Christ Believers and Divorce
by Susan Anspaugh

     Statistically, Christians fare no better and may do worse than non-Christians when it comes to divorce.  Of course, we should do better.  When I got a divorce, my sister told me God could never use me now since I was no longer his best.  My niece told me I was an adulterer when I remarried.  At the time, it was hurtful; hence, the words still ring in my ear 20 years later.  Yet, I am glad and I would do it again in a minute.  OK, maybe not the remarrying part if I could make it on my own; but there was no way I could stay married to my first husband.  Still, since I was a believer when I married both times, the stigma remains.

     In Deuteronomy 24: 1-4, allowances were made for human divorce.  When the Israelites encountered Jesus in the gospels, the questions was not could a person get a divorce, but how serious should that offense be to get one?  In Matthew 19: 1-11, Jesus is very clear.  The only reason to get a divorce should be marital unfaithfulness.  Ahhhh, but, in verse 8, he also says, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard.”  Because Jesus and his Father know the truth about us and our sinful natures.

     A good measure of how close we are to God is our ability to forgive others.  Perhaps the greatest test of that is in the marriage relationship.   I don’t know if out there in the world people exist who do not have this problem.  I seem to meet them often.  They are able to cohabitate with relative ease.  My husband and I have difficulties.  We blame them on the kids/stepkids/miscellaneous annoying relatives/work/money/degree of fatigue/work ethics/and whatever-else-makes-me-want-to-kick-him-today.  The man with whom at one time I thought I would surely die without became the man who stood in the way of other things I wanted.  I frequently feel like we are on the brink of divorce because we have so much trouble getting along about so many things.  We could, however, strip away the titles and face the facts.  The facts are, in our deepest beings, we are more concerned about our own welfare and needs than we are each other’s.  We love ourselves more than we love each other.

     It is not that we don’t care; it is that we just want what we want for ourselves more.   “…husbands ought to love their wives like their own bodies.”  (Ephesians 5:28, NIV).  But they don’t.  They ought to, but they don’t.  Their hearts are hard.  The natural tendency is to be themselves first.  So they don’t and we don’t and pretty soon we are looking somewhere else for the validation and love for which we long.  Then, we blame the other person for whatever reason and soon we go our different ways because we are human beings.

     Why is it so difficult to overcome the division between us even when we have been redeemed and know what love is because Christ Jesus loved us and died for us?  In order to love, we have to repeatedly die to our own desires; to truly consider our beloved first and they have to do the same for us. And there you go.   Because of sin, our hardened hearts do not want to do this.   

For more thoughts on this subject, see Believers and Divorce.