Divorce Is a Dirty Word

Bible Reading:   Mark 10:1-10

Since they are no longer two but one, let no one separate them, for God has joined them together.   Mark 10:8-9

Mike and Jessica were both high school students when they met in the supermarket where they worked as clerks. They started to date and fell madly in love. They married before graduation and before their first anniversary Jessica gave birth to an adorable baby. But during their second year, Mike and Jessica fell out of love almost as quickly as they had fallen in. They ended their Cinderella romance with a divorce.

Most of us know some couples—acquaintances, neighbors, friends, maybe even parents—who have become victims of the divorce epidemic that rages in our culture. Sadly—and for a variety of reasons—divorce happens among Christians too. Divorce is a topic many Christians argue about today.

Divorce was a hot issue in Bible times too. The Old Testament referred to a man divorcing his wife if he “discovers something about her that is shameful” (emphasis added, Deuteronomy 24:1).

By the time Jesus arrived on the scene, there were two wildly different views of divorce among the Jews.

The Pharisees—the hard-nosed sticklers for detail—said “shameful” only meant “unfaithfulness.” A husband could divorce his wife only if she ran off with another man. The second view said “shameful” meant anything that displeased a husband. A man could divorce his wife for any mistake—like torching his toast at breakfast or losing a sock in the clothes dryer!

When the Pharisees pushed Jesus to say what he thought about divorce, they were hunting for a reason to get rid of him. But Jesus dodged the trap. He didn’t take sides. Instead, he let them know that in God’s view of marriage, divorce is a dirty word. Jesus repeated God’s first words on marriage: “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one” (Genesis 2:24). In God’s original design for marriage, husband and wife were glued together into one unbreakable unit. Period. Divorce wasn’t even in God’s vocabulary.

Divorce at best is a last resort, the final option after all other attempts to resolve conflicts, solve incompatibility, and heal offenses have been tried and retried but have failed.

No one ever gets married planning to get divorced. But your best option is to fix in your mind right now that you someday want a marriage that will last a lifetime.

TALK: What kinds of attitudes and actions can you practice that will make you a good marriage partner someday?

PRAY: God, teach me how to get along well with others and be a faithful friend. Help me learn the skills I will need someday if I get married.

ACT: Ask a parent or older sibling to assist you in making a list of skills to work on that will help you become a faithful friend and marriage partner someday.

“Mister, Are You God?”

Bible Reading: Psalm 145:8-13

The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made.   Psalm 145:13, NIV

CHRISTIAN YOUTH SPEAKER and author Doug Fields has shared a story of an event that happened after World War II.

At the end of that devastating war, much of Europe lay in ruins. Buildings had been bombed and burned out, streets lay under dust and rubble, and many orphaned children wandered the streets, picking among the ruins for clothes and food.

Early one morning an American soldier was driving his jeep through the war-torn streets of London. As he turned a corner, he spied a little boy, dressed in rags. The boy stood with his nose pressed against the steamed window of a pastry shop. Inside, the cook was working a large lump of dough for a fresh batch of doughnuts.

The soldier pulled his jeep to the curb and stopped. He got out, strode into the little shop, and bought a dozen doughnuts. Then he left the store and offered the bag of fresh doughnuts to the boy. “Here,” he said. “I bought these for you.”

The boy looked at the soldier with wide eyes and took the bag. But as the soldier started to return to his jeep, he felt a hearty tug on his coat. He turned back and faced the boy.

“Mister,” the boy asked, his eyes still wide, “are you God?”

What made that boy ask such a question? What could have made him think that an American soldier driving a jeep could be God? That’s easy. Something in that soldier’s actions reminded the little boy of God. That “something” was love.

That soldier did something very good, something right, when he bought those doughnuts for that boy. It was a loving act, a caring act. And it was right for one reason: It was something God might have done. That boy mistook that soldier for God because love comes from God. That’s why love is right (and hatred is wrong)—because God is loving. The Bible says, “The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made” (Psalm 145:13, NIV). When you are loving, you are doing right, because love is like God.

REFLECT: Have you treated someone else lovingly today? Have you treated someone else hatefully today? Which is right and which is wrong? Why? Do you need to change the way you’ve been treating anyone?

ACT: The next time you eat a doughnut, remember the soldier and the hungry boy, and remind yourself that love is right because God is love.

PRAY: “God, I know that love is right because you are loving. Help me to love others, just like you do.”