The Divorce Every Christian Should Have

I know right, Christians - Divorce? If you were like me, you were raised believing divorce was something that a Christian should never do. As a pastor I teach reconciliation rather than seperation. In counsel I try to seek the restoration of marriages relentlessly.
But the more I work with hurting marriages and withdrawn couples, the more I am becoming an advocate for divorce. NOW, before you start to rant at me through your screen and tell me what a heretic I am, I want you to hear me out. As I said earlier, I am pro-marriage. I work long hours for the institution of marriage. But the more I work with relationships, the more I am understanding there are other forces at work. Specifically, spiritual forces. The marriage is one of the most spiritually embattled areas of our society. I see couples that love each other but they are tired and in desperation they use words like, "I am leaving," "I want a seperation," or the biggy, "I want a divorce!"

What if a divorce was just what would fix the marriage? See there I go again. If you are about to stop reading this let me go ahead and let you off the hook. Here is what I mean, instead of divorcing him/her, lets divorce the spirit or spirits that are working in our marriages? Think about it. Have you ever been in an arguement or ,lets just say it, a "fight," and you think to yourself, "How did it get to this level?" Or you find yourself wondering what you were even orginally fighting about? What if we have spirits living in our home, spirits we invited or married when we said, "I do" that do are working against us?

"How can you marry a spirit?" Glad you asked. Because we have marginalized the existance and activity of spiritual things, both godly and ungodly, we maybe entertaining "angels unaware." Expect this time fallen angels or evil spirits. Yeah, I know it is hard to let ourselves believe this could happen, but what if? What if it were possible? What if the baggage we carry into our relationships are actually evil spirits that haunt us and have haunted us in previous marriages? Think about this; ever notice how some people (us) always seem to relive one broken relationship after the other? We all know people that have been married 2-5 times, it maybe you. We find ourselves getting frustrated at them, "How did they think "this one" was going to work?" If that situation frustrates you imagine how it must feel for them. What if they are wondering the same thing? Do you really believe that they woke up one morning and chose to have 2 -5 broken relationships? Absolutely not. They woke up saying, "How did this happen again?"

But here is what happens, if we don't look beyond the surface we will have tendance to judge the person instead of the situation. We as pastors, friends, and family will take the wrong approach in trying to help them. They will also have a tendance to believe the lies that there is something wrong with them or they were not meant to have a positive relationship.
I guess what I am driving to is this: what if they are not the problem. What if we have looked at the wrong cause or source. Paul tells the church at Ephesus, "For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, (listen) against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens." Eph 6:12

What if we have look at and treated this issue of divorce all wrong? What if we have been so wrapped up in preventing divorce, we should so be promoting it? (follow me) What if we have missed the root cause for the attack on marriage? What I am proposing is that it may not be the homosexual community, it may not be the liberal left, it may not be the pornography industry; it may be the spiritual forces of evil we have invite into our homes and ultimately into our marriages. What if?

Logically speaking, when you have two people that sit in front of you and can say without batting an eye, "Yes I still love him/her," but... You have to wonder to yourself again how can that be? Is it that they are tired or that person or just tired of what they are having to go through with that person? Let me go a little further, is it that they are through with the flesh and blood or the spiritual forces of evil that are working to destroy their relationship?

Imagine this: you have two people that have both previously been married and now having divorced and are now planing to enter into a second marriage. What kind of "baggage" do you think could possible be transfered into this new relationship? Some of you know first hand what I am talking about. But what if that baggage was not a what but a who? That is kind of a game changer right? What if it is not ALL you? That would be liberating, right? Now, it may be possible to stop fighting WITH each other and start fighting FOR each other!
What if you have a spiritual "partner" that becomes a part of every relationship you have ever had? What if your spouse has one of these "partners" too? We all know the saying, "When you marry the person you marry the whole family!" My point is just this. We may have had these spiritual partners from childhood. They have been a part of our lives so long that they are considered part of the family. Creepy huh? If that would be true, it may explain why some have never had a healthy relationship in their life. Let's say that the person you are marrying has one of these spirits traveling with them, when you say I do, you are marrying the whole family! When I marry her or she marries me, we get the whole package. The good the bad and the ugly. (leave that one alone!)
See if that is true, it could revolutionize how we see our relationships and how we deal with the problems in our relationships.

What if instead of divorcing the flesh and blood, we divorce the spiritual forces of evil working in our marriages?

To be continued...