Imagine meeting with an engaged couple a few weeks before they are
married. With excitement they describe how they met and how their
relationship developed. The husband-to-be proudly describes how he set
up a perfect romantic evening so he could pop the big question.
Then they surprise you by saying, “We want to get married and have
some children. At first we will feel a lot of love for each other. Then
we’ll start arguing and hating each other. In a few years, we’ll get a
divorce.”
Who would enter marriage intending to get a divorce? And yet, divorce
is occurring at alarming rates. A large number of people in my church
have been hurt deeply by divorce—they’ve been divorced themselves, or
they’ve felt the pain of a parent or relative divorcing.
As common as divorce is, I’m convinced that most of them could be
avoided. Mark this down on the tablet of your heart: Every wrong
behavior begins with believing a lie. Our culture promotes many
deceptions that can quickly destroy a marriage. Here are eight:
Lie #1. "My happiness is the most important thing about my marriage.”
As a pastor, I can’t tell you how many people have justified breaking
up their marriages by saying, “I have to do this. God just wants me to
be happy.”
But according to God’s Word, a spouse’s individual happiness is not the purpose for marriage.
The Bible says in Colossians 3:17: “Whatever you do in word or deed,”
do for the glory of God. While all parts of creation are to glorify
God, mankind was made in God’s very image. Through marriage, husbands
and wives are to reflect His character and have children who will
reflect His character … all the way to the end of time.
Every marriage knows unhappiness. Every marriage knows conflict.
Every marriage knows difficulty. But everyone can be joyful in their
marriage by focusing on God’s purposes and His glory instead of
individual happiness.
Lie #2. “If I don’t love my spouse any longer, I should get a divorce.”
It’s a tragedy to lose love in marriage. But the loss of human love
can teach us to access a deeper love—the very love of God Himself. That
love is patient and kind … it never fails (1 Corinthians 13). It even
cares for its enemies.
When human love dies in a marriage, a couple can enter into one of
the most exciting adventures they’ll ever have: learning how to love
each other with God’s love. Romans 5:5 tells us that this very love “has
been poured out within our hearts, through the Holy Spirit.”
Lie #3. “My private immorality does not affect my marriage.”
A lot of people think,
I can view pornography in the privacy of my home. It’s just me and my magazine, or computer … it doesn’t affect my marriage.
Oneness in marriage is hijacked by sexual immorality. Paul says in 1
Corinthians 6:15, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of
Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them
members of a prostitute?”
In the 21
st century, there are many ways to join oneself
with a prostitute: physically, through the pages of a magazine, on a
computer’s video screen, etc. Paul’s advice is the same today as it was
thousands of years ago: Flee immorality (1 Corinthians 6:18).
If you take your emotional and sexual energy and spend it on someone
else, there will be nothing left for your spouse. Those who continually
view pornography or engage in sexual fantasies are isolating
themselves.
Lie #4. “My sin (or my spouse’s sin) is so bad that I need to get a divorce.”
The truth is God can fix our failures—any failure. The Bible says to
forgive one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven us (Colossians.
3:13).
“But,” you ask, “Doesn’t Matthew 19:9 say that God allows divorce in
the case of sexual immorality?” Yes. I believe that it does—when there
is an extended period of unrepentance. Yet, nowhere in that passage does
God
demand divorce. When there is sexual sin, we should seek to redeem the marriage and so illustrate the unfathomable forgiveness of God.
Some of the greatest life messages I know are the marriages of people
who have repented from sexual sin and spouses who have forgiven
them. Their lives today are living testimonies to the truth found in
Joel 2:25: “… I will make up to you for the years that the swarming
locust has eaten.”
Lie #5. “I married the wrong person.”
Many people have told me, for example, that they are free to divorce
because they married an unbeliever. “I thought he/she would become a
Christian, but that didn’t happen. We need to get a divorce.” They
recall that they knew it was a mistake, but they married anyway—hoping
it would work out. Others claim that they just married someone who
wasn’t a good match, someone who wasn’t a true “soul mate.”
A wrong start in marriage does not justify another wrong step. “And
we know that God causes all things to work together for good,” says
Romans 8:28, “to those who love God, to those who are called according
to His purpose.”
God tells us not to be poured into the world’s mold. Instead we are
to be transformed and that begins in our minds. By doing this, God will
give us exactly what we need for our lives. God’s will for us is good,
acceptable, and perfect (Romans 12:1-2).
Here’s the key for those who are now married: The Bible clearly says
do not divorce
(with the exception for extended, unrepentant sexual immorality). God
can take even the worst things of life and work them together for good
if we will just trust Him.
Lie #6. “My spouse and I are incompatible.”
I don’t know a lot of husbands and wives who are truly compatible
when they get married. In marriage, God joins together two flawed
people.
If I will respond correctly to my spouse’s weaknesses, then God can
teach me forgiveness, grace, unconditional love, mercy, humility, and
brokenness. The life of a person who believes in Jesus Christ is
developed by responses to not only happy things, but also to
difficulties. And those very difficulties include weaknesses.
That is why we are told in Colossians 3:12-13 to “put on a heart of
compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with
one another, and forgiving each other.” My spouse’s weaknesses are not
hindrances. Instead, they are the doorway to spiritual growth. This is a
liberating truth.
If I will respond to my spouse’s shortcomings with unconditional
acceptance, my love won’t be based on performance. I won’t say, “You
need to live up to these expectations.” I will be able to accept my
spouse, weaknesses and all. And that acceptance will swing open the door
of change for not only my spouse, but also for me.
Lie #7. “Breaking the marriage covenant won’t hurt me or my children.”
When divorce enters a family, there are always scars. I know this
firsthand; although I was an adult when my father committed adultery and
divorced my mother, decades later there are still effects. Many
consequences of divorce never go away.
Blake Hudspeth, our church’s youth pastor, also understands the pain
of divorce. He was 5 years old when his parents divorced, and it was
hard for him to understand God as Father and to trust people. “The
people I trusted the most split up.” He also found it difficult to
accept love from others “because I didn’t know if they truly loved me.”
And Blake developed a fear of marriage. “Am I going to follow the trend
of divorce, because my parents and grandparents divorced?”
Blake’s father even wrote him and said, “This was the worst decision I
made in my life. It was bad. It hurt you. It hurt our family. When I
divorced your mom, I divorced our family because I broke a covenant that
we were a part of.”
Blake says that his parents (who both remarried) have embraced the
gospel, resulting in him readily accepting advice and encouragement from
them. “Watching the gospel play out … with my mom and dad was huge,” he
says.
Lie #8. “There’s no hope for my marriage—it can’t be fixed.”
This may be the most devastating lie of all. Because in more than
four decades of counseling couples, I’ve seen God do the seeming
impossible thousands of times. In a dying marriage, He just needs two
willing parties. God knows how to get us out of the messes we get
ourselves into.
I tell these couples about people like Chuck and Ann, who were
involved in drugs and alcohol before God restored their home. Or Lee and
Greg, who were engaged in multiple affairs. God brought them back to
Christ and to each other. Now they have six children and a marriage
ministry. Or Jim and Carol who had taken off their wedding rings and
were living in separate bedrooms and about to live in separate worlds
when God redeemed them.
