Can Good Come from My Suffering or Is It Just One of Those Unfortunate Things That is a Result of The Fall, and It's Only a Negative?

The Deep Peace and Joy in the Months Leading Up to and After Conversion
At conversion we experience a sense of peace. This peace is more than a feeling; it's the knowledge that our sins have been cast to the bottom of the sea...that they've been removed from us as far as the east is from the west. That we've been reconciled to our Father through the sacrifice of Christ. And actually it's even more than just knowledge too. It's the very reality of signing a binding peace treaty with God through Christ. A treaty which is binding in heaven and carries all the authority of God. Our sins made us enemies with God, and while in that state there was only selfishness and misery. But now we have been forgiven and brought into right standing with the One we wronged. We've drunk from the Water of Life from the fountain of God, and our hunger for happiness which was impossible to meet has been satiated with the Bread of Life, Christ Himself. Along with this comes a change in our hearts. We are brought into rightness with God in our attitudes and desires; our character is changed to be in alignment with Him.

We spend our days searching His Word with genuine joy, and our nights pouring our hearts out to Him. He is our closest Friend. If we're serving in church we do so with enthusiasm and genuine care for others. We bring people to the Lord or support the church in ways that are deeply fulfilling. We really get a profound glimpse of what heaven is going to be like, and we're able to contrast this new life with our former life and see the stark contrast. We learn important lessons during this phase that help to solidify us in the knowledge that our choice was the right one and that there is such a thing as truth, and the Christian religion has it.

But our peace while deeply meaningful and the purpose of life, is not full peace. It isn't that we believe we need something else in order to achieve full peace; it's that we know we need more of Christ in order to have full peace.

The Bible says while in this world we groan and yearn, desiring to be in a state where all the evil has been removed from our hearts and where we are in perfect alignment with God (Romans 8:23).

Full happiness cannot exist for us as long as we sin daily, and go outside of God's will for us, and wound Him in so doing. While He is faithful to forgive us and get us back on track, our sins and selfish desires still cause pain to Him and us.

We aren't yet in a state of perfect oneness with God, represented metaphorically by the sexual act in a marriage relationship. This act of total oneness will not take place till the marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven.

In the meantime we are hungering and yearning for a deeper relationship with Christ, for more unity and less misalignment, for our attitudes to change and for our faith to increase.

And what is the answer to this yearning desire; what brings about its attainment?

Severe trials. This is the catalyst that accomplishes it.

Why Do Difficulties Increase After Baptism?
Knowing we've entered the Christian life, many people are surprised to find that their outward difficulties increase after baptism. While they have a fulfilling peace inwardly they've never had before, outwardly trials and difficulties seem to amp up. Perhaps they marry their boyfriend or girlfriend and find marriage to be much more difficult than they expected it to be for two Christians who both desire to glorify God with their lives and are equally yoked, or maybe they were already married and their marriage becomes even more rocky than it was before. In the case of many it is at this point that they develop a health condition that they never had before, and move from a life of consistent health, to a life of persistent, chronic illness. For many this doesn't make sense to them. They've surrendered their lives to God. They are living by the true Bible principles of love now; they aren't living for selfish purposes anymore. Doesn't that mean their relationships should be going smoother than they were before? Doesn't that mean their lives should be more together than they were before? Why does it feel like everything is coming apart at the seams?

The most pressing concern on their hearts is their witness. If they are fighting with their spouse all the time, what kind of a witness does that give to new Christians coming into the faith? If people in church could see them during their private time at home, wouldn't they be repelled by them and scared away from the faith?

It seems something strange and out-of-alignment has happened to them. Something that's not supposed to happen. Something outside of God's will.

They Spend the First Few Years Praying and Working, Sure of Success
They spend the first few years praying for God to bring their life back together so they can glorify Him to the greatest extent possible. As Christian people going through these difficulties, their main object and goal is to reach souls for Christ and lift Him up before the world. They feel their illness or their troubled marriage prevents them from doing this. They may ask the question "Can I even glorify God at all while in this state?" (Read the article titled Am I Too Disabled to Glorify God? by clicking HERE.) They spend many hours in prayer, searching their hearts to uncover what in them is out of alignment with God to bring on this state of things. They seek to bring their lives into alignment with God and make some key changes, for instance, they may start reading books on marriage and get informed about what it takes to have a happy marriage. They enter a learning curve. They are very motivated at this stage, because they usually have a strong confidence that God is going to bring their marriage into unity or restore their health. I mention health and marriage troubles because these are two of the most common trials people experience in our modern time.

