A number of years ago, as my husband Steve and I were waiting in the City Courthouse to obtain passports, we noticed a man and a woman who were obviously going to get married that day. There was so much kissing, hugging, laughing, and talk of “love” going on that you could almost see the electricity of it all in the air.
In contrast, standing next to them in another line, was a woman who was filing for divorce and another woman behind her who was also filing for divorce. The air around them was filled with anything but love and optimism! It was obvious, from the countenance and the words they were throwing around, that they were extremely hurt and angry!
Steve and I remarked to each other that it was surprising that a thunderstorm didn’t erupt before our very eyes in the courthouse because of the clash of the different forms of energy these people were emitting in the same room!
How tragic it was to see the difference in the countenance of all of these people. The couple who were getting married were obviously overjoyed as their dreams were being realized. The others were noticeably distraught as their dreams appeared to be shattered.
We’re sure those who were divorcing, never in their wildest imaginations, ever thought on their wedding day that they’d ever be standing in line to get a divorce. How could something that starts out with so much joy and enthusiasm deteriorate into such utter sadness and distress? What could have happened we wondered?
Tragically, a lot can happen! And more people than we want to count have found that to be true! And yet marrying and divorcing is still going on all around us. But what’s especially distressing is that those who claim to be “Christians” are marrying and divorcing at almost the same rate as those who don’t claim to live by the values of Christ. Why is that, we wonder?
One of the many, many reasons, we surmise, is that marital commitment isn’t want it used to be (as we see from the rising divorce rate in recent years). And it definitely isn’t what it SHOULD be — not by Biblical standards, especially! The question we ask is: What has happened to keeping our promises of commitment in how we live out our marital vows “till death do we part?”
We’re told in the Bible to let our “yes be yes” and our “no be no.” We’re called as believers in Jesus Christ to be promise keepers, remembering that we made our vow not only to our spouse, but also to our God.
In the light of what we promised each other and God, what has happened to our commitment to live out the covenant promise “till death do we part?” Is our marriage vow only to be lived out “till love ends do we part” or “till hatred begins do we part” as those outside of the Christian faith appear to believe? How will they know we are Christians by the “love we show to one another” when our marriages show nothing much different from theirs?
Author Dennis Rainey addresses this subject in his book One Home at a Time (published by Tyndale House). In it he writes:
“Marriage is not just a private experiment, littered with prenuptial agreements and an attitude of ‘Try me! If it doesn’t work, you can always bail out!’ Marriage is not some kind of social contract — something you just ‘do’ for as long as you both shall ‘love.’ Marriage is a sacred covenant between one man and one woman and their God for a lifetime. It is a public vow of how you will relate to your spouse as you form a new family unit.
“Any covenant — including the marriage covenant — is a binding, weighty obligation. In Proverbs 20:25, we read, ‘It is a trap for a man to dedicate something rashly and only later to consider his vows’ (NIV). God says, ‘I hate divorce’ (Malachi 2:16). The Lord didn’t stutter when He spoke these words. It is time for each of us to embrace and proclaim God’s sacred view of marriage, as well as His corresponding hatred for divorce.”
Authors Dennis and Barbara Rainey also challenge our view on marital commitment in their book, Moments Together for Couples (published by Regal Books). In the August 11th devotional page they write:
“We need to resurrect the true meaning of commitment. In this age of lite beer, lite syrup and lite salad dressing, it’s no wonder we exhibit lite commitment, too. But for a Christian, commitment is a sacred vow and promise to God. It’s two people who hang in there during the best and worst of times and who won’t quit. It’s a husband and wife who find working through problems much more rewarding than walking out.
“We need to pass on to our children the real definition of commitment while continually exposing the lies that their peers and the media propagate. A person who does not understand his or her ultimate accountability to God has little reason to fulfill a vow or commitment to another human being.”
It is our prayer that ALL of us will join hands as a Christian community to play an active part in helping those who are considering marriage, including our children, to slow down and do what they can to make sure they really understand the covenantal commitment they are heading into when they marry.
We pray that we will ALL do what we can to impress upon them to take more time and intentionality in preparing themselves in the best way possible so they can live out the covenantal commitment of marriage for the rest of their lives, as God intends.
If you are considering marriage, please, please, please do all you can to make sure the above challenge applies to how you approach marriage. Do not allow your marital commitment to imitate the world’s approach. God takes the commitment of marriage very seriously and so should we.
It is also our prayer for you (and for us this week) that we will view the way in which we interact with our spouse as if our actions are being done “as unto the Lord.” We pray that we will live out our marital covenantal commitment — showing by our words and actions that we are God’s promise keepers — communicating the Gospel with and without words to our spouse and those within our influence.
