Is Divorce a Sin? - Part I (Looking over the Cliff's Edge)

Recently, a friend asked me this question.  "Is divorce a sin?"  The email was brief and to the point.

My answer was equally short.  "It can be."

Clearly, my short response was less than satisfactory.  "What do you mean, It can be?  Is the action itself a sin or the reasons behind it that count?"

STARING DIVORCE IN THE FACE

My first encounter with "divorce" happened when I was barely a teenager.  My mom and dad were arguing, sometimes fiercely.  Not physically, but verbal guerrilla-warfare that sounded awful to me as I tried to get to sleep each night in the downstairs bedroom.  Frustration was running high, on a number of days of any week.   Then, one afternoon, I found myself in our automobile with  my father in our driveway at 1933 19th Avenue.  He spoke directly.  "I'm going to leave your mom."

I have often pondered that tense moment in the car.  I knew how frustrated my father was, and no doubt mom was too.  Her values, and my dad's values, on a number of things, were miles apart, and it effected their involvement in church, their social life with friends, other things too.  Don't get me wrong.  They were both Christians, trusted in Christ, loved the Scriptures, and went faithfully to church.  But their differences were driving them apart, and destroying the heart of their marriage - their friendship.

"You can't," I replied to my dad.  "Why can't I?"  He genuinely wanted to know.  By that time in my life, I had already sensed a call of God upon my life to preach the gospel and to teach the Word.  I also knew that my home church regularly taught that divorce was sin and something that God hated.  So I put 2 + 2 together.  "If you and mom divorce, I will never be able to go into Christian ministry!" I countered.  Essentially, I laid my future calling across my dad's broken heart.

Honestly, I don't know why I thought my parents' possible divorce would disqualify ME from serving the Lord, but I thought it would.  I had concluded that if God hated divorce and He couldn't help my parents get along -- if I came from a broken home, who would want to listen to me about God's solutions in His word?

AWAY FROM THE CLIFF'S EDGE

For some reason I've yet to fully figure out (not dismissing the Holy Spirit's intervening grace), what I said helped reverse something in my dad's mind.  Dad did not often get angry, but when he did, the coals would get white hot.  But in a few minutes, they were cooling.   My recollection is that dad walked in to the house, and didn't walk away from Mom. 

For my Mom's part - even as terrible as things got -- divorce was NEVER an option.  She believed in trying for God's ideal (even when the set of the home was less than ideal), and never giving up on it.

Dad and Mom had been married perhaps 15 years at that point.  The year?  Around 1967.  45 years later, in August of 2012, they crossed the 60th Anniversary finish line together...deeply in love with eachother and with the Lord, who miraculously kept their feet on the path.  We had a really cool party with them in Wisconsin, and the photographs shine with the beauty of their persevering relationship.

Mom's home with the Lord right now, and no doubt anxiously awaiting when Dad and she can be together again. 

IS DIVORCE SIN?

What I learned from all that was this.  Divorce is often sinful because it is the decision of frustration and self-centered fighting, rather than humility before the Lord and His Word.  No wonder God hates it (Malachi 2:16).  It would have been in my parents' case. 

It would have been an early, tragic loss in a young boy's heart, a kid trying to figure out if God could be faithful even in the most frustrating families and times.