If Things Don't Improve Many Enter a Crisis Point
If things don't smooth out after those earlier years, their lives may enter a crisis point. The person who never believed in divorce is now considering it. What made the change? Well often the reason they didn't believe in divorce is because they were taught that if a person is very dedicated to working on their marriage and brings God into the equation to help them, that God will work things out and bring the two people into a strong unity together and iron out their fights and tensions. Isn't this what God wants, strong, happy marriages? They weren't prepared for a situation where they are trying their best to repair the marriage but their spouse has gotten into a rut of accepting a marriage devoid of love and filled with cruel words, and he sees this as just normal day-to-day life.

Past Beliefs Brought Into Question
They were told if they waited till marriage to have sex and they didn't sleep with a string of boyfriends or girlfriends before they met and married their spouse, that they'd have a happy marriage, but they now find these promises to have some errors to them, and not to be fully grounded in the Bible, as these promises didn't come to pass for them. Even though the wife gave things her all (we'll give the wife the benefit of the doubt in this hypothetical scenario for illustrative purposes) her husband gave up trying, and settled into a rut of dysfunctional living. While he is far from happy, he's found a way to plod through a life that the wife finds to be unbearable. Every day is suffering for her. She feels alienated, misunderstood, and mistreated by the person she loves most in the world with no end in sight.

And it begins to dawn on her that her husband may decide to be this way for the rest of their lives. She knows separation is a Biblical option. But divorce is not an option. Without divorce being on the table it would mean she would not be free to ever pursue romantic and sexual love from anyone else ever again. "Is this it?" she asks herself. "Is this how my life has to turn out, with no hope of a happy romantic relationship for the rest of my life?" She feels powerless, like the dice has been rolled for her and landed on some tragic outcome outside of her control. Never being loved in a fulfilling way romantically seems like a weighty thing to accept, too tragic and dismal to embrace as her future, and she is adverse to it. Furthermore it seems unjust and unfair. How could God ask her to stay with someone who is holding her marriage hostage from ever being a loving one? Wouldn't a loving God free her up to find someone who could love her?

It Begins to Dawn on Them God Might Not Deliver Them Out of the Situation
Similarly it begins to dawn on the person with chronic illness that they may have the illness for the rest of their lives and that God may not heal them after all, and if the pain feels unlivable as it often does with major depression or chronic pain conditions, the person is faced with a cross-roads. Continue suffering for who knows how long -- perhaps one's whole life -- or take their life by suicide.

My Use of Extreme Examples
I use the extreme example of a situation where the person isn't recovering from their chronic illness to speak clearly and simplistically to make a point.

In reality it is much more often the case that the person is able to improve symptoms and recover somewhat and my experience talking with others and working on my own health condition has been that God usually chooses to reduce suffering.

Satan Enters the Scene
Satan enters the scene. He says things like "Would God really want you to be unhappily married for life? Certainly a God of love couldn't ask that from you!" These statements add doubt about the Word and they also directly accuse God, singling Him out as the villain, when the true villain here is Satan and how he tempted Adam and brought sin into this world. This is why our lives are hard here. This is why there's suffering here, and a lack of love between people, and pain that feels unbearable. But the fingers get pointed at God, claiming that if God asks you to stay in a rocky marriage that God is a tyrant. After all, isn't God supposed to be the One who cares about love; how then could He be against someone leaving an unloving situation in order to meet someone else who treats them with true respect and love? Really the accusation is against the Commandments themselves. How dare God have a standard of right and wrong, and ask you to keep it when extreme situations arise. How unyielding and oppressive His law is! It doesn't make room for human feelings and human pain.

The lies about suicide are similar "Certainly God couldn't ask you to remain in a life of constant high-level suffering? What a cruel Person He would be to ask that! How uncaring and unsympathetic to the real-world struggles of people." And the temptation is to embrace the conclusion that God can't really be asking these things of you; God must be ok with divorce and suicide in extreme cases of pain, because God is understanding. Understanding becomes synonymous with altering the law so that immoral things are now allowed. But is this really what it means to be understanding?

The enemy becomes a God who asks you to do the right thing, rather than Satan who is the one who is causing your suffering.

Many Ignorant About the Doctrine on Suffering
The conclusions the person with the troubled marriage and the chronic illness tend to draw are all predicated on this idea that something has gone wrong. That they are supposed to have a happy marriage, after all isn't that why God invented marriage and isn't that what it's purpose is, doesn't it take a healthy marriage to glorify God and wouldn't one with discord dishonor Him? That they are supposed to have health so they can share the gospel far and wife. After all isn't that the point of evangelism and of health?

But this is actually a wrong conclusion.

We are actually supposed to have bitter trials in our lives.