May God richly bless your marriage,
Cindy and Steve Wright
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We received the following e-mail from a subscriber to the Marriage Message, that gives great insight and also could use your prayers. Because she has not given us permission to give her country or name, we will keep it private (but we know that God answers our prayers even if we don’t know all the specifics):
THANK YOU AND PRAISE GOD. To sum up a very long story, my husband walked out on me this past Friday. And, “ironically” these are the very words I uttered to him. We are in this for better or worse and this is worse, and you don’t leave because of that. People don’t understand COMMITMENT. We live in a “me” centered society and the only persons a person is committed to is self, so when the love fades, and it just ain’t working for them they leave. Well, I ask that you pray for my household, for my husband’s heart and that God is able to work in us through this situation.
I do not believe one bit that God wants us to divorce, we have both made mistakes, but I don’t believe divorce is the answer. Please keep me (and my family) in your prayers! God bless.
We received another e-mail from a subscriber to the Marriage Message that had this to say:
You won’t believe how much this has just changed my life right now. My Marriage has been going thorough a very hard patch and after 15 years I was ready to give in and throw in the towel. My family and friends, who are born again Christians, encouraged me to give up and walk away, not because they are bad but because they loved me. I was making plans do do exactly this. When I read this email, I made a commitment to God by his grace to trust him. I know he will make a way even when it looks like I am in a trap with no where to run.
Please pray for me that Gods love is manifested in my life. Regards, A
(USA) I would have to agree, there is growing evidence that commitment to marriage is lagging, both inside the church and outside.
First, I’ll focus on the church as an organization. I’m sure if you asked any member, or pastor, he/she most likely would tell you that he is committed to marriage. The thing is if you asked most folks planning to marry, they would tell you the same things, we are committed to our upcoming marriage.
But what does being committed to marriage really look like, from the churches perspective? Today, it appears that commitment is largely embodied in the work against Same-Sex Marriage. (SSM) You’ll find petitions regarding SSM in churches, or calls to pray about the issue, etc. Not just in churches, but also in para-church organizations such as Focus on the Family, Family Life to name just a couple. There is a big push to speak out and organize politically against SSM.
What you don’t see is the same level of effort to speak out and change laws regarding No Fault Divorce (NFD).
While I agree, same sex marriage is an abomination, I have to question the wisdom of dealing with what I believe is an issue that touches 1% give or take of the population. NFD takes it’s toll on approximately 25% of all marriages IN THE CHURCH.
Depending on the numbers you look at, the basic trend is that divorce in the church is at or near the pace of divorce of those outside the church. More shocking is that Barna Research has found that it appears divorce rates are shockingly high in the largest Protestant evangelical body, the Southern Baptist Convention.
The numbers are not much better for others. However, there is some concern when the largest Protestant body of believers has a divorce rate on the scale of the secular world.
Yet you don’t see the same level of effort or media campaigns regarding NFD, when compared to SSM. I would think that since we believe NFD to impact 25% of our congregations, while SSM is at 1% or even less, given we don’t expect those folks to be in many of our churches, it seems odd that so much effort is devoted to an issue that doesn’t have the reach in our churches as does NFD.
My own experience, back in 2003 was that my church was gung-ho to petition against SSM, but unwilling to get their hands dirty when it came to one of it’s members having an affair with a married man and seeking a NFD. The clear refusal to engage in Church discipline, the process described in Matthew 18.
A commitment to marriage is not only the defense against SSM, but also working to eliminate the destructive impact of NFD.
Sometimes I wonder if the reason the church will not speak out against NFD is because 2/3rds of all divorces are filed by women. That’s right, women are 2x as likely to file for divorce as men. This is odd, since we hear the Barack Obama’s and Richard Land’s and others telling us that men are abandoning their families.
How can that possibly be true when it’s twice as likely that a divorce will be sought by a woman. Is the church afraid of losing the contributions of women, who make up more of the regular attendees in your typical worship service, if this matter is discussed? Is the church afraid of the women’s movement, who seeks to keep NFD available so that women can escape abusive marriages? Who knows.
The question is, how many marriages are abusive, or how many wives seek to divorce unfaithful husbands? In reality, of all divorces filed, the best I can tell, fewer than 20% involve abuse or adultery. While NFD prevents cause from being stated in most cases, looking at court transcripts where such matters can be discussed, as well as putting together information from marriage experts such as Dr Willard Harley, I estimate that about 20% of those divorces filed do have grounds such as abuse and/or adultery.
Which means, just for divorces filed by women 80% of the roughly 67% of all divorces, or about 54% of all divorces filed are filed by women who have no biblical grounds for divorce.
Similar numbers are true for the divorces filed by men. It’s likely that 80% of those are simply men who no longer wish to be married.
The stereotype is that men abandon women.
