heavenly light

heavenly light

Thursday 1 July 2010

Death of a Marriage

Death of a Marriage

I consider divorce as the 'actual', not the 'legal' death of a marriage commitment. As the authorities estimate when a victim died, and of what causes, we look back at a dead marriage commitment and estimate why and how it died. I am not looking for who killed it, but that no matter what, dead is dead.

Adoption is an example of the 'legal' and the 'real' being different. The real parents, are not available to fulfill their God-ordained roles, and someone else takes on their roles. Both sets of parents may be loving, and have an important, positive effect on the child. I am stating that the LEGAL and the REAL are DIFFERENT.

"How and when did the death occur?"

That is a difficult question, but my point is not how or when, but it does happen. I do not propose to set down a list of 'should's', 'shouldn't's', don'ts, and do's to help someone blame someone for a divorce. Nor to figure out why a divorce happened. Nor am I here to condemn anyone for what happened. We are here to face the reality of divorce in the church. (Those unwilling to take a loving look at divorced people may need to look at my definition of a Pharisee in the opening paragraph. I hope their heart will open easier than Pharaoh's was.) We are here to minister to those that have experienced the trauma of a divorce, and to propose what I believe is God's view.

Let's look at the way the medical community looks at treating a patient: with 2 different viewpoints: BEFORE & AFTER.

Before the patient dies:

Maintain life at all costs
Teach the living to respect & prolong life
Teach higher quality, healthy living
Use expertise to extend life
Use expertise to remove/reduce sickness/disease
Study to become better at all the above
After the patient dies:

Accept the loss, deal with it
Go on with life
Study the death, to learn from it for the sake of the still living
Bury the dead. Don't hate them, nor live with them. Live with the living!
Don't deny the death or try to hide it, accept it.
Do an autopsy as needed to help those still alive from suffering the same way.
I am not writing this for married couples going through difficult stages. There are many excellent articles and books on that on the market. This is not one of them. I believe those who are married are better off treating their marriage commitment as a living being and fighting for its life.

I write this to:

Help those who have gone through a divorce get back into a relationship with God AND a church by understanding what happened; and to
Help the church accept and minister to those who have gone through a divorce by understanding what happened and God's view;
A divorce occurs when the marriage dies, NOT upon signing the divorce certificate. Just as a death certificate is merely a witness to a death, so is a divorce certificate!

The signing of the certificate merely states that THE DEATH HAS ALREADY OCCURRED. Again, for those going through a divorce, I am not condoning what you are doing. Even if your relationship has died, God can resurrect the dead. Don't seek fulfillment anywhere else other than where God has provided it for you. If you don't believe God will resurrect the dead marriage, confess the sin publicly, as you made your vows. Very few people have actually died at the time of their death certificate, a large majority die some time before it. The certificate states that 'as of the time of this certificate' there is death. So it is with a divorce certificate.

How Does God Feel About It

In the Book of Malachi, God speaks to people that have strayed from the path He had chosen for them. Their hearts had grown cold toward Him (and each other). In Chapter 2, verses 14-16, He says to them:

"Because the LORD has been witness Between you and the wife of your youth,
With whom you have dealt treacherously;
Yet, she is your companion And your wife by covenant.
But did He not make them one, Having a remnant of the Spirit?
And why one? He seeks godly offspring.
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
And let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.
For the LORD God of Israel says That He hates divorce..."

Well, that's clear enough. God hates divorce.

Yet, you can find in scripture where God divorced Israel! (Jeremiah 3:6-8)

And Jehovah saith unto me, in the days of Josiah the king, ‘Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? She is going on every high mountain, and unto the place of every green tree, and committeth fornication there. And I say, after her doing all these, Unto Me thou dost turn back, and she hath not turned back, and see it doth her treacherous sister Judah. And I see when (for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery) I have sent her away, and I give the bill of her divorce unto her, that treacherous Judah her sister hath not feared, and goeth and committeth fornication—she also.