Knowing we have a natural tendency to think something has gone wrong when severe trials come our way Paul says "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you." 1 Peter 4:12

Unfortunately in a time period where the prosperity gospel is preached with more fervor and frequency than the true gospel, many Christians have not come in contact with the Bible truth about suffering. They go into their life trials without this knowledge, and unprepared for them. Really when the church is doing our job in this area, people should know and expect severe trials to come their way, and understand it is only a matter of time before they break upon the scene.

Notice how Paul says our trials must be fiery ones. These trials need to be severe enough to push us to our breaking point, so we can see our need for change and surrender to God to bring about that change in our hearts.

When life is going well it's easier to think we are a pretty good person, after all aren't we a Christian who genuinely loves Christ?

But when pressed to our breaking point over and over, we have opportunity to see who are under pressure, and our true selves are exposed.

This is meant to compel us to run to Christ for a change in our hearts.

The newly married couple should know they will have bitter fights and conflicts. Paul said it this way "those who marry will face many troubles in this life." 1 Corinthians 7:28

And he is not silent about the fact that those who do not marry are generally happier and less troubled as far as relationships go (1 Corinthians 7:40)

As a single person I can testify to this. The only real hardship with being single is the persistent romantic loneliness which feels deep and existential, and the sexual desire. Going year after year without any romantic attention is very difficult, but it is basically my only struggle related to relationships. But my married friends have many troubles and difficulties, including for some feeling lonely in marriage. They say it's worse to be lonely in marriage than as a single person.

Christ is Giving Them Himself, The Gift of Gifts!

What they don't realize is Christ is giving them Himself through all these trials. There was a problem from day one in their relationship with God. Things were not ok. While they had peace and joy with Him they did not have complete unity and full peace. This problem wasn't just a minor annoyance, nor even painful distress; it was much more than that. It was the most significant problem a person can have.

God as a loving Father sees with long-range vision and weighs the importance of things with perfect judgment, and possessing a holy jealousy for a deeper unity with us, He is willing to toss less significant things into chaos in our lives in order to bring about a deeper unity in our hearts with Him.

We see this in the story of Job. In order to bring Job into a deeper unity with Himself and test and prove Him, God left no stone unturned, and utilized whatever resources needed to be called into action to bring it about.

It's clear from the story of Job that God considers the proving of our character to be of much more value than any outward circumstance in our lives, including our relationships with children and family.

All these trials are not only a way to bring this about, they are the way to bring it about. The only way it ever happens.

In other words, if God doesn't send trials it would be impossible to undergo this process.

Notice the language here in Romans 8:17:

"Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory."

We share in His sufferings "in order that" we may also share in His glory. What this means is it's only those who share in His sufferings -- who faithfully pass the trial and testing of their faith -- who share in His glory.

Put another way, there is no other way to share in His glory except to faithfully undergo trials. You don't get to Christ's glory without entering into His suffering.

In 2 Timothy 2:12 Paul reminds us again of this truth:

"if we endure, we will also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He will also deny us;"

These are "of than" clauses, showing there are terms to our covenant with God. If the terms are met, we will reign with Christ forever in eternity, but if the terms are not met and we fail the test, we will lose heaven and eternal life.

Philippians 1:29 tells us: "For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him,"

Look at the language here. It has been given, or granted on behalf of Christ. What does the Bible mean by this? It's telling us Christ petitioned the Father on our behalf to give sufferings to us, because He knew faithful suffering and testing is the right term under which it is just and good for the Father to grant us eternal life and reigning with Christ.

Just as the Father cannot forgive sins without Jesus' sacrifice and there's some things it would be wrong for Him to do, the right terms of the agreement for granting us eternal life is that we share in Christ's sufferings.

Jesus sees our suffering as a gift from the Father to us in answer to His own petitions on our behalf. He wants to share His experience with us; He wants to be deeply bonded to us for all eternity, thus we must enter into His warfare, standing for His Name in order to have part with Him.

When trials hit, the person has an opportunity now to examine past beliefs, and search the scriptures to find fuller truth and toss out falsehoods. As they find Bible truth, they find a clearer picture of Christ Himself emerge, deeper love for Him pulses through their hearts, and more peace comes to them, then as they surrender their character to be changed into that same image, and they accept their trials as from the hand of God and submit to the Potter's working, they receive an experience that is more valuable than any amount of comfort, worldly success, success in relationships, or love from other human beings.

If It's Not One Trial it Will be Another
Everyone should know if it's not one trial it's another...what I mean by this is if you manage to have a happy marriage God will send you a severe trial in another area of life. Perhaps you will lose your job, and if not your job then perhaps your health, and if not your health then perhaps you will lose a loved one. There is no escaping this. That picture that many preachers give of a happy, stable life, is not going to happen to any of us. In the lives of even those who seem to have the most stable lives there are bitter trials. All you need to do is ask them some details when they open up and share their story with you and you will see the suffering there.

