Parson to Person - Healthy community

Wherever you find healthy community, you will always find healthy marriages and families. Troubled communities with crime, low employment, poor education and high drug use will always be filled with broken marriages and broken homes.

Today, we hardly think twice about another divorce or a broken home. It?s par for the course. One man said to me who had been divorced after 18 months of marriage, ?Music played at weddings always reminds me of the music played for soldiers before they go into battle.? I don?t think he had a very positive picture of marriage.

G. K. Chesterson said, ?Marriage is an adventure ? like going to war!? A French proverb says, ?Marriage is the sunset of love.? I?m quite sure none of these statements came from people who were happily married!

An old friend I got reacquainted with recently had gone through divorce. He told me marriage is a three ring circus. ?How so?? I asked. He said, ?First there?s the engagement ring, second there?s the wedding ring, and third, there?s the suffering.? He said it to be funny, but I could see the hurt still inside him. Divorce brings with it no winners, only heartache, sorrow, stress, and often unforgiveness.

God created marriage for our benefit, not our sorrow. Marriage was the first governing principle of God. He gave to the male and female dominion to rule over their world, to create offspring, to be productive in their work, and to restore what was broken or lost. The Bible says He blessed them.

When marriage is considered unimportant or given such little value or discarded routinely, we will start to notice a lack of rule and much more chaos. We will find less children born to unions, and productivity begins to plummet. We will also have to respond to a lot more brokenness and the loss of identity and meaning.

Success in marriage is more than finding the right person. I find that young people are looking for the perfect mate without being much concerned about the person their mate is getting. I see people prepare to spend considerable effort and money on a wedding that lasts a few hours, yet complacently leave to chance their marriage which should last a lifetime.

Ephesians 5 tells us that marriage is to be a picture of God?s love to His Church (the bride). All the strengths of the male united with all the strengths of the female. They are never meant to compete with each other, but rather to complete one another.

A broken marriage affects children in a strong and negative way. Both guilt and an overriding sense of hopelessness become very influential in their lives. Trust is broken. They live with pain and a desperate need for attention and affirmation. They seek new role models to shape their lives.

Business leaders have often asked me to bring counsel to their employees for domestic issues that are causing loss of business production, missed work, and non-productive work. Young people who live with unresolved anger and pain are often self-inflicting pain, using drugs/alcohol to escape the pain, or engaging in reckless sexual activity and/or violence. Broken marriages and homes affect business, schools, law enforcement and churches ? but in reality, they affect people.

The great enemy of God is Satan. So it?s obvious that Satan is the attacker against marriage. John 10:10 reminds us, ?The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I am come (Jesus said) to give life and life more abundantly.? What is stealing your time to spend it with each other? What is killing your love for each other? What is destroying your trust in each other? Marriage is far more than a sexual license. It is created by God to be a picture of strength and power, of tenderness and love and patience, the very character of God.

Start today. Start initiating plans to build your marriage, restore your marriage, redeem your marriage and love your marriage.