Men are walking away in droves and women are trying to prove they are independent enough to live this life “without a man.” So much so that they unwittingly subject their children to the torture of wondering if the next guy through the door could possibly be dad, when he’s just more than likely looking for a quick fix to suspend the longings and the cravings of intimacy that God intended us to have within marriage.
Women need it, men need it, and God designed it like a fire to be contained within a fireplace held together by two bands of gold or precious metals. But when let out, it is a destructive harmful epidemic of zombie apocalypse proportions. Men are seeking women, women are seeking men and kids are seeking daddies, and God is waiting for all of them to seek Him.
Divorce has become the norm.
Why is the divorce rate inside the church so close to the divorce rate outside of the church? Maybe people inside the church, the body of Christ, as well as people outside the church all have a warped view of love and what God intended when He designed us and then commanded us to love one another.
Somewhere over the years, through the centuries, we lost sight of God’s intentions for love as a means to be Christ-like to others, and we have twisted it to mean a way we receive pleasure and self-satisfying desires. No longer taking on the definition of agape, the Greek word that almost every use of the word love in the New Testament can be traced to, which is unconditional; God’s love, and replacing it with eros which is the Greek root of the English word erotic meaning the tingles accompanying sexual attraction or arousal.
We have simultaneously removed God’s intentions for love and replaced it with a twisted view. Which brings me to the number one reason that we find through our marriage ministry that most couples divorce—eros, or lack of eros. The tingles they don’t receive from their spouse any longer, or the tingles they do receive from someone else.
Since I’m talking to mainly guys, take a look at your own marriage for a moment (provided you are married) and let’s take inventory. Don’t worry, no one is in your head, you don’t have to speak it out. But, have you contemplated divorce? If the answer is yes, let’s move to the why.
Think about it and boil it down to one sentence. No matter your answer, it probably sounds like this when boiled down. “She isn’t meeting my needs to my satisfaction.” Then, depending upon how far down this trail you’ve traveled, you may have someone else in mind that you believe at this moment will meet your needs to your satisfaction.
Although I am primarily in marriage ministry, serving as a family life pastor, a marriage small group ministry leader, a men’s ministry leader, as well as serving in Marriage Restored as a presenter and Florida administrator. I understand that no matter what we do and say, there are a few marriages that just aren’t going to make it, and there are some that probably shouldn’t go on. There are some that are so destructive that men and women need years of healing when they break away.
But most divorces, most failed marriages can and should be saved. That is where we need to focus to lower the divorce rate in this country. Those that simply walk out because they have a twisted view of love or their spouse does and either one or both are self-seeking.
Men are walking around within their relationships like zombies. They look alive, they probably go to work every day, they feed, they growl, they desire. What they lack is intimacy. If you are contemplating divorce, have you looked at yourself? Have you sought God, or are you just flying by the seat of your pants? In other words, are you being ruled by your emotions?
Here are five areas to rate yourself before you should ever consider divorce. Be brutally honest. Your lives and your children’s lives are on the line. This is not a time for immaturity or selfishness. It’s time to man up.
Joseph Mattera 
BJ Foster 
Shelby Bowen 