In the big picture, this is grossly inaccurate. I suspect it is true for long term marriages. The stereotype of the mid-life crisis does come to play. I believe the study from Virginia demonstrated that women were far more likely to file early in the marriage, when her prospects for a new marriage where at their highest. Since many marriages die early deaths and this is the time when women are far more valuable on the marriage market, they are the majority filers of divorce when young.
Sorry that sounds so crass, it’s the perception, young women have more value in the "marriage market" than older women.
The opposite is true for men. Men have more value the older they get. They typically have more earning potential and more assets, traits which are more valuable to women in most cases than is the physical appearance of her partner.
So while men value youth and beauty on average, and therefore are less likely to choose divorce in the early stages of marriage, women typically value earning power and maturity and are more likely to choose divorce in the early stages of marriage.
This is a major problem because women are choosing divorce while the children are still young. Now divorce does impact adult children as well. However, it’s hard to imagine that choosing to divorce a faithful, if clueless and immature father is a path for family success, let along following God.
Yet we don’t hear much about that reality, which, as far as I can tell, is far more common than the unfaithful man having the mid-life crisis and trading in his 50 year old wife for two 25 year olds.
Again, I don’t say that to denigrate women, because both men and women behave badly, sin, etc. Women are no more righteous and no more sinful than men. We are all sinners.
But I question the commitment of the body of Christ when we don’t hear near as much about the most common scenario of divorce in the US, which is divorce filed by the wife of a faithful husband with children still at home.
We hear the sermons about how men behave badly on Father’s Day. Candidate Obama tells men they need to shape up, stop abandoning their families, etc, yet we don’t hear similar sermons on Mother’s Day asking why women choose divorce twice as often as do men, yet men are not twice as evil as women, are they? Of course not.
So by ignoring those questions, I ask if the church is really committed to marriage.
I’ll close with my personal anecdote, which I believe underscores this attitude. While I realize that anecdotes don’t always make for accurate statistics, I think this is pretty accurate when it comes to describing the attitudes of modern evangelical churches.
When I discovered my former wife’s affair, after days of literally bawling, crying out to God, looking at myself to see what I might have done, I went to my pastor, explaining the situation. The first question he asked me was what did I do to cause the affair? Was I abusing my wife? Was I cheating?
I could hardly believe it. He questioned my anger, was I too angry with my wife? Did my anger drive her away? He didn’t seem to understand that any anger I had at that time was totally due to the circumstances, and that his line of questioning only fueled that anger.
I believe that we are called to be angry at injustice, but we are admonished not to sin. And I believe and still do, that I was smack dab in the center of God’s will with respect to anger.
When I learned of my former wife’s affair, I did not yell, curse, call her names, or any such behavior when I confronted her with the evidence of her affair. I said what she was doing was hurtful, that I felt it violated our vows, was a sin against God and against her family, but there was nothing that could not be forgiven. I shared that since Christ forgave me of my sins, I believed I could not do otherwise with respect to her sins against me, and offered forgiveness.
And for that sort of behavior, not only was my offered forgiveness rejected, but the pastor questioned my anger.
And over the past 5 years, I’ve spoken with other betrayed husbands, most ending up divorced by their wives and sharing a similar story. Men who are betrayed not only by wives, but also betrayed by their churches, which fail to effectively act to salvage the marriage.
Churches that are too busy defending against the 1% who seek SSM, or have bought into the lie that men are dangerous creatures,and women are victims of men and must be protected from them.
While such men exist, and their wives are vulnerable to them, such cases are the exception instead of the rule.
However, as long as the church fails to put the same level of time, treasure and talent into fighting NFD, as long as the church treats all men, and especially men of estranged wives as unfaithful, abusive, porn addicted threats to the family, and as long as the church buys the lie that men more often than not either abandon families or are the greatest danger facing the family, then I contend that the church is being willfully ignorant of the real issues facing the family and therefore is not really committed to marriage.
The actions or in-actions of the church speak louder than all the sound-bites and press releases that try to convince us otherwise.
I’ve been there, involved in a divorce and see how little action was taken by the church, or how the action was to blame the victims, and have legitimate questions surrounding the commitment of those who claim they follow Christ.
I don’t expect perfection. But is it too much to expect that the church say what it means and mean what it says, not only in word, but in deed. Or for the scholars, does the orthopraxis of the church match it’s orthodoxy?
(Nigeria) I am happy to read your teachings and this one is striking because you are right. I think the reason for this failure is that so many people who claim to be Christians in our present day are not truly born again and the fear of God is very far away from them. Many people are in the church who are not Christians in deed and what do you expect from such people… divorce at will of course.
Covenants can only be kept where the parties concerned have the fear of God in them but many people who enter into marriage covenants do so to get married and do what they like to do after the marriage. We need to pray that our children do not fall into the hands of such wicked and deceitful men and women.