A Completely Happy Life Not Possible in This World
One of the biggest reasons people seek out divorce is because they really believe they are going to leave a life of suffering to eventually build a happy life in the future. This presents a huge temptation to them. As human beings we keep trying to get all our eggs together in one basket, wanting a few decades of happiness. We manage to get one egg in, maybe two or three. Maybe we succeed in finding someone we love, marrying them and having kids. Then one falls to the ground and breaks open. Our father dies, or a long time friend loses their cancer battle. The things we are willing to do lured on by this picture of happiness is startling. But the goal is itself an illusion. We aren't going to achieve happiness here and it's not just because of things like losing loved ones or family troubles. As long as we are still sinning every day, hurting others and hurting God, full happiness will not be possible. Only a heart in perfect conformity to the will of God can be fully happy. The truth is a comfortable, happy life for 2 decades is an illusion. Happiness doesn't happen in this world. It is an impossibility here.

Of course some people will claim to have found or created happiness for themselves here. But in order to call it happiness they don't realize this but they've lowered the standard of what it means to be happy to something quite low. If they really think they can call themselves fully happy while they are still sinning, they really don't know what complete happiness is. They don't understand the state of holy joy and purpose and innocence we were created to live in.

And without a proper understanding of the need for trials a person may endlessly strive to escape them, only to wind up back under trials again. There is no such thing as a life free of severe trial because God is too loving not to send us the necessary conditions to achieve oneness and unity with Him.

Even unbelievers are sent such trials, in order to give them an opportunity to choose and side with Christ. He offers this to every person on earth.

Use This Life for Its Intended Purpose

What is the solution? Use this life for its intended purpose. Tear down the idol that a happy family life can be achieved in this world, surrender that desire to God, and instead work towards a closer walk with Christ.

The truth is, as Christians our deepest pain should be the ways in which our character is evil and unlike Christ, and our greatest desire should be to part with this evil and become more like Christ. And if the opportunity it takes to make this happen is severe trials and suffering, we should welcome them with joy.

Yes joy! But the problem is people don't have a correct understanding of trials. We tend to see them as senseless suffering. And no one can embrace senseless suffering. But when we come to understand that they are the only way to part with the evil in our hearts and have more peace with God, it is then that we can welcome them and pray for them, and ask God to send them. Because we want to become like Him; that is the whole goal of our time in this world.

Opportunity to Find the Truth About Christ's Character
Faced with a trial, the person now has an opportunity to investigate false premises they have believed, and find Bible truth, and through that Bible truth, Jesus' character in a way they've never known Him before. These false doctrines were actually hurting their relationship with Him but they didn't know it. Along with the false doctrines, they had selfish motives actuated by these lies, which were affecting their relationship with God. They didn't lose heart those first few years, and pressed on to work on their marriage, because they were so certain they would get a happy relationship out of their efforts. Or for the person with the chronic health condition, they were so sure they would be healed of their illness.

But now the opportunity arises to for God to ask them important questions. "Will you still be faithful to me even if your husband never chooses to love you in the way you want him to, and he uses his free will to always keep his distance and be (what she perceives to be) emotionally unavailable to your needs?" "Will you still serve me even if I never restore your health to you and you have this condition for life?"

If they say yes to God now, it's a deeper commitment and more sincere "yes" than it was in their earlier days. It means more, and it changes their heart to love more like God's heart.

In my own life as a single person, I prayed for a spouse, and spent years learning about men and their psychology and what makes them happy, in preparation for marriage. I didn't sleep around or enter into illicit sexual relationships, wanting to give that gift to my spouse and knowing how important virginity is statistically to a successful marriage. It didn't work out for me to get married. I reached a point where I realized it might never happen for me.

I felt hurt and was tempted to feel I'd been cheated. I'd been faithful all those years, wanting to give myself to my husband. Was everything a waste? A lightbulb went off and it dawned on me that my motivation to keep myself pure was more for a husband than it should have been. Now the question was asked me "Will you still value purity if there's no promise of a husband; if it's just for God and purity's sake?" I realized I didn't value purity enough for what it was really for. We are to be pure because to commit sexual sin is a sin against God. This isn't just about a future spouse.

When Potipher's wife tempted Joseph how did he respond "How can I sin and do this wickedness against God?" He didn't say "I'm saving myself for my future wife." His first thought was of God.

I had an opportunity now to be pure with motivations that were themselves more pure and centered God. I was able to surrender these wrong thoughts and character traits to God so He could change me so I'd be willing to be pure for life in order to glorify Him, not with the stipulation that He'd send me a husband.