Well, if Divorce is always a sin, and God divorced Israel, then God sinned! No, what we have proven instead is that:

Divorce is not always a sin
There are legitimate grounds for divorce
(I am not creating a list here, sorry.)
Just as killing someone is not always murder, divorcing someone is not always a sin. I do not take killing or divorce lightly, however note that they are often treated in the worst possible way.

However, there are always consequences, though they will vary from one divorce to another:

for the husband,
for the wife, and
for the children.
An attitude of easy-divorce truly focuses on the adults' rights at the expense of the children's needs.
Children suffer tremendously from divorce, and if you want to debate that, note how most of your logic focuses on the needs of the adults, not on the needs of the children.

Unfortunately, many believe God hates 'legal' divorce, not actual. Even more unfortunate is that some believe that God hates divorced people. THAT'S NOT TRUE! To some people divorce represents failure. They believe that allowing divorced people into their fellowship is to allow failures into their fellowship, making them a failure by association. Even if this is true, I believe Jesus wants us to minister to the down-trodden.

I agree that 'real' divorce, the killing of the commitment made earlier, is a sin. I also agree that a person who has gone through a divorce has not had their marital dreams and wedding vows fulfilled. However, to brand them as a failure is not God's plan! Mistakes and great pain do not make us failures! They show that we are merely human. Sin doesn't make us failures! It reminds us of our need for redemption! Besides, we're all sinners and failures - we all fall short of God's moral guidelines. So why pick on people who have been through a divorce? Is it because we feel safe picking on those whose sins are obvious? If we are not loving toward divorced people, how can we say we are loving toward Jesus? How can we claim to love God yet we hate divorcee's?

Let's look at what Jesus did. He ministered to the lame, lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners in general. He spent time with the less loved of society. Does that make Jesus a failure? One could continue along this thought process, pointing out that Jesus is a failure. After all, one of His personal disciples betrayed Him. Executed as a common criminal by His own people. A large majority of people that heard of Him chose to ignore or despise Him. His hometown rejected Him. His family was embarrassed by His behavior and wanted Him to come home. He was frequently misunderstood by all around Him. All but one of His closest friends died a violent death, and that one lived in exile!

No. To view Jesus as a failure is to ignore reality. No other leader in world history has as many dedicated followers so many years after His death. Say what you want about Jesus of Nazareth, but then ponder that an uneducated carpenter has over a billion followers across multiple cultures two thousand years after His execution!

"Confess your sins one to another!

If 'real' divorce is the sin of divorce, then is 'legal' divorce the public confession of that sin?

Let's think about that. After all, we are to confess our sins to each other. Once a 'real' divorce has occurred (the commitment has died), the next step may well be confessing it to each other, to God and to the church. After all, it is difficult to cope with what you deny exists! Again, the admission that it happened, and repentance combine to open the door for change. I do not believe that God heals the dead, I believe God heals the wounded. I also believe that God resurrects the dead, but not the wounded.

Addiction counselors will tell you that they are unable to help someone that denies their addiction. Once an addict (drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food, sex, TV, etc) internally admits to themselves their addiction, they can work out of it. That's one of the reasons God stresses so often that we are sinners. Once we recognize, admit, and face our sin, our addiction can be worked on. Those that hide their divorce from the world, are not 'confessing their sins'. They hurt themselves because they try hide from reality. However, reality does not hide from them, and they have consequences to deal with.

Those of you who have been through both a real divorce and a legal one, I salute your courage in confessing. You've been through a lot of pain, and know that Jesus knows exactly how you feel, He was cut off from the One who loved Him most while He was on the cross. He knows heartache. Many people lack the strength to do what you've done. God was there when the 'real' divorce occurred, pulling for you to handle it in the best way possible. For some of you, He provided a resurrection, for others He did not. Don't take it personally, just remember that He didn't heal all lepers, cripples and blind people, just some. We don't know why, but we trust His judgement.

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