Valentine's Day and 1st Corinthians

LOVE IS…

Down through the years, love has been defined is so many ways by a great many people.  Some of those definitions are very moving, some tear jerking, and, frankly, some just seem kind of sappy/stupid!   Scripturally, love was not merely defined, but demonstrated by the love of God for us who gave his Son Jesus upon a cross to die that we might be set free from sin and live in eternity with him. 

For Valentine’s Day, though, I’d like to remind you, no matter your station or situation in life, of what I think is the greatest explanation of love I have ever heard, and that is Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 13:4-6.  I am going to share it with some comment below (using the English Standard Version in bold).  As you read it, if you are divorced, it may help you understand how far your marriage had been from what love really is.  And for each of us, it serves as a reminder of how far we have yet to grow in our ability to love well, since, after all, Valentine’s Day is supposed to be a celebration of love.

Love is patient and kind;  Does that describe the relationship you had/have in your marriage?  How patient?  How kind?  Many divorced folks will quickly identify how these characteristics had long gone by the wayside in their marriage, a clear symptom that the marriage was not a marriage of love.  Maybe it never was.  If you aren’t married, it is certainly something to ask yourself before  you take any relationship to a serious level.  Patience and kindness are hallmarks of love.  Many of us settle for something far less.  How about with your children…does you patience wear thin far too quickly?  Are the words that come out of your mouth toward them kind words, or do they bear the brunt of the hardships in your life?  Sometimes I think just these two aspects of love alone, if actively implemented, could turn around even the most broken of marriages.

Love does not envy or boast; Some people are so about themselves, there is nothing else they will talk about.  They are unable to rejoice at anything good that another person experiences, instead being filled with jealousy or envy because they wish it was the good had happened to them instead.  In the relationships of your life, are the ones you love as concerned for you as for themselves?  Or better yet, more for you than for themselves?  Have you been too sure that nothing was your fault or responsibility, boasting of how good a job you had done, that all the problems were the fault of your spouse?

It is not arrogant or rude. In your marriage, did you feel an equal, or like your partner thinks themselves better than you?  Was basic common courtesy and decency long gone?  These days, rude is such a common characteristic that if you are polite or considerate to another person, they see that as odd!  In a marriage, consideration should be the hallmark, don’t you think?

It does not insist on its own way; If I could tell you all the couples that have been in my study for counseling whose core issue could have been solved by this simple phrase, you would be astounded.  Do you have to have your own way?  Honestly?  Did/does your spouse?  I have known many people beaten down in a marriage that by this one single measure was clearly NOT a marriage of love. 

It is not irritable or resentful;  At this point, I kind of wish the description of love had stopped a few phrases ago, because I am sometimes a person who gets irritated far too easily.  To the degree I do with my wife, that is the degree to which I am NOT acting from love.  And resentful?  Are there things you resent in your relationship?  Like that you have to do more than your share of the housework?  Or that the times you have tried to do something nice for your spouse, they were neither acknowledged nor appreciated?  You see, all of these characteristics are a two edged sword.  We may easily see how our ex or even our current spouse does not fit these criteria…but the challenge is, to see how we do as well.  Growth does not come by focusing on somebody else’s shortcomings, only our own.

It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Sometimes it is too easy to point out the faults of others.  Those faults are always there, and if that is what you focus on, that is what you will find.  But it isn’t love if you do.  And how often do juicy bits of gossip cross your lips or ears?  Why do any of us delight in hearing those things?  Truth.  Ah, that is a challenge, isn’t it?  Could your relationship be described with the word true?  As in faithful, or as in honest?  Lots of married couples play lots of relationship games and live in webs of silly little lies, instead of dwelling in honesty and truth.  What deceptions have described your relationships? 

Love bears all things, Okay, so what are you willing to put up with?  What are the limits?  Do the words “all things” describe your answer?

Believes all things, Do the people you love know that you believe in them?  Have they believed in you?

Hopes all things, What are the limits at which you become hopeless?  What are the things you consider as impossible in your relationships?  Is your love lost because you no longer hope anything for the relationship?

Endures all things.  Too often today, nobody wants to endure anything.  If it gets hard, we quit.  We think it should just all come easy.  Some of the greatest love in marriage is never experienced because the couple weren't willing to endure.  They quit.  They gave up before the solution came.  Divorce is not how they gave up.  Divorce is actually the symptom of having already given up.  Sometimes it is one spouse, sometimes both, but the unwillingness to endure has shortchanged many people out of true love. 