My love for God became more sincere.

Every Test Has an Opportunity to Fail

In order for there to be an option of passing a test, and receiving the desired change in character and unity with God for doing so, there must be the option of failing the test. This has to be built in, otherwise passing isn't possible and the whole process would be meaningless.

I don't mean by this that God has constructed the test to include the possibility of failure as some arbitrary design. That would be a cruel thing to do. I mean that the principles of right and wrong exist as eternal things and these principles govern the process. These principles determine what makes a yes choice a binding one, and what goes into a no choice and a failing of the test.

In the marriage test, divorce is how you fail. In the singleness test bitterness against God is how you fail, or taking matters into your own hands and marrying an unbeliever just so you won't be alone. In the chronic illness test you fail by giving up and no longer working on your health. If you're not going to get full health out of the deal, what's the point? But maybe God's goal is improving your health 30% and He wants that 30% because He has a goal for your life that requires that extra health. Passing then means accepting His goals and not your idol of getting 100% well, and being willing to work hard for that 30%. Suicide sadly is also a way to fail a health test.

With these other failures the person can repent of them. The person who goes through with the divorce, can later repent, and tell her kids she did the wrong thing by divorcing their father and point them back to the Bible so they can see God's truth on the subject. The person who marries an unbeliever just so she doesn't have to be alone, can repent of that wrong choice and be forgiven. The person who gave up on health can repent and start working on their health again.

But the person who commits suicide cannot repent and be brought back into a right relationship with God. This makes suicide a much more serious than the others. It is a final way of saying "no" to God.

Are Divorce and Suicide Innocent Ways of Escaping Suffering?
The error in the devil's lie is that divorce and suicide are just ways out of a pressing and deeply painful situation. But, are they just ways out? It would certainly be tyrannical on God's part to keep someone out of heaven who did a completely neutral and innocent action to escape pain. And this is how Satan is painting God in these scenarios.

Are divorce and suicide innocent and morally neutral? In Satan's accusation he paints God as arbitrarily banning divorce and suicide because God simply doesn't like them, and not for their inherent nature and properties. Is God against wrong things due to subjective personal preferences on His part...or is God against wrong things because they are destructive, and harmful, and pollute and debase the soul?

Let's look at the Bible's definition of sin.

"All wrongdoing is sin"
1 John 5:17

"For the wages of sin is death"
Romans 6:23

"Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."
James 1:15

"For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."

Romans 13:9-10

Let's unpack some of these verses. All wrongdoing is sin, means sin harms others. By its very nature it results in harm; that is what makes it sin. The wages of sin is death, means those who sin bring about or reap death. Similarly, the text in James 1:15 tells us that wrong desires if conceived, give birth to sin, and sin when full grown gives birth to death.

All of these verses are telling us harm and death are the natural outcome of sin. Sin is inherently by its very immoral nature destructive and harmful.

And when something is harmful by its nature, you can't reap something other than harm if you engage in the act; it's impossible. Think about it. Let's take a suicide as an example. They devil likes the paint the suicidal one as just a victim; and they are a victim or sufferer, if all they do is suffer. But if they take their own life, this is a violent act of rebellion, and what is the result? Their character hardens in rebellion with the act. They change as a person as they undergo the act. The same way that a man changes as a person if he lifts his hand and beats his wife, and his character becomes hardened.

Not only this but the person is now dead, which is pretty much the very epitome of harm, and yet somehow Satan tries to spin the story to convince us that we wouldn't really be harming ourselves if we took our life; we'd just be escaping pain.

Similarly the devil spins divorce as escaping suffering, not wronging the person you promised to be faithful to, or breaking your covenant before God.

Is it Ever Ok to Use Immoral Methods to Escape Suffering?
There is a bigger question being asked here. That question is "Is it ever ok to use immoral methods to escape suffering?" I think if many of people were honest, sadly they do actually do believe immoral ways out of suffering are ok if the suffering gets severe enough. And I think this is the heart of the issue.

We don't realize that by answering "yes it's ok to do immoral things to escape severe suffering" that what we are really saying is "right and wrong don't exist, or at least the Bible's definitions of right and wrong don't exist, and there's another standard of truth than God's Word."

The lie "God can't really ask you to be faithful or to do the right thing when situations get hard" is not an attack merely on your situation -- your rocky marriage or your health struggles. This is an attack on God's law itself. What Satan is saying here is "God's definition of right and wrong is the wrong one." Satan has been attacking God's law since he challenged God's right to be worshipped in heaven. In Eden Satan again told Eve that God's law was faulty; that she wouldn't really die if she disobeyed His authority and that His motivation in giving her the command not to eat was hoarding power for Himself.

