Divorce-Proof Your Marriage

In my quiet time with the Lord this morning, I was prompted to ponder why many couples are finding it so easy to give up on marriage and seek a divorce. Our culture, unfortunately, has made getting a divorce too easy and has, over time, been more accepting of divorce as a cultural norm.  Today’s culture pushes personal happiness over self-sacrifice, so it’s not surprising that people give up so easily when things get hard or when personal happiness is challenged. The thought then becomes, why get married at all? 

Allow me to be direct and transparent —I can’t think of any couple I personally know or have met that has admitted to being at the marriage altar anticipating a future divorce.  I know I didn’t anticipate being married more than once. However, in my previous marriage, I often found myself seeking more and thinking that the grass would be greener somewhere else. I found it much easier to check out of my marriage and tether myself to temporary things. Ultimately, none of these things kept me anchored or content in any area of my life. Once I had mentally checked out of that marriage, getting a divorce was mentally easy. Looking back, I can see the missing piece that I needed in my life wasn’t another person or another material thing. I needed saving from my own thoughts and decisions. I needed God to come into my life and shake things up and awaken me!  

Fast forward many years to when I met my wife Janie. While I was still not actively seeking the Lord in my life, I knew I had found the person that I would build a life with. We both worked tirelessly, raising our sons and excelling in our careers. Life was busy and things at home became stressful. The familiar feeling of discontentment would surface from time to time and I struggled to manage those feelings. Meanwhile, Janie was struggling with her own feelings of discontentment and we felt a constant thirst for something with meaning. Our marriage was crumbling underneath us and imploding with negativity. Now was the time to seek help, if we had any chance of staying married. We had never attended church together, so we both decided to go back to church. Soon after, we joined a marriage strengthening class. I’d love to tell you that inviting God into our marriage gave us perfect harmony in our marital union, but that’s not what happened. Instead, things seemed to get harder at first. Suddenly, some of the things we were doing and saying didn’t feel good anymore. The Lord was changing both of us and He was using our marriage as a pathway for our personal sanctification. In other words, many of the personal tests and trials that Janie and I endured were experienced through our marriage. Becoming one flesh requires the stripping away of personal traits that don’t align with Christian living. By inviting Christ into our marriage, we had given Him full access to shape and refine us for our combined marriage purpose. In return, He has faithfully walked with us through many marital circumstances that have both challenged and strengthened our marriage.

The “hard” of marriage is no longer what it used to be without God. The “hard” in marriage now is considered an opportunity to commune with the One who is faithful to guide us back to the path of oneness. Because of our relationship with Christ, divorce is no longer an option. In Christ, we have victory over any hardship we will face. We had to rebuild our lives and our marriage on a different foundation, which was Him. To this day, we continue to build our lives on the firm foundation of Christian living. We read God’s word together every day.

How can YOU be more intentional? Take time to discuss the marital roles written in Ephesians 5:22-33 with your spouse, and together, ask the Lord to help transform your marriage. Seek His guidance and wisdom and learn from the experiences He allows you to walk through.  I can testify that having God in your marriage will divorce-proof your marriage better than any other substitute. Why? Because a fully surrendered marriage in the hands of the Healer will be transformed for His glory.