It is a real art. Taking a branch from one tree and grafting it into another stem or trunk in such a way that life bursts forth. If we were to go out into our yard and cut off a branch from one tree and simply stick it to another tree, we can be fairly confident the branch will die and possibly the tree as well.
This joining together is exactly what God has done through the Gentiles. In the days of Paul's writing if you were a Jewish person there were only two types of people in the world, Jewish people and everyone else. The Jewish people were the people chosen of God to be a blessing to the whole world. When God stepped out of eternity and into our reality as Jesus Christ, many of the Jewish people did not believe, so God grafted the Gentiles into the promise.
A marriage in many ways is a grafting process. Two people coming from different families with different understandings of life and possibly different values. The two become one as they are grafted with each other and with God. For the rest of our lives a married couple journey through history and values brought to the marriage as well as the new story and values that emerge.
Like with the grafting of trees, the successful grafting of a marriage takes care and tending. There is much more to the work than simply sticking two lives together. There is an investment in the marriage that involves time, energy and effort. It requires learning and growing along with challenge and struggle. This is why like grafting two plants, marriage is more of an art than a science. Sure science has its place in both, but it is the work of art that becomes the masterpiece.
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