Satan paints the trials and pressing situations as the light that shines on God's commandments revealing them to be a galling yoke that crushes all happiness and joy out of people and robs them of their basic humanity, making them into robots who just carry out a shallow checklist of to-do instructions. He paints his own standard of right and wrong (lawlessness) as the true standard that puts no galling yoke around people and attends to their human needs.

For a principle to be right, it will remain right under all circumstances; it's an objective truth, thus circumstances cannot alter it. But to take the position that God would be tyrannical to maintain that suicide or divorce -- or any other immoral act God's Word declares to be immoral -- are wrong under pressing circumstances, is to take the position that these things aren't really wrong after all.

Put another way, if a principle is truly objectively right, it will be right in the best of circumstances, and right in situations of great pain and suffering; this consistency is what makes it objectively right. But...if pressing situations involving great suffering shine a light on a principle and reveal it to be immoral, then it never really was moral to begin with.

In other words, when you get a divorce or commit suicide under a pressing situation what you're really declaring is "divorce isn't immoral" and "suicide isn't wrong" and "God's commandments are oppressive; they put a galling yoke around people's necks."

You're making a bigger statement than just your unique situation, you're bearing a false witness against God's commandments, the foundation of His government.

God Loves People Not Marriage
A saying that has become popular lately is "God loves people more than marriage", or "God loves people not institutions" "God is trying to protect the happiness of people, not protect marriage"...therefore He's ok with divorce if you're in a very painful marriage.

While the people saying these things say they love God, the Bible says all of God's commandments stem from Christ's character.

The reason marriage takes on the properties it does and bears the definition that it does is because of Christ. He is the Source that shapes marriage to be the way that it is. So to find fault with aspects of the institution is really to find fault with Christ Himself.

Christ identifies Himself with His truth and His commandments. To love Him is to love His commandments.

But we are not perfect people, thus we do often clash with Christ. This is the very real reality. The Bible says the answer to any clashing with Him is for us to fall on the Rock and be broken (Matthew 21:44). We have selfish parts of us that need to be broken by Christ and removed from our hearts.

Marriage Has High Demands
The truth is marriage has high requirements. It asks more of people than we are naturally inclined or able to give, even after conversion. Thus in many cases, in order to stay married a person has to become much more Christlike than they are at the beginning of marriage.

The properties of marriage seem unreasonable to our hard human hearts. And the bottom line is that if many of us were brutally honest we disagree with Jesus about what marriage should be. We think we know better than Him!

We think marriage should be a contract where the couple agree to these terms: to give the other person a baseline amount of love and respect, and if they fail to give this for a couple years and suffering ensues, the marriage should be annulled, and we should then be freed up to find someone else who will agree to the terms and enter a new contract with that person. This is what seems reasonable to us.

Thus it seems unreasonable on the part of God to define marriage differently from this and to give a different set of properties to it.

The Two Become One
The world has enacted a huge campaign to make sex out to be just a physical act. The only real thing to watch out for is STDs and pregnancy before you're prepared for a child. Divorce in the eyes of the world is two people deciding to part ways, and doing it through the legal system. The world doesn't recognize the oneness that occurs in a marriage. But as Christians we know sex is not just physical. However, when it comes to troubled marriages where the person doesn't feel very connected to their spouse, we tend to forget this truth.

Paul tells us if a man has sex with a prostitute he becomes one flesh with her, and this is why he should not do it.

"Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”
1 Corinthians 6:16

A married couple aren't just together, they have become one flesh. Once you become one flesh with someone, to leave them and become one flesh with another person is to cheat on the person you are one with. A severing of the first union occurs.

Unhappy couples will often say that the oneness has already been severed by the mistreatment and disrespect, but this is not what the Bible says. While the Bible is certainly not silent about the importance of speaking kind words to one another and working to treat one another with respect, it makes it clear that there is a one-flesh sexual union even in the most troubled marriages.

Thus the union has not been broken or dissolved if no adultery has occurred; the two are still one. Divorce papers don't take away the oneness union. It's still there even after a legal divorce has been enacted.

The 'Life' Aspect

Let's look a bit deeper into marriage. What is it that makes something a marriage? In human wisdom we would say "a contract or covenant of mutually-given love". But God says marriage is for life. The 'life' specification is one of the core aspects of what makes marriage marriage. When we add the term that love must be mutually given and the caveat that the contract is null and void if it is not mutually given, we take out the 'life' commitment aspect of marriage. Marriage is now defined as lasting "as long as the terms are met". In this view a marriage could technically last only a few months and still be considered a marriage.

But what does God consider a 3 month old sexual relationship that ends after the 3 months are up? That's fornication under God's definition.

