Restless sea

I have several friends who are on the verge of getting a divorce, or actually fighting it out in court now. It is not pretty and kids are involved with all of them. Someone told me that Roy Disney is getting a divorce after fifty years of marriage. Gimme a break. What is up with that? Why can’t people get along after fifty years of marriage? What are they looking for?

I think many times that people just have a hard time finding what they are looking for because they are looking for the wrong things. The Bible teaches that we should not get a divorce unless our spouse commits adultery. We should not be looking over the fence at the green grass on the other side, nor should we return advances from those who might make them. We should just accept that we are married and take ourselves off of the market. Unfortunately some do not ever heed this advice and are always looking for an upgrade and just like the restless sea are never content and never will be content. Those who eventually go the upgrade route generally end up getting a downgrade instead and the problems that they had in the first relationship persist to the second and the third and so forth. I have several friends that are a couple of divorces down the road and no longer have a spouse, money, and their kids hate them for getting a divorce and they live all alone bitter and often lamenting ever leaving their original spouse with whom they had their kids.

Some are looking for perfection in their partner. Unfortunately none of us are perfect and sooner or later we will begin to find faults in our spouse and they will find the faults within us. If we do not bend, we will break. Why? Because people never change enough to reach perfection and we have to tolerate imperfections in each other. We have to learn to live with one another and accept our spouse’s faults right along with their good points and they need to do likewise. This assumes that their faults are not destructive like serious drug addiction/alcoholism, sexual immorality, physical abuse, or the like.

God likens marriage to His relationship to the church. We should be faithful to Jesus and we can be assured that Jesus will be faithful to us (His church). We should enjoy going to church and Jesus should be our best friend. The Bible states that no man has a better friend than someone who would willingly lay down their life for you and that is exactly what Jesus did.

In marriage your spouse should be your best friend. I have been married for 36 years now and can honestly say that my wife is my best friend aside from Jesus Christ. Through the years no matter how bad things have gotten, she has always supported me and vice versa. We both have our faults and we know what they are, but we overlook them in each other and only rarely argue about anything anymore. We consciously make an effort to patch things up when one of us makes a bonehead move; we rarely argue and neither party desires a tumultuous relationship. We live in peace with one another and have decided that we will work hard towards that objective and try our best to stay together until death parts us as our vows declare.

If you are having problems in your marriage, make an effort to bend. The trees that survive the serious storms are the ones that bend and not snap at the first escalation of wind Love and respect your spouse and realize that they, like you, are not perfect. Most of all commit your marriage to God and center the household on Him and not you; knowing His desire for you is to have a harmonious peaceful co-existence with your spouse with both of you looking to Him for leadership.

Romans 8:28
And we know that all things work
together for good to those who love
God