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i just finished re-reading what i wrote about divorce over the past four days. i’m thinking i’m pretty grateful that some of my divorced friends haven’t come looking for me with a bat…
but now that i’ve got your attention, let me give you the greater lesson to be learned from this whole journey through the words of jesus on divorce.
here’s what i’ll tell you about most of my friends who are divorced: they know better than i (and anyone else who hasn’t gone through a divorce) of what it feels like to fall short of god’s ideal in a marriage...and then to experience the wonderful grace of jesus in new and profound ways.
oh, i know a handful of believers who have walked away from their marriages and never let on (during the ordeal or even now that they have moved on) that there was a struggle. they only act and talk like it was a good thing…some even claiming the divorce was “god’s will”. frankly, most of the time, i don’t know what to do or say to these folks.
but the others…the ones who have spoken of their hurt and struggle and confusion and guilt…the ones who know acutely that they have fallen incredibly short of god’s “ideal”…the ones who have been to the edge of despair and hopelessness…and emerged the other side with an experience of god’s grace that is both rich and profound, well, they are the ones we should learn from!
you see, throughout my life, the divorced people in my religious circles have most always been labeled. i was taught that divorce was the biggie. it was a failure of epic magnitude and worse than almost any other. divorced people wore the scarlet letter. they were looked at with smug skepticism. they were usually banned from inner circles of church fellowship. leadership was forever off limits. their wisdom and advice was always received with an asterisk.
to those who judge, go back and listen to jesus and the apostles.
jesus and the apostles teach an “ideal” for just about everything…not just divorce. no worry. no greed. no lust. no anger. no complaining. no jealousy. no judgment. no retaliation. no gossip. no storing up treasures on earth. love always. pray always. give thanks always. forgive always. rejoice in everything. you must deny yourself. get rid of all bitterness. do nothing out of selfishness. no divorce.
are you getting the picture?
when did we elevate divorce to the position of being the only one we hold up to the ideal? when did we decide we didn’t have to proclaim to each other and hold each other accountable to the “ideal” for everything on the list?
when? when we decided we couldn’t live up to the ideal in those areas. when we figured out that we weren’t perfect. when we began to know instinctively that even our very best effort is going to fall woefully short of perfection…in every area of life.
does that mean we don’t hold up the ideal? of course not! without the ideal, we have no godly goals or expectations or standards. without the ideals from the word of god, we are left on our own to make up good and bad and right and wrong.
don’t run from god’s standards! don’t rewrite scripture to something you can do on your own.
it’s ok to admit that it’s not just divorce that happens because of the hardening of hearts, but every failure and shortcoming. every time we gossip or get greedy or act selfishly or worry or judge others, we are shutting down our hearts to the power and possibility of god to work inside of us.
but when that happens, we have the amazing and liberating opportunity to fall on the grace of god, repent of our shortcomings, pray for a soft and humble heart, pick ourselves up, get dusted off, and make the most of the situation we find ourselves in.
i, for one, am grateful for the incredible life lessons my divorced friends have taught me out of their brokenness and failure. does that mean that i am advocating divorce? of course not. are they? of course not. it simply means that god never ever turns his back on us because we fall short of the ideal.
now, if i could just learn my lessons about selfishness…
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