And even a 20 year marriage that ends with the two parties separating and marrying other people is not what "marriage" means according to God's definition.

The life aspect is the definition, according to the Bible. Marriage is a covenant or promise to be a person's husband or wife -- forsaking all others -- for life.

Add in the caveat "unless the other person fails to give me a baseline amount of love" and you end up with a union that is not for life at all.

Adopting the True Definition
Thus it turns out, what often sets a couple up for divorce is a wrong definition of marriage, or a wrong idea about marriage.

For those who believe their marriage will always become a happy one if they are willing to work on it, and they pray to God for help, they often learn of the power of free will and how we cannot control the other person.

They went into marriage under the false premise that God would somehow get their spouse onboard in answer to prayer, and now they come face-to-face with the truth that prayer doesn't work that way, and God's promises don't work that way.

They are greatly tempted to divorce.

The person who enters marriage believing it's a contract, will look to divorce as the obvious next step if the terms of the contract have been breached for any significant length of time, say 2 years.

In both cases the major player in their temptations is the wrong idea about marriage.

If we can replace the wrong ideas with the truth, people will go into marriage knowing what they are getting into, knowing the series of outcomes that could happen and being prepared for them, and knowing what to do if things go south.

A woman would go into marriage knowing if her husband withdraws from her and alienates her for several years despite her best efforts to connect with him, that marriage is not a contract that gets annulled by his actions. She'd know she signed up for this possibility when she said "I do" and that because people have free will it would not be right to endeavor to force him to connect with her. She would withdraw from pressuring him, accept the choices he's making, and spend her time getting closer to God, or connecting with friends at church.

Many times the man will eventually come around, realize how selfish he's being, and want to work on the marriage. Maybe 4 rough years went by, but now they are drawing closer to one another and learning to love each other better.

But for the woman who saw divorce as a contract, she wouldn't be willing to go through 4 painful years; she wouldn't give that level of commitment, thus she would also not get to experience the happy years. It's common for marriages to have both happy and unhappy years, and it's less common for them to be unhappy all the way through.

Far more importantly, the woman who stayed in her marriage is living as a true witness for Christ.

It pits Him against the institution He created, showing Him to be inconsistent and untrustworthy and outside of truth, because truth would be consistent.

In their view He's supposed to be against marriage and for people. This is the loving thing to do.

The Bible actually says God loves His commandments, and that His people do too. We rejoice in them and they bring us great joy. Why? Because they are rooted in love and truth.

The same way a Christian woman should hate the idea of living a promiscuous lifestyle because this is not love, so she hate the idea of divorce. Unfortunately though, she is not a perfect person. There are parts of her character that are selfish and will start to warm up to the idea of divorce if she experiences deep psychological pain.

We're all like this. It's hard not to say mean things to someone who is unkind to us day, after day. Yet it's still un-Christian to speak insults to that person. Right and wrong aren't determined by our character and our level of patience and our level of love; they are determined by what is right. And so we need to deepen our love and increase our patience in order to meet them. And only Christ can do that in us. He uses trials to do that.

What Marriage Is
As someone who once wanted to get married but really didn't understand what it was, and now being an older woman with more knowledge, I think it's really important we as the church tell young people the truth about marriage.

People tend to think marriage is a contract. They think it's reasonable to divorce if someone breaks the contract and fails to fulfill its obligations. And what is the contract? It works simply: You give me enough love to give me a baseline level of happiness and I agree to do the same for you. If one or more parties fails to do this and it goes on long enough to cause considerable suffering, then the contract has essentially been annulled and made void.

This is the usual way people think about marriage. Even Christians, although our version of this might involve the caveat that if our marriage starts to fail, if we will seek God in prayer and put in work, God promises our spouse will come around and do the same, and that our marriage will be restored. Thus the contract will never be broken for a long period of time. Maybe months to a few years, but never decades.

We don't realize it, but we're still seeing marriage as a contract. This seems right to human reasoning. But if we look at our truly deepest relationships, like the ones we have with our kids, we don't have any such contract with them?

A mother will love her kid even if he's on death row for murder. She will pray for him till the very bitter end. Why? Because that's what love really is. It's not a contract.

And that person you marry becomes your family, and just as you cannot annul your relationship with your mother or with your child in the eyes of God, you also cannot annul your relationship with your spouse.

And if your spouse neglects you, acts selfishly, even for years at a time, the same way that you must love your mother even if she is very selfish or your child if they do not respect you and honor you, you must also love your wayward spouse.

Marriage is a Game of Chance
An important aspect people don't think enough about is this: Marriage is a gamble. Like having a child who might grow up to be a rebellious atheist and want nothing to do with God, even if you raise them right, your spouse may choose to rebel against God too and mistreat you and alienate you in your marriage.

