Challenge, Encouragement, Identity, Insecurity, Issues of the Day

The Loss of Identity and the Prison of Self

A Thirty Day Devotional adapted from the NEW book: Identity: The Distinctiveness of You – Day 8

I can do all things through Christ. Philippians 4:13

I am born of God and I overcome the world. I John 5:4

Christ’s truth has set me free – John 8:32

In what, in whom do I find my identity?

Is my identity found in my heritage or in my nationality or in my ethnicity?  Is it found in my political persuasion or my education?  Can my identity be found in my sexuality or my gender?  Is it found in my wealth, my work, my success, my abilities or my possessions?  Can I find my identity in who I know or in the approval of significant others?   

Is my identity found in my past losses, my past environment or my past mistakes?  And if I have a sordid past, how is my identity played out in my present life?  Have I used men or women to define me?  Have I used poverty or wealth to define me?  Have I used sickness to describe who I am or have I given in to multiple lies about myself and completely lost any sense of who I am?

For eight years of our lives, my wife and I ran a foster group home for adjudicated teenage boys.  In those eight years, we had many different placements (young men and a few young women).  Some of them truly changed and succeeded and some of them conformed.  What do I mean?

If a foster child simply conformed to the requested set of rules, they were not changing.  They may have succeeded in meeting their court mandate, but they’ll be back in foster care placement in the future.  How do I know that?  Conforming to something does not change one’s heart or one’s identity.  

In the city of Jerusalem there was a pool called Bethesda.  A great number of disabled people were there, the blind, the lame and the paralyzed.  There was a man who was an invalid for thirty-eight years at the pool and Jesus approached him one day.  Jesus, knowing his history, asked him an interesting question: “Do you want to get well?”  Jesus didn’t assume anything.  He knew this man was a long-term resident of this place and perhaps received daily care with a meal or two.  It wasn’t the greatest place, but it was a place to live, sleep, eat, have friends and hang out.  

If Jesus heals this man and makes him well, the man will have to pick up his mat and walk out of that place.  You say, “That would be cool.”  Yes, but there is far more to this story than healing.  That same man who was provided for because of his condition will now have to provide for himself.  He’ll have to find a job, leave his friends, cook for himself and, perhaps, provide for his family.  Jesus was asking him the question, “Do you want to be well,” because what he was really asking was, “Do you want to leave this place, provide for yourself by getting a job and leave what you have come to know as a long-term living situation?”

We can change. We can leave the pool because we can do all things through Christ, changing versus just conforming. When Jesus comes into our life to make us well, He does a complete job and His truth will always set us free.

Question for reflection:

As you consider your identity, do you find yourself in the process of change or merely conforming?

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Challenge, Encouragement, Healing, Identity, Insecurity

Have You Been Noticed Lately? II

A Thirty Day Devotional adapted from the NEW book: Identity: The Distinctiveness of You – Day 7

God’s love is lavished upon me. I John 3:1

God has given me a spirit of power, of love and of a sound mind. II Timothy 1:7

An important discovery for each of us is to uncover where our security is derived from.  What are the things that we look to for security?  The list can be quite extensive.

Money                                                       Relationships

Marriage                                                    Success

Children                                                     Self-pride

Houses/real-estate                                  Approval                                   

Retirement accounts                               Accomplishments

Business

Earlier in my life, I was a marriage and family counselor.  One day a full-fledged, ordained, denominational, seminary degreed pastor came to see me.  Several sessions into our counseling, I remember a very honest confession from him.  He said, “I am an ordained pastor who speaks on the love of God, knows the scriptures on the love of God and I tell everyone that God loves them, but I do not know the love of God.”  Can you imagine that your profession is telling and teaching people that God loves them, and you yourself do not know that love?

It’s an everyday occurrence.  We think we know the love of God, but do we?  Do we understand that deep within our twisted soul, our shortcomings and our sin, God is madly in love with us?  He created you because He loved you.  He longs for you to know Him because He loves you.  He forgave you through His Son’s life given as a ransom on the cross because He loves you.  He will receive you into eternity one day, not based on your accomplishments or anything that you have done, but based on His incomprehensible, unfathomable, unexplainable righteous love.

Who, of all your relationships, really knows you?  Who knows your faults, your personal quirks and your incapabilities?  The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit really know you and the Godhead, the three in one, adore you.  It is a revelation to know whose you are.  It is a revelation to know the One who knows you inside and out and it is a revelation to know the love of God for yourself.  Do you know this love?  You can.  It is this God, our Father, who through the scriptures below proves His love to you over and over.

He is a faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations – Deuteronomy 7:9

I am loved with an everlasting love – Jeremiah 31:3

How priceless is your unfailing love, O God – Psalms 36:7

I am a saint and loved by God – Romans 1:7

God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit – Romans 5:5

I was loved by God before my birth – Jeremiah 1:5; Ephesians 1:4

Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy made us alive in Christ – Ephesians 2:4

And to know this love that surpasses knowledge, filled with the fullness of God – Ephesians 3:19

God’s love is lavished upon me – I John 3:1

I am loved, God’s Son sacrificed Himself for me – I John 4:10

The love of God transcends any lie we have ever believed that leads us to feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. It is His love that has been and will forever be lavished upon us daily.

Question for reflection:

Of the above scriptures, which ones speak to your heart the most concerning your need for security?

To order your own book or a book for a friend or a group click here.

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Challenge, Children, Encouragement, Identity, Insecurity, Issues of the Day

Have You Been Noticed Lately?

