I opened another forwarded email from a friend, and to my horror it was news about one more pair of high profile ministers getting divorced! I ran to my phone and called the friend who had sent the email. “What happened?! When did this happen?” I asked her as I was completely caught off guard and flustered at the same time. “I don’t get it, I just don’t get it. They can’t get a divorce. What about the thousands of people in their congregation, what about them? What about their kids?” I asked.
“Shari,” my friend said, “I don’t know. We’ll just have to pray for them.” Well, I spent the next two hours researching this couple and their church on the Internet, and I even sent emails to their ministry, begging them to reconsider and to consider the effect divorce could have on their congregation.
It’s not that I’m heartless or don’t understand that there can be legitimate reasons for divorce, or that marriage, at times, can be nearly unbearable. There are seasons in a marriage that are extremely difficult. I understand that. Heck, anyone who has been married for a month or more, or twenty-one years like myself, understands that marriage is the most difficult thing you will do with your life, besides raising children, because you are joining two separate lives into one.
It’s not that I think I can do marriage better, or have done it better. That was not why I was so horrified by the news. What disturbed me was the thought of hundreds of new believers walking away from God because their pastors got divorced–the people they trusted with their lives, the ones who preached that God’s way is the only way to live. The same pastors who preached how to live your life according to the Word of God. Now of course, mature Christians are not going to walk or run as fast as they can from God because someone else got divorced. However, the young, the hurting, and the wounded might turn away from God, or choose divorce if the pastors they love and respect have chosen divorce.
Our lives are not about us; they are about Jesus. And if this thing called Christianity is all about Jesus, then we cannot walk away from any marriage covenants we have made before Him; before we have looked at the whole picture. If we are having trouble in our marriages, whether it is the big “A,” adultery, or “M” for money, or “S” for plain selfishness on either side, we have to look at the big picture. We have to peer into the future and ask God to show us what the consequences of our actions will be. And I do mean that we need to pray and ask God to show us, and He will do it—if we ask.
First, let’s look at the effect divorce has on our children. I am a child of divorce, and I can tell you that it is easier to not spend holidays or vacations with my parents than it is to choose between them. It is easier. Who do I have stay with me for birthdays, graduations and Christmas? Who stays in my house, and who stays at a hotel? My parents actually live in separate states, so I cannot see either of them frequently, so who am I supposed to fly out and visit and who do I not visit? And this is just the stress of being an adult child of divorce. This is nothing compared to the drama associated with divorce when you are a kid.
When my parents divorced and then remarried, life was not good. I could not talk about my dad at my mom’s house, or a trip to see him, if and when I got to visit him in Texas. I couldn’t talk about his new wife, or if I liked her because that upset my mom. But, I also did not have to deal with living in two separate houses in the same town like some of my friends whose parents shared custody. What a nightmare.
My real nightmare, however, is thinking about new believers walking away from God, and walking away from the church, where they can experience the restorative power of Jesus Christ, and eventually completely turning away from God and plummeting into Hell. That is my nightmare. That they will decide Jesus can’t be real if Pastor So-and-So can’t live this life, then neither can they. And unfortunately, this is a real danger. God holds teachers, pastors, and those in ministry accountable for those He has entrusted to their care. As James 3:1 states, “Not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly.” Church leadership is a high calling and not one to be taken lightly.
My prayer for the church and especially for those in leadership who are contemplating divorce is to reconsider and to take a hard look at the consequences of our decisions. If we are Christians, the decisions we make should never be completely about our happiness, because our lives are intertwined with the lives of our families, and other believers in Jesus Christ. Our lives are supposed to be about Him and the redemptive power of the cross.
And really, if our lives are all about Jesus, then we need to look at the big picture—not one mega pixel in the photograph. Jesus came to redeem the world and restore what is broken in our lives. He wants to be our best friend and He wants to be the healer of our marriages, to repair the breach, that chasm that has grown between our spouses and us. As Isaiah 58:12 states, “Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes.”
So what do we do if we’re Christians and we really want out of this agreement called marriage? What do we do? We do what all good corporations do—we renegotiate the contract. Entering into a marriage covenant is similar to entering into a business contract. Sometimes we have to renegotiate the terms: the chores, the money and how it is spent, the time spent with each other, the time spent with friends or on the clock. A few years ago, when my husband and I went through this time of renegotiation with a counselor our whole marriage turned around and now we are happier than we have ever been. However, we had to renegotiate because neither of us was happy. The purposes God has for my life and for my husband’s life were never meant to be at odds with each other, but to complement each other. We are supposed to be on parallel paths, not perpendicular. Renegotiation put us back on these paths.
Secondly, if we are in ministry and considering divorce as an option, perhaps we should step out of ministry for a while to renegotiate with our spouse, before irreparably shattering our families by stepping out of marriage. Some denominations have churches whose sole ministry is to bring restoration to their pastors and their families. I know this sounds much easier than it is, but isn’t it worth it, to see our families healed and restored instead of traumatized for a lifetime?
I wish that when I opened that infamous email the news had said, “Shari, Pastors So-and-So announced at church Sunday that they are stepping out of ministry for a short time to get their marriage back on track with the Word of God. They also said, that as soon as they are restored, they will be coming back to church reenergized and teaching everyone how they did it, and how the restorative power of God really works!”
This is my prophetic dream.
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Shari McGriff is a freelance writer who lives in Virginia.