It’s really quite a challenge, isn't it?  A lot more than candies with cute sayings on them, or red boxes filled with chocolate.  Love is a much more serious and challenging proposition.  Reading through those items, many would find that the marriage they lost did not even come close to an environment of real love.  Many will find that we have a long way to go, to be the kind of lover God desires us to be.  But, this Valentine’s Day, it could be a noble goal to choose this pattern as your aim.  Let’s review it one more time (or you may want to go back and reread the entire chapter in your own Bible).

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  ---1 Corinthians 13:4-6  ESV

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

Choosing your Church Carefully after your Divorce...

His Church?  Her Church?  

No Church?

You are in the middle of a divorce.  Everything in life goes into upheaval.  One person stays in the home, the other is forced to leave.  Somebody has more time with the kids, the other is handed leftovers.  Friends, what do you do about friends?  Some were your friends as a couple, some were primarily friends of one or the other, and some may surprise you because their loyalties go in the opposite direction from that expected.  Sometimes things even go so far as that one of the two of you end up deciding it is best to move to another town.  

But there is one more area that can be very tricky indeed.:  church.  

Hmmm.  What do you do about church?  Somebody said to me the other day, as we were talking about this very subject, that clearly, someone has to leave and find a new church to attend.  Do you agree?

Many people outside the church (and granted, some inside as well), perceive the church as a place you go to attend a service called worship.  But if you are actually an active participant in your church, and truly are seeking to grow in your relationship with God, then you experience church as so much more.  For people like that, church is the place of nurture for your spiritual life, the group of individuals God uses to give you the support, guidance and strength you need to stay close to God.  The experience of church is one filled with meanings from the past and hope for the future.  It is the environment in which you entrust your children to individuals who will help them learn the ways of God, and in which your wrestle with understanding those ways for yourself.  There are many other things one could mention, but I want to highlight just one more:  church is a significant social circle in your life.

But when a divorce occurs, things become more complicated.  The church doesn’t change, but relationships within the church necessarily adjust to the split that has occurred.  Frankly, very often the individuals in a church will have already formed an opinion concerning the divorce, frequently amazed that the divorce had not come much earlier, as they have long sympathized with and prayed for a spouse who has clearly suffered.  Sometimes, they have been blindsided, or have seen things from a warped point of view and back a person who has deceived them about their actions.  Some individuals find themselves torn, wanting to be friends with each party, but not sure how to do that, since odds are that the two divorcing individuals will no longer BOTH be attending the same Bible study..

I have known of couples where both tried to stay, but generally speaking, to do that well is extremely difficult, if not impossible.  To both be in the same congregation, with all the history you have had, results in a tension and uneasiness for those around you.  And all too often, when you walk in, you feel a bit out of place yourself.  I visited with a friend today, reminiscing over my post divorce time in a church I attended at the time.  My ex had long since left the congregation, but even so, it was awkward to sit alone in the sanctuary that had once hosted my family.  I found a unique little refuge in the chapel at the back, in which a small collection of people with children and a few others chose to sit for whatever reasons they had.  For me, it became a kind of congregation within the congregation, at least for a time.

Your spiritual journey suffers great onslaught in the process of divorce.  Standing strong is a challenge.  In fact, that is the very reason I have published my devotional books, as aids to help those divorcing keep on track with God during the upheaval.  

For some, starting fresh in another congregation is the refreshing wind of a new spiritual movement.  

For others, the stability of familiar faces and traditions are what keep them on track.  

And sadly, for far too many, it becomes too difficult and they simply walk away. 

I encourage you to think carefully about what God the ways God might guide you, open to the possibilities that may stretch you into something new, and yet being wise in what traditions to retain.  And one of you may need to be big enough to make the gracious choice of stepping away from the congregation you attend, so that the other spouse may continue there as you find a new direction.  If children are involved, I would encourage the one who has less time with the children to consider that a gift you give to your children:  the opportunity for stability in at least this area of their lives, when so many other things are in flux.  Whatever choice you make, I urge you with all my heart, do NOT make the choice to let anything drive you away from regular participation in a congregation of fellow believers who can walk with you through the difficult adjustments that come with divorce.

TL:dr  Negotiating the troubled waters of divorce requires you to make wise choices regarding church involvement.

The Abusive Spouse

ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS AND DIVORCE

 I have had some interesting conversations of late, in a variety of settings, but have had lots of things happening that kept me away from the computer to get a blog out.  One of the topics addressed was the issue of abuse in relation to grounds for divorce and the biblical teaching.  Included in it was an individual who had been told that the only biblical grounds for divorce were adultery or abandonment by an unbelieving spouse.  But the question was raised in regard to biblical teaching about abusive relationships, and whether God required a Christian to stay in a marriage that involves abuse.  Sadly, this is a big topic, and often a taboo topic in churches.  So what does God require? 

