From antiquity, names have held meanings. For many decades now, children have been christened with meaningless names; this is to say, their names sound good, or it was the name of a cherished relative. The name of the rock band Three Dog Night was in line with the historical practice.
American Songwriter says, “The name Three Dog Night comes from a phrase often used by Aboriginal Australian hunters as a barometer for how cold a night in the Outback would be…The hunters would dig a hole in the ground and then use dingos to keep warm. If it was cold, they’d sleep with two dogs. If it was freezing, it would be a “three-dog night.” They wanted to include the number three somewhere in their moniker as a representation of the idea that there [were] three lead singers.”
A hit song by this group titled One Is The Loneliest Number propelled the rock group to the top of the charts in 1969. A song’s bridge can connect the disparate parts of the song. The bridge of the song underscores the emotion of the song.
♫It’s just no good anymore since you went away
Now I spend my time just making rhymes of yesterday♬
God’s Plan for Mankind
From the Modern English Version of the Bible, Genesis 1:26-28
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in His own image;
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Do you notice? The Bible uses a singular noun, man, as His creation, and He defines his creation as “male and female.”
King Solomon was known as the wisest man on Earth. He also behaved like the most foolish man.
In Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, Solomon wrote:
Two are better than one,
because there is a good reward for their labor together.
For if they fall,
then one will help up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls
and has no one to help him up.
Also if two lie down together, then they will keep warm;
but how can one keep warm by himself?
And if someone might overpower another by himself,
two together can withstand him.
A threefold cord is not quickly broken.
What is the big idea from this Bible study?
My parents divorced when I was 6 years of age. She remarried when I was 15. Those intervening years were hell for her. She worked from before daybreak until as late as 11 pm. The food cupboard challenged us. Mom had gone from being a highly successful businesswoman before she married my father to becoming a struggling single mother of three children after the divorce. My elder sister, four years my senior, was a survivalist, pretending the divorce never happened. But life was difficult for a fatherless teenage girl. Life was also tricky for a fatherless son and his younger sister.
The three of us became addicted to tobacco and alcohol. My addictions started before the divorce. Yes, at age 5 years, I shared my father’s whiskey and cigarettes. The alcohol addiction stayed with me for 27 years, and the smoking addiction for 28 years. I was not a regular user of alcohol, but when I started drinking, it was impossible to stop. I actually avoided alcohol.
It has been said no one is entirely useless. They can always serve as a bad example.
In 1974, after five years of marriage, almost to the day of our fifth anniversary, the Lord miraculously delivered me from the alcohol addiction. A year later, He sovereignty and miraculously delivered me from a smoking habit that got to five packs a day.
What’s the point?
Ex-husbands and ex-wives see themselves as the victims of a divorce. From personal experience, I can attest to the fact the children of divorce are the actual victims.
Over my 76 years, I have counseled many couples in the throes of divorce. The number one common factor is selfishness by either the husband or the wife, all too often, by both.
1 Corinthians 10:24 admonishes, “Let no one seek his own [or her own], but each one the other’s well-being.“
By The Numbers
- NPR, April 12, 2021, Percentage and Number of Children Living With Two Parents Has Dropped Since 1968
- NPR, June 18, 2017, Poverty, Dropouts, Pregnancy, Suicide: What The Numbers Say About Fatherless Kids
- Psychology Today, May 26, 2023, Fatherless Daughters: The Impact of Absence, A daughter’s sense of self may be shaped by what a father is not able to give.
- National Fatherhood Initiative, 2023, Statistics Tell The Story: Fathers Matter
- Brookings, July 15, 2014, Are Children Raised With Absent Fathers Worse Off? – Children raised by single mothers are more likely to fare worse on a number of dimensions, including their school achievement, their social and emotional development, their health and their success in the labor market.
Decisions
There is a myriad of counselors, Christian and secular. Some adopt the posture of “my way or the highway.”
What is the best way?
As it is written in the Bible, John 14:6, Jesus declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
I chose Jesus’ way. Considering Jesus is THE way, why would you choose any other?
Soli Deo Gloria
John White
Rockwall, Texas
John N. White 