Divorce

Divorce is harder to take than having one’s spouse dying, for then they did not choose to leave you. The marriage vows for many are a tongue-in-cheek recital, “release me and let me love again” syndrome. The most valuable things in life are often the most vulnerable.
For those who have lost a wife or husband because of unfaithfulness, G-d understands like you wouldn’t believe. He too had that problem, as He admits in the books of Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. G-d didn’t just send condolences, rather, He solemnly declared that He Himself was reluctantly filing divorce charges against Israel for her idolatry. G-d Himself had to get a divorce because of His beloved’s unfaithfulness! So He has personally suffered the same tragedy of a love one that wanted to go their own way. He fully understands every family distress and upheaval, so no distressed couple or bereft individual needs to approach Him as though He were above such human problems and without sympathetic understanding. He is not just a censorious judge; He is also a compassionate friend. G-d is in the business of helping people were they hurt, and we need to be about our Father’s business.
G-d’s purpose in instituting marriage between a man and a woman was found in Gen. 1:28 of being fruitful and multiply, but it was also promoting personality growth and grace. That purpose is to develop and mature two different personalities in a relationship of mutual fellowship and responsibilities. Conforming each other more and more into the image of Him
(2 Pet. 1:4-11). In a sense, it is dying to self, but rising together with your partner in a new ‘one-flesh’ marital union. It takes both partners to want to accomplish this; it sometimes falls flat and doesn’t deliver when one gets the worldly disease. An ungluing process can easily set in that separates first the affections and finally the entire marriage, and believers are by no means immune to the disease.
Tailor-made mates who fulfill all one’s matrimonial dreams are just not on the market. ‘Play-Doh’ personalities or mates without individual desires and convictions do not have the resilient qualities of which good marriages are made. Adjustments in give-and-take compromises are to be expected in a well-ordered relationship, as long as it does not relinquish one’s morals.
One must begin these adjustments with themselves, not with the spouse. The Bible instructs the husband to attend to his own responsibility of loving his wife, not to be the dean of education for her instruction. He is not told to require submission of his wife, nor is the wife told to demand his love (Eph. 5:21). Charity begins at home, so charitable understanding towards one’s G-d given mate is the place to start. Each is to evaluate his own responsibilities and fulfill them. We were made with free choose, if one choose not to make a go of it and wishes to leave we need to cut them loose.
When a divorce becomes necessary for a moral cause, Moses actually provided the woman involved with a degree of protection by requiring its review and legal action. It also served to remind the husband that he would lose her forever when he got a divorce. From this OT legislation it is to be noted that G-d did recognize divorce, even though the union was designed to be permanent. Moses even spoke in Deut. 24:2-3, of the woman becoming ‘another man’s wife’.
G-d hates divorce (Mal. 2:16), there is something He hates even more. That is the causes for which He allows divorcement:
1. Fornication, immorality, unchasity, adultery referring to all types of illicit sexual intercourse all severed the union by the breach of faithfulness and new physical union. For the innocent party there may be times when divorce (or at least separation) is the will of G-d, it is more of a sin to continue to live with that one than to separate. To be submissive to such an arrangement by condoning it is to be a party to it.
2. Desertion is proper ground for divorce by the other.
3. Inequality yoke situations, the saved partner can not leave, but is not bound to chase after the unbelieving partner is he or she leaves, for the separation is not of the believer’s making.
(1 Cor. 7:15).
Marriage is a great institution, but who what’s to be in an institution? They say marriage was made in Heaven, but then so was thunder and lighting. The chooses we make --.
The loneliness and trauma of marital separation affects the constitution of any individual, to be divorced is to lose a part of yourself. The gnawing desire for a fulfilled union is often even more pronounced after the divorce. The lost of companionship and the need for sympathetic understanding tend to heighten the desire to give the marriage game a rerun. This is natural since G-d designed marriages for this life in Matt. 22:30. G-d knew the woman had to become a member of another family to survive socially or economically, which meant remarriage to another (in the time and culture). The option today of remarrying may not be just a right; it may be a responsibility, remarriage to the proper fulfilling of several basic needs in a normal human being, (1 Cor. 7:2, 9) to fulfill their
G-d given sexual needs (Gen. 2:18).
In remarriage constitutes a new life for scrambled eggs cannot be unscrambled but the ones that remarry can be dedicated to G-d, for a new start on life. G-d’s grace has as its unique feature the ability to overwhelm the disaster of sin and salvage trophies out of tragedies. He can bring restoration and harmony out of marital chaos is an example of that grace. His Savior-hood extends to homes as well as to hearts, and that should be a part of the gospel we preach. He is the wonderful Counselor for broken marriages as well as broken lives, and we are to recognize the completeness of the healing He provides. The imparting of that grace to married couples is but a parable of His grace to us who are to be His eternal bride. That coming marriage of Y’Shua should never be lost sight of as we seek to restore and perfect the ideals of human marriage,
G-d’s portrait of His grace.
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