It is not Uber Eats fast. You cannot rush it.

Years ago, our founding pastor, Dr. Gary Smith, had severely cut his hand and needed a skin graft from his elbow to repair the damaged tissue. And even after decades, you can still see where the skin is slightly different, a different texture, a different color. But the two pieces of skin became one flesh. And now, if you wanted to, you couldn't put it back the way it was. The two have become one.

That's the picture God gave us in Genesis. Marriage is so permanent, so deeply marking, that there's no going back. You don't lose your identity. You don't lose your calling or your dreams. But you are changed by the covenant. You are fused together over time, over intentionality, over some trial and error and some hard seasons.

Here's what we know from personal experience: unity is not instant. Marriage does not create maturity. Marriage exposes it. It puts your level of selflessness and your unresolved patterns under a magnifying glass, and it does not let you look away.

But strong marriages aren't conflict-free. They're repair-rich.

We conflict. Regularly. Probably multiple times a week. The goal is NOT to never fight. The goal is to repair. And repair looks like ownership, not blame. It sounds like: "Here's where I think I missed you. Here's what I was feeling in that moment. Here's what I want to do differently." No justifying, no spiritually bypassing with "you just need to pray more." Just honest, humble ownership of your part.

Because marriages don't collapse from conflict. They collapse from delayed repair. When we get into isolation, when we start filling in the blanks because our spouse isn't talking to us, we will tell ourselves a story. And more often than not, we will get the facts wrong.

In Ephesians 5:21, Paul echoes this Genesis passage when he writes: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." Before roles, before responsibilities, there is a mutual posture: I am taking responsibility for the health of what we are building together. I'm doing my part, you're doing your part, and we're trusting God to do his.

It's Always Been Bigger Than Marriage

Here's what we want you to carry out of this room, whether you're married, single, or somewhere in the middle of a complicated season.

Leave, cling, and become is the pattern of every transformation God brings about in a person's life.

If you're walking out of addiction, it's going to require leaving the old patterns, the old places, the old habits. You're going to cling to the new even on the days when everything in you wants to go back. And then somewhere along the way, not on day one, not even on day thirty, you're going to become someone new.

If you're pursuing healing in your mental and emotional life, it starts with leaving the thought patterns that have kept you stuck. You cling to what the Word says: you are the head and not the tail, you are more than a conqueror, you are blessed. And you keep clinging even when it doesn't feel true yet. And eventually, the becoming happens.

Most people want the becoming, but they're afraid to leave and too impatient to cling. But there is no shortcut. The pathway is the same every time.

And salvation itself is the ultimate picture of it. When you receive Jesus, you leave your old way of life. That's repentance. You cling to him, leaning in rather than leaning back, especially in the hard moments. And you become everything God designed you to be. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

Your daddy, your mama, your trauma, your drama, your past, your regrets: none of it disqualifies you from this process. Because of Jesus, you can leave what once defined you. You can cling to the one who saves you. And you can become someone new.

That is the gospel. And it is open to everyone.