Let me begin by saying that in terms of what God requires, I think of verses like Micah 6:8 that talk about doing justice, love kindly and walk humbly.  And let me then add that I believe that when we start off on the track of God’s REQUIREMENTS, we sometimes relegate the issues of grace, mercy and forgiveness to far down the list, a choice I believe is a mistake. 

So does the scripture address the topic of abuse?  Well, somehow the Golden Rule---treating others the way you would like to be treated—and Christ’s new commandment to love one another just as Christ loved us both would automatically exclude being abusive.  In fact, a careful reading of the end of Ephesians 5, where the outline of marriage is provided as an illustration of Christ’s love for the church, would also exclude abuse as being a part of any truly Christian marriage.  So, it would seem to me that if one is going to ask what God requires of someone in an abusive marriage, the first answer would relate to the abuser, not the abused!

Before I go any further, perhaps I should open the door a bit wider for you in this arena.  I know of women whose husbands have beaten them severely.  I know of a pregnant woman who suffered beatings, and was literally hanging on the hood of a moving car, begging the father of her child to not leave as he drove away until she fell off.  And I also know of a man who would wake up in the middle of the night to discover his drunk wife standing over him with a broken beer bottle, threatening to slice his throat with it.  And I know that sometimes, homes that would appear all wonderful to others in a church can, in reality, be war zones behind closed doors.  Even to the point that church leadership will unwittingly support a supposedly godly spouse who, in fact, is the abuser in unscriptural marriage.  It is always wise to never assume you know the whole story, especially if you have not really heard both sides of the story.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention that abuse is not always physical, but can be verbal or emotional.  Perhaps you have known, as I have, of individuals who have been so browbeaten by a spouse that they consider themselves worthless.  Or an individual in a relationship in which their life is a daily rollercoaster of emotions, being controlled and insecure in any sense of love or commitment.  The physical abuse at least has the visible bruising to prove it is happening.  The internal bruises are much more subtle, much harder to define, and sometimes, leave the abused second-guessing as to whether they are even being abused!

So, would Jesus choose the side of the abuser in a bad relationship, or that of the abused?  It seems to me that scripture is pretty clear about all the times he stood with the outcast, rejected and abused, and I think he would do the same in judging a marriage.

Some would say that regardless, Jesus does not allow the suffering of abuse as a valid reason for divorce.  On the other hand, others (including myself) believe that Jesus’s point about the grounds for divorce was not so much a prescription of the only legitimate grounds as it was an exposé of the wrong being practiced at the time of trivializing divorce.  Burning supper is simply not good enough grounds for divorcing your wife!

So should the abused spouse seek a divorce?  Certainly not as the first solution, because sometimes there are other ways to bring about an end to the abuse, such as counseling, confrontation, legal complaints.  If there is a way for the abuser to be brought to humility, repentance and change, that is the ultimate goal.  But, in the case of many I have known, abusers often prefer to blame anyone but themselves, and deny that their actions are their own choices or responsibility.  In such cases, divorce may accomplish two things:  the safety of the abused and the possible accountability of the abuser which might even lead to repentance.

There remain those who deny that, even under these circumstances, divorce is acceptable.  I believe that, sad though it is, divorce is a symptom of our fallen world, and that God in his wisdom knew it and so provided guidelines even in the Mosaic law of old.  I also believe that though divorce clearly does not live up to the biblical ideal of one man and one woman become one flesh for life, neither does an abusive marriage live up that ideal either.  In fact, the divorce is probably more a reflection of reality than the sham of an abusive marriage. 

I tend to be most impressed with a story I once heard about a church who knew of a young woman whose marriage was abusive in a number of ways.  There came a time when the husband was away from the home for reasons beyond what I can explain here, and in that time, the believers chose to rescue that woman by putting her and her children on a plane with tickets the believers had purchased so that she would never have to suffer at his hands again.  Somehow, that strikes me more as how Christ would respond than those who like to pronounce that the abused must tough it out indefinitely, though I doubt they would do the same. 

I find time and again that God stands with those whose lives are nearly snuffed out, and barely surviving.  If you are in an abusive relationship, I am not telling you how you must handle things.  But I do believe that God cares about you in your suffering, and that the condemnation people might put on you is merely from people, and not from God.  I long for the day when God wipes away every tear from our eyes, for in that day, abuse will be exposed for what it is, and the tears of the abused will be vindicated and wounds healed forever.  If that is you, know that you have my prayers.