Relationships involve an aspect of chance. It's not really chance on the part of the person themselves; it's free will on their part. But from your end it's chance. You don't know what they are going to choose. And you can't choose for them. You can endeavor to love them and influence them towards loving you back, but they could still say no.

Do the best you can to select the right partner, someone who is walking with God. Someone who has a track record of treating friends, family, and coworkers with high levels of respect. But also know that when you say "I do" you are accepting the chance aspect. "I do" means "God, however this goes; whatever choices my spouse makes, I promise you in front of witnesses today that I will remain true to him."

You see, "I do" means you accept the risk involved. But unfortunately many Christians do not understand that the acceptance of risk is in the "I do." Thus they aren't understanding the vows themselves or the marriage institution itself.

We live in a fallen, broken world. So when we say "I do", we are saying it knowing all kinds of dysfunction could occur in our marriage, but we're still vowing to remain faithful. We are acknowledging the free will of our spouse to choose to live selfishly in the marriage. "I do" is a pretty risky choice to make.

And so it's important we educate young people about what "I do" means, and about the inherent risk in marriage. They need to know what they are getting into. And even riskier than marrying someone who ends up mistreating you and living selfishly in the marriage, is the risk of temptation to divorce, which is for many people the end of their relationship with God. Because it is rare for someone who has divorced to ever repent of it. They usually end up justifying it and adopting false beliefs about what the Bible says about marriage, leaving the faith in so doing.


And while Satan usually lures someone into an immoral act telling them they can go back to living a moral life once the act is done, it's usually a downward spiral. For instance, divorce is often presented by him as an act that will hurt the family, but which will stop future harm. Like how a person whose hand is caught on a railroad might have to chop off their hand in order to spare their life when an approaching train comes, Satan paints divorce as being this brutal but life-saving act.

The person plans on doing the act, finding a new person to love who treats them with respect, and returning to a Christian life with the new marriage partner. In reality what happens is the act hardens their heart against God, they refuse to ever admit the divorce was a sin, and they continue going to church and living an outwardly Christian life with the new spouse without ever correcting the wrongs done. It becomes a spiral they never escape from, as it is rare for a person to ever truly repent and tell their kids they did the wrong thing by divorcing their father.

This is actually a direct attack on God's law itself. Satan isn't asking the woman what she thinks about her marriage or about her situation -- this is the garb it's presented in -- but really the heart of the question is about God's commandments.

The question is really this "Does a Christian stop being faithful when the other people in our lives are unfaithful to us?" Is that the Christian response? This is really the heart of the question. To add some clarity it can help to remove the issue from the personal situation for a minute and ask "For Christians in ancient Rome who were persecuted and killed by their government leaders, was the Christian response to treat the guards harshly and with contempt because they were killing us?" Does God's instruction to respect government leaders suddenly go out the door if they persecute us? Does all the instruction about loving our enemies not apply if someone is harsh to us?

By creating some distance by asking this question about a situation we're not facing in our own lives we can see what the underlying principles are and how they apply for the Christian.

And it becomes clear if your husband has become your enemy, because that's really what a spouse becomes if they refuse to have any intimacy with you and they are living like your roommate when they made a marriage covenant with you, that you are called to love him.

AND just as some of the Romans persecuted Christians up till their dying breath, and Christians were to show love to them despite the fact they never came around, we are to love our spouses even if they never come around.

The love we give to them should not be conditional on whether or not they come around. And here is the great error in the Christian wife's understanding of the scriptures which God is giving her opportunity to see. She's been loving with a conditional love; to get something out of it, with the understanding that this will happen. This love thus cannot be a pure one. This goes broader and deeper than her marriage relationship. This is how her heart loves. These are the conditions under which she chooses to love others. This is about her, and her relationship with God, and her marriage just happens to be involved, but her marriage is actually not the subject of this trial. To be conditional in this way is to be unchristian. Speaking of the kind of unconditional love the Father has in sending rain on the just and un the unjust, on the grateful and appreciative, and on the ungrateful, Jesus says "if you love those who love you" how are you any different from the Gentiles?

Right now she has a love that is in some ways like unbelievers. Part of her character isn't very Christian at all. And she has a misunderstanding of who Christ is and the kind of love He has.

Christ, out of His desire for true intimacy with her, has allowed this trial to come into her life to give her opportunity to develop a love that isn't based on what she gets out of it, and isn't selfishly motivated.

What is the truth? The truth is the true Christian will not divorce, and will love their spouse to the best of their ability even if the spouse uses his free will to distance himself and berate her.

It's at this point that divorce is very common for troubled marriages, and suicide is at an increased risk in those with health conditions.