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Rusty Miller
They shy away from intimacy. They are mistrustful of marriage and of starting families. Half of them are, or have been, deeply involved with drugs and alcohol. Many of them, especially the girls, started sexual activity early in their adolescence. They are less educated and less successful than their parents.
Who are they? Some juvenile delinquents who need to be locked away? Or are they just mentally challenged? Maybe they are the young victims of some country torn by war, like Bosnia or Zaire?
They are Americans, mostly in their late twenties and early thirties. They are the children of divorce. In a study conducted over a 25 year period by Marin County, CA, psychologist and researcher Judith Wallerstein, the children of divorce in America are suffering still. Their every adult decision is based, at least in part, on the memory of their parents divorce and a childhood filled with loneliness and broken promises. Their lives are filled with memories of mothers who, because they had to make a living, were not there for them and of fathers who grew distant and failed to take care of even their financial support.
"I was angry at my mother, I was angry at my father. I was always angry at somebody," remembers Laura, now 29. "What affected me was not the divorce so much as that my mother wasn't around. We weren't a regular family. I had nobody to talk to. I had nobody" (Source: Elizabeth Fernandez, The San Francisco Examiner, Monday, June 2, 1997).
Contrast the thoughts above with these, "I'm getting a divorce because God wants me to be happy." Apparently, all who have spoken such are willing to say that God did not want their children to be happy, for that is exactly what happened.
For some time, due to false doctrine being taught, we have focused our discussions of divorce on the idea of remarriage and when it is right or wrong. It is time we returned to God's own words concerning this most dangerous form of American selfishness. When the word of God came to the prophet Malachi, he spoke out against the many things God's people were committing, from the sacrificing of the lame, sick and blind (1:8) to the lack of zeal in worship (1:13). When he deals with their treachery toward one another, he saves a rebuke for those who had dealt treacherously toward their wives: "'For I hate divorce,' says the Lord, the God of Israel" (2:16).
What is it about divorce that would cause God to use such a strong word as hate when discussing it? What, in particular, causes God to pronounce divorce evil?
Maybe it is just such a study as the one detailed above which can cause us to see that the reason God hates divorce is that it destroys His plan for men, women and especially, children (see Eph. 5:22-6:4). The family unit is what God uses, not only to build up children, but to teach us what our relationship with Him is like. Imagine trying to teach one of the people in this study that God is like a Father to us. Their fathers abandoned them when they were very young, had minimal contact with them as they grew and failed to support them when they needed it most. Who needs a God like that? Or imagine explaining that Christ loves the church (His people) the way a husband loves his wife. All they know of husbands and wives is that they split up, that when it came down to loving his wife or his own selfish desire for "happiness," their fathers left their wives as easily as they toss out old newspapers.
We must begin to teach again that all divorce is sinful. There is only one reason given by our Lord for the dissolving of a marriage, and that is adultery. "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery" (Matt. 19:9). Even in this exception, Jesus does not say the marriage is dissolved, but that the innocent party has the right to dissolve it. What this passage says about divorce is that it is wrong! The exception involves the sin of immorality, so sin is present in the divorce. All other divorce is sinful because it destroys a marriage where God has given no right to do so.
The children of divorce prove there is no such thing as "victimless" divorce. When God says He hates divorce, there is good reason. If America would see God as it should, we must help stem the tide of easy divorce, for there is nothing "easy" about it.
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