I thought Anna and Don Walker* had the kind of marriage I wanted - maybe they did at the time.
That was 15 years ago, when I was in college. Back then, Anna and Don were the kind of couple you never dreamed would divorce. They were steady, salt-of-the-earth folks who effortlessly served others and gave the impression that they really liked each other.
After I graduated from college, the only contact I had with the Walkers was through Anna, and that was just through Facebook, where she wasn't very active. But it was through Facebook that I noticed something strange the other day: her name wasn't Walker anymore.
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I sent a message to a mutual friend and asked if something had happened to Anna and Don. He replied, "I am sorry to say that Don divorced Anna last year. It is a long and bitter story that broke my heart. Please lift them both up in prayer."
I went to Anna's Facebook page and found a cryptic post that provided a little more detail. It said,
"[O]ne year ago today my world came crashing down around me. I felt like life was taken from me - that a part of me died. I was in a place in life I never thought I would be. I felt hopeless. There was darkness all around me, BUT GOD WAS THERE. I am telling you this to let you know that no matter how dark it gets, His light shines. He has sustained me. I am still standing because I serve a wonderful, loving God.
I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. Sometimes we don’t understand the things that happen in our lives, but we don’t have to understand, we just have to trust the one that does.
I pray that this is an encouragement for someone. Sometimes you just need to hear, 'It’s going to be okay.' You will get through this no matter how many times the enemy tells you that you won’t make it. I’m here to tell you it will be okay. Just keep your eyes on Jesus. He is working on your behalf! He loves you! He has a hope and a future for you! He will never leave you! I know this to be true!"I was inspired, but I also grieved for Anna, especially after I later learned that Don left her for someone else.
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There was a time when I thought I could never do what Don did to Anna, where I truly believed I was above that kind of mistake. I am no longer so foolish.
Don didn't leave the house, meet someone new, and pack his bags. He didn't wake up one morning and say, "What the heck - I think I'll destroy my family and my good reputation today." I'm sure, as my mom once said about another man, "he did it one bad decision at a time."
I just wonder what that series of bad decisions looked like for Don, and what they would look like for me. Maybe I would stop flirting with my wife or start dabbling in online porn or just go to bed angry. But the interesting thing is, in a recent conversation with Anna, she offered this explanation for why her husband left: "He fell out of love with God long before he fell out of love with me."
As I thought about all this, about how far Don had gone in the wrong direction over the last 15 years, I realized it's not that hard to make a series of poor choices, and it's not that hard to disengage from fellowship with the Lord. And that's why, outside of God's grace and my good choices, I too am the kind of spouse who cheats.
*Anna and Don Walker are pseudonyms I have chosen after receiving permission from Anna to post this article.
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This is sad yet encouraging that Anna is moving on with God. A month doesn't go by without Betsy and I hearing about another Christian family we walked with divorcing. I know it goes the other way many times but in just about all these cases it's the man who has strayed. I used to be surprised. I am no longer surprised. I'm convinced our American evangelical culture has long been compromised with the world and we own bad theology and awful priorities. These men are responsible for their betrayals but the church has to own that we do not provide much purpose for men. As Bets says often in many ways we've just sanctified the American Dream. If that is all there is no wonder there is so much restlessness. We have a fundamental misunderstanding of grace and what it does in us!
ReplyDeletePreach it, Jim.
DeleteBlah, deleted my own comment :-)
DeleteJosh, great article. Jim, well said.
As an abandoned wife and now a single mother of 3, I am reading "Why Men Hate the Church" by David Murrow in hopes of raising my son to be different from his father. I hate to cast blame, but I do feel that much blame falls on the shoulders of the church. If you look at where our churches are today compared to where they were in Jesus' day, I don't think this is what Christ intended when he said to go and make fishers of men. When I refer to the church, I don't mean the pastor alone. It starts there, but the male members are next.
