IS DIVORCE THE ANSWER?

Is DIVORCE THE ANSWER? 

When you forgive someone you give up your right to make the other person pay

(forever) for the wrong he did to you. Now that’s hard work. 

You forgive because you too are forgiven over and over again. Now that’s grace.

Every marriage in fact is built upon a mound called forgiveness. Unspeakable

things. Stupid things. Things that were once important but pale in importance

when faced with new crises. Things that if the marriage is to survive you forgive,

overlook, pretend not to see, let go of –yes, for the sake of the children, for the

sake of the mortgage, for the sake of the village – until grace and prayers and love

have a chance to do the labour intensive work of mending the torn ligaments of the

relationship back together.

When you marry a person you give him/her

access to your heart, access to hurt

you, knowing that despite his/her best

intentions he or she will do just that a

hundred times or more in the course

of a marriage. But with marriage the

two of you promise to stay around to

do the hard work of forgiveness and

to rebuild the broken the places.

Too often in marriage when there is offense and conflict, we identify

our mates as the enemy. Our mates are never the enemy. If we learn

who our enemies really are, we can effectively fight the battles in

our marriages and rise to victory. 

Our real enemies are the powers

of darkness and our own flesh. These enemies often go unnoticed

in the heat of battle.

Our flesh seeks to please itself and cannot please God. The apostle

Paul warns us about our flesh, in Romans 8:8, "Those who are still

under the control of their sinful nature can never please God."

The powers of darkness intend for all marriages to be destroyed.

Ephesians 6:12 declares, "For we are not fighting

against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and

authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark

world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places."...