A Thirty Day Devotional adapted from the NEW book: Identity: The Distinctiveness of You – Day 6

You will be secure, because there is hope. Job 11:18

I am chosen by Him. I Thessalonians 1:4

One of the ways we focus on ourselves is through comparison.  Quite a few years ago while my children were still young, I wrote a leaflet that began with the following paragraph:

Maggie has never had a problem with her self-image.  She loves life and makes the best of every minute.  She loves people and believes that they all love and accept her unconditionally.  Maggie has never stared into a mirror and felt hopeless.  She’s never even desired to look at herself in a mirror and make any kind of judgement.  She is perfectly content with who she is, what she wears, the shape of her body, the color of her eyes, the size of her nose and the shape of her ears.  Maggie blindly trusts in her Creator.  She is content to be who she is.  You see, Maggie is our yellow Labrador Retriever.

The Bible tells us that comparison is unwise.  “We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves.  When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.”  (II Corinthians 10:12) How so?  When we compare ourselves to someone else, we typically come up short or proud—in other words, feeling insignificant or feeling better than another.  Both of these outcomes are unproductive and self-deprecating, not to mention possibly hurtful to others.  

Comparison does not build security in our lives.  Paul the Apostle told Timothy, his spiritual son, to watch his life…closely (I Timothy 4:6).  He did not say to compare your life to others.  

Here is a truth: The more self-focused we are, and comparison is a form of self-focus, the more insecure we will be.  Being self-focused stunts our growth and essentially inhibits our security.  

The Scripture expresses that the fear of man will prove to be a snare.  (Proverbs 29:25) What does that mean?  It will trip you up, it will steal your direction, it will keep you from following God’s voice, it will keep you stressed and it will steal your joy.  The fear of others’ opinions of us is as old as time.  Every life lived on this earth has dealt with this fear which can be all-consuming.  

Paul the Apostle was writing to the Galatian church about this very subject.  In chapter one, he was saying how astonished he was that they would so quickly be deserting the One who had called them and they would be following a false gospel. He related it to a false gospel that others were speaking to them.  He then writes this, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?  Or am I trying to please men?” 

You are chosen by Him; you need not compare yourself to anyone! You are uniquely created by your heavenly Father and there is great hope in His security. He notices you every day of your life!

Question for reflection:

If you find that you compare yourself with others, how can God’s approval of you bring an end to your comparison?

To order the book for yourself, a friend, your family or a group click here.

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Challenge, Encouragement, Healing, Insecurity, Issues of the Day, Small Groups, Training

Healing Our Insecurity II

A Thirty Day Devotional adapted from the NEW book: Identity: The Distinctiveness of You – Day 5

I am forgiven all my sins. Ephesians 1:7

I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security. Jerimiah 33:6

To die to ourselves as C.S. Lewis penned does not come easy.  We fight it, wrestle with it, deny it, defend ourselves, project onto others our shame and guilt, and feverishly attempt to coverup our inadequacies.  To die means to face them head on, acknowledge them, confess them to God in order to eventually lay them at the cross.

Why do we hold onto something that inwardly is hurting us?  We find it enormously difficult to be honest about ourselves.  We can barely entertain the thought of looking into a mirror and saying, “You have deep insecurities and you have to stop covering them up.”  For some of us, letting go is more difficult because it demands living another way.  It requires change and sometimes change, even for the good, is more problematic than staying the same, even when it is unhealthy to do so.  

Catch these verses found in Proverbs, “He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at home among the wise, He who ignores discipline despises himself, but whoever heeds correction gains understanding.”  (Proverbs 15:31, 32) 

Are you aware the Bible tells us that God, like a loving parent, initiates discipline and correction?  Do you know why?  He loves us enough to encourage life changes.  “…God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.”  (Hebrews 12:10)  God wants us to change through correction in order to grow and gain something good—to be like Him, holy.  

It is imperative that we renounce the idol of worshipping oneself.  To renounce means to give up a claim or to disown voluntarily.  Even if we seem unable to pinpoint any of our self-protecting insecurities, we can still take a step of faith and renounce anything in our life that looks like, smells like or acts like insecurity.  There is only one God to worship and it is Him alone.

But if we can label our insecurities, now is the time to confess them.  Perhaps along the way many of those insecurities have come to mind.  It is now time to confess them to God, renounce them and break off any unhealthy dependency or unhealthy attachment with them.  It is time to confess any fear of man that exceeds your fear of God.  It is time to break off inordinate relationships that have become a source of security for you.  It is time to lay down your excuses and justifications for negative behavior which actually stem from your insecurities.

“What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?  For we are the temple of the living God.  As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among then, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.’  Therefore, ‘Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.  Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.’  And, ‘I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.’”  (II Corinthians 6:16-18)

All of us have sinned. (See Romans 3:23.)  We all fall short of God’s plan, and the wages of “missing the mark” (which is the definition of sin) is death, but Romans 6:23 states: “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  God has given us a free gift, without any effort on our part.

When the Bible speaks of being justified or having received justification (See Romans 5:1.), there is a threefold definition to this word.  To be justified means that I am forgiven of my sin, I am free from my guilt, and I am in right standing with God.  To be forgiven, free of the guilt I feel for sinning, and then to actually be in right standing with God in my human state is simply astonishing and yet true, based on what Jesus, the Just One, did for me.

Through Him I am forgiven of all my sin, in right standing with God and can enjoy peace and security in my life.

Question for reflection:

Can you take a minute to once again identify your insecurities, confess them and break off their power over your life?

To order the book for yourself, a friend, your family or a group click here.

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Challenge, Encouragement, Healing, Insecurity

Healing Our Insecurity

A Thirty Day Devotional adapted from the NEW book: Identity: The Distinctiveness of You – Day 4

I am justified from all things. Acts 13:39

I am the righteousness of God. II Corinthians 5:21

Many years ago, my wife and I were in a particularly difficult board meeting in which some false accusations were leveled at me as the leader of a ministry.  The person speaking those words knew they were untrue: still others who were in the meeting knew they were untrue and yet everyone