ReplyDeleteVery good article. Jim, loved your comments. And I've got to get my hands on "Why Men Hate the Church". God opened my eyes months ago that the Enemy is seeking to devour the family & the church through men. Consistently at our church we run high numbers in the women's Bible studies and during the alter calls after the sermon, it's women who come forward. I keep looking over the 1000 or so folks in the room on Sunday & ask the Lord, "Where are your sons? Where are your men?" I am praying for revival for the men of Faith. Breaks my heart for what is happening in our Family.
ReplyDeleteJoshua, you've hit it out of the park again with another excellent article. Not trying to blame anyone, but I had a wake up call about some of our supposed safety valves that the church has set up to help guide the flock. The pastor that did the premarital counseling with one of my daughters and her finance told me at her wedding reception that he hoped that they make it. I was quite shocked that this was the time he chose to speak up about his misgivings about their union. My daughter had thought she was just having the pre-wedding jitters when she felt like calling off the wedding. It would've helped to have someone outside of the emotions to give guidance. Eight years later she would be divorced with five children.
ReplyDeleteThat is really disturbing, and is probably due, in part, to the permissive attitude towards divorce that permeates the Church now. "I hope they make it (implied: but if they don't, they can always divorce)."
Deletehttp://meaningofstrife.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/marriage-its-not-a-competition/
ReplyDeleteHi, I checked out your article, and this quote stood out to me:
Delete"Rather than longevity, I think we need to focus on the quality of the relationship. If we reframe the idea of success to focus on quality, not quantity, we will focus on what matters, not on superficial appearances."
The Christian view of marriage isn't that we stay together to keep up appearances and participate in a false ideal.
The Christian view of marriage is that we are singularly committed to each other as a reflection of Christ's singular commitment to us, His bride. It is not a false ideal - because He actually lives it out for eternity - but it is an impossible ideal that is only made possible by the supernatural grace of God.
It's a wonderful ideal — but after watching many Christian relationships, I've seen more fall into the category I talked about, than those you speak of. It's tough. We are all human.
DeleteCurious - do you believe that it is God's will for all married couples to stay together? How do you explain those that don't? (is it only because someone has FAILED to live up to the ideal — does that mean God abandoned that person? ) I have a much different view now, after watching couples over many years, going through many kinds of situations, and sometimes coming out still together and sometimes not.
But what is more important, just to me personally, is recognizing how judgmental we are about others' relationships. Jesus said not to judge — so why do we feel so compelled to judge? Why do we have that fearful response, and look to see who we can blame for the breakup, when we really don't know the relationship or what happened? I can go into my own marriage with the intent to rely on God, and follow my faith......but that's different than how I view or judge someone else's relationship, and that's the dynamic I am interested in. Two separate things.
I love your stuff and the discussions, as always!
Scripture teaches that we don't judge those outside the church, but we actually do judge those inside the church. By "judge," I don't at all think it means that people are entitled to condemn me when I miss the mark, but if I am going to claim that the Spirit of God has miraculously taken up residence inside me, then I hope people will be kind enough to point out stark inconsistencies between my life and Christ's life when they see them.
DeleteI read a book a long time ago that compared the approaches of Barnabas and Paul in the Bible. I know that I am a Barnabas at heart. I understand why we need both types of Christians - those who take a more "tough love" approach like Paul (given Paul's background, it makes total sense that he had a strict approach), and those who always want to encourage, see the best in people, and give others a second chance like Barnabas. The book is called Encouraging People by Donald Bubna. http://meaningofstrife.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/encouraging-people/
DeleteWould you feel the same way about a dad who decided that, in his broken humanity, he just couldn't do it anymore and suddenly abandoned his little children, never to see them again?
DeleteI mean, sometimes the best encouragement is hard encouragement, like, "Grow up, man. Think about someone other than yourself before you do this foolish thing that will wreak havoc on your family." I don't see the two situations any differently, maybe because I know so many fathers who have done both, with horrible consequences for their wives and children.
Great article Josh! Nothing damages the Church more than when a Church family is destroyed by divorce! I know first hand. But I also know that God is in control, and He will never leave me! He allows us to go through trials so we can see Him more clearly, and so one day we can minister to others that are hurting. We must keep our eyes on God and stay on His path for our lives...yes, it could happen to anyone. God bless you and your precious family!
ReplyDeleteThis article when probed into deeply gives rise to thoughts about the Calvinist doctrine of "the perseverance of the saints" (i.e. once-saved-always-saved).
ReplyDeleteThe church I attend supports the Calvinist line. In case anyone wants to know of scriptures backing up this doctrine, J. C. Ryle, when asked for supporting evidence, came up with 44 scriptural passages backing it up. There are even more than that. Off the top of my head, I can think of John 10:27-29 and 1Peter 1:23.
We are very aware of characters like Don, i.e. ones who we believed to be born again, but who turned out to be completely unconverted. To sum up the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints when it comes to Don, he was never in love with God in the first place (i.e. born again). A person may perform some good deeds and appear to be caring, but unless a person has acquired true and profound repentance, that person is unsaved. He mentioned an example of a former pastor he knew who was a firm proponent of Calvinistic doctrines and all of a sudden, renounced his apparently-Christian lifestyle, left his position and his wife and frequently attacked the doctrines he had pledged his support to. My pastor said that in hindsight, the only sign that something was out-of-place that he recalls, was that he was very ambitious for himself. However, in any case, we fallen humans will sometimes make errors of judgement, despite our best intentions and efforts to familiarise ourselves with what the scriptures say about the marks of a truly born again person.
This does not mean to say that genuinely born again people don't suffer lapses. This is what we call "backsliding". My pastor briefly mentioned on one occasion that the difference between a backslidden person and someone who was never born again in the first place is that the backslidden person will, to some extent, have some signs of a battle against sin, even in his/her lowest state. God reacts according to the two different categories. If the person is not among the elect, he will give that person up to his/her sins (see Romans 1). On the other hand, God will take steps (be it negative experiences as consequences of stupidity or whatever) to bring a backslidden person into line (mentioned in passages such as Proverbs 3:12, Hebrews 12:6 and Revelation 3:19).
As it happens, I am doubtful that men in Western society are to blame in as high a proportion of cases as is made out. I'm pretty sure that in the USA and UK, a majority of people filing for divorce are women. I've known women to just get bored of their husbands for no apparent reason.
As for men losing interest in the church and how to reverse the trend, I think the best thing we can do is to look into everything we can find in the scriptures about how we are to run our churches, follow the directions to the letter and trust God to do the rest, i.e. the old saying of "take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves". We don't need any great new strategies: - as is made clear by Deuteronomy 30:11-14 and Romans 10:6-8, we know all we need to know as far as salvation goes. If we simply run our churches as God instructs us, there is no reason why we shouldn't have thriving male populations in our congregations.
I'm sorry, but I need to point out that Don made a choice to leave the marriage. This was not the church's decision, it was not Anna's decision, it was HIS decision. Where is the outrage at his behavior? I hear so much in the comments about how the church is failing men, and how the church is responsible for his behavior? I'm sorry, but that is absurd to me. This man needs to be held RESPONSIBLE for HIS behavior. It was a breakdown in HIS moral values that allowed him to walk out on his wife and family. This is HIS fault, not the church's.
ReplyDeleteI had a supposed "Christian" man who left me for a woman who was 15 years younger than he. I don't blame the church he attended, for not tending to his spiritual needs. Nor do I blame the men in the church, for not guiding him. I blame HIM, for making a horrendous choice and breaking a family apart.
My relationship with God has been strengthened through all of this, but I am less likely to attend church now. I actually find myself moving further and further way from Christianity in general (for the reasons I already mentioned, as well as many others). I do love this blog, and appreciate your words.
I'm sorry your husband broke his vows and did so much damage to you. I do want to point out that on the one hand, you're frustrated that people blame the church for unfaithful men. But on the other hand, you say that part of the reason you're moving away from the church is because of your husband's unfaithfulness.
ReplyDeleteSo it's like you're saying, "I don't want others to blame the church for unfaithful men, but I will." I'm sure there's more to the story, but that's how the comment read.
Either way, it's awful when this happens to a marriage, and I pray I never get too prideful to think I couldn't do the same thing.