The D-Word (2)

Yesterday I shared that currently three of my favorite couples – all Christians and involved in ministry at some level – are at least talking about divorce. I thought I’d share what I hope are a few helpful thoughts for all of us.

In my last post I talked about prevention – how do you do marriage in a way that you don’t get to the point where divorce is even mentioned. But, today, what do you do when you DO get to the point where marriage is so difficult that divorce IS mentioned?

You don’t.

One time Pharisees asked Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” (Mtt 19:3). Jesus said, “Haven’t you read … For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Mtt 19:4-5).  If you have made Jesus the Lord of your life, what He says goes, and so divorce is not an option.

And when you got married, you took a vow. That wasn’t a joke. It was a vow you took before God. Jesus said, “Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made” (Mtt 5:33). You chose to make that promise before God, to enter into the covenant of marriage, and except for in the case of adultery, it’s binding. 

You don’t mention divorce, because for a Christ-follower it isn’t an option. And that is a huge help to your marriage. If divorce is an option, your mind will go there. You’ll wonder if it’s inevitable. You may not fight so hard for your marriage. If it’s not an option, you will do everything you can to make your marriage better, because you’re not willing to have a crappy marriage for the rest of your life.

I can tell you this – Jen and I have had times where our marriage was HORRIBLE, and if divorce was an option, I’m sure it would have been mentioned, if not jumped into. But because we live by God’s Word, not our circumstances, we didn’t view it as an option and fought to improve our marriage. And with God’s help, we did. We have a marriage now that you should be jealous of, but it’s only because divorce was never an option.