“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Our modern world takes a very casual view of marriage. As I work out at the gym there is often a soap opera playing. Now I don’t really follow the show, but I see enough to know that any marriage ceremony on the show where they say something along the lines of “I will love you forever.” Basically, means about one month or so of episodes if it happens to be a very long-term love relationship. Some of the characters have been married several times just this past year. Now I won’t say that the media is responsible for this casual view. Ultimately the real blame comes down to sin. Marriage is the taking of two VERY selfish people and putting them into a relationship. If this man and this woman can not overcome their selfishness the marriage will be filled with pain, heartache and too often divorce.
Most of us in the Christian world have seen or heard the statistics that tell us that Christian marriages and non-Christian marriages have a similar divorce rate of roughly 50%. A careful look at those statistics tells a different story. The official numbers include people who identify as Christians but don’t regularly go to church, read their Bible, or even pray. When the numbers are adjusted to only include those men and women who have been married before God and man who also consistently read their Bibles, go to church and pray together; the numbers drop to less than 25% end in divorce. That should give us some hope.
Now 25% is still too high. It indicates that many marriages need help. For one season of my marriage my wife and I went to a church that took families and marriages VERY seriously. Every Wednesday evening there were groups for kids and youth which disciplined my children while my wife and I attended a wide spectrum of marriage classes. In those classes we were taught how to work through issues, how to love each other well and more. We were also surrounded by other couples. Some of those couples were peers and we were able to work together through challenging situations. Other couples were more seasoned, and they helped coach us through stormy days and nights. Finally, there were young couples and my wife, and I were able to encourage them and sometimes help them through rough spots in their marriage.
I suggest that if you can take time to consistently pray, read your Bible and attend church services together and then deliberately seek marriage Bible studies you can make sure that you are in 75% of marriages that not only survive but thrive.
