I don't believe in the institution of marriage, marriage is just a piece of paper.

Mark 10: 1-12

‘Jesus set out from there and went into the district of Judea [and] across the Jordan. Again, crowds gathered around him and, as was his custom, he again taught them. The Pharisees approached and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him. He said to them in reply, “What did Moses command you?”They replied, “Moses permitted him to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.” But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife],and the two shall become one flesh.’ So, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”In the house the disciples again questioned him about this. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her;and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

My son and daughter-in-law’s wedding anniversary is coming up. I couldn’t be more proud of them both. Casey has grown up to be a hardworking man, a loving and devoted husband, and a patient and loving father. My daughter-in-law is a devoted and loving wife, a patient, kind, and loving mother who has the world’s most important job of being a stay at home mom to three energetic beautiful little girls all under the age of six. She is also a full-time nursing student. Don’t ask me how she does it, but she does it and she does it very well.

When they got married a few years ago my wife and I were having conversations with a few of their friends. The conversations all differed a little bit as you would expect; but they all had the same overall theme. Many of their friends stated that they would most likely never get married. When asked why they all gave pretty much the same answer, “I don’t believe in the institution of marriage”. Or something along the lines of, “Marriage is just a piece of paper”. We were both saddened by what we were hearing coming out of the mouths of the next generation. But when I thought about it, it made perfect sense.

Most of these friends who were telling us this all had some very common backgrounds. They were all in their early 20’s. They all or almost all of them came from various degrees of broken homes. Some had single parents. Some had parents who were cohabitating. Some had parents who at least one of them had been divorced and ‘re-married’ more than once. They didn’t believe in the institution of marriage because they had never seen the institution of marriage work the way God designed it to work. For so many of these young men and women, the success or failure of their relationships and ultimately potential marriage hinges on the bar set by parents, grandparents, or other mentors in their lives. By not seeing stable happy marriages, how would we expect them to know what to expect? By not seeing us work out our differences and make things work as our ancestors did generations ago how could we expect them to see and understand that conflict within marriage is inevitable. That the conflict we experience can be worked on, worked out, and worked through without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We have no one to blame but ourselves for not showing the next generation(s) what marriage is. Is it any wonder that there is now so much confusion?

Thought for the day: Nothing will ever, EVER, EVER be important to your children, until it’s important to you. If you want to see the next generation take things like marriage, faith, prayer seriously, you’re going to have to take it seriously. That’s what being a Christian witness is all about. If going to hockey practice or your kid’s hockey game on a Sunday morning is more important than going to church, you need to take a step back and ask why? Why is it more important? Is your pride more important to you than to admit in front of your kids that you are a weak and humble sinner who needs Jesus probably more than they do? Is marriage nothing but a piece of paper? A couple of half-hearted I DO’S? Do you take it serious enough to stick through the good times and the bad just as you vowed to do or did you live with the thought that if the going gets tough I’ll just check out and hit the reset button and start over? Are you afraid to show your kids how people worked things out years ago and stayed married in the good times and the bad, in sickness and in health for as long as they both lived?

Your kids will never take seriously anything you don’t take seriously yourself.

I am hardly the world’s most perfect husband. My wife and I have had our ups and downs and certainly could have ended up divorced on more than one occasion. But we have worked out our differences, we have gotten past many obstacles and every time we came through those, we came through them better than before. We are stronger now together now than we ever were years ago. My wife’s parents were married for 40 years before her dad passed away. My parents have been married 40 years. My grandparents were married 66 years and 40 years. I have aunts and uncles married 40+ years as well. I have seen good Christian witness in marriage and that has inspired me and my wife to not let things like pride, jealousy, envy, greed, and a host of other things that Satan throws in front of us to get in our way.

If you are someone who doesn’t believe in marriage because you haven’t seen it work or think it’s just a piece of paper, your better than that. God knows that. Even if you come from a home of broken marriages and have never seen marriage work as God intended, find someone who has and ask them how they did it. Ask them how they have gotten through the bad times. I’ll guarantee you every one of them will tell you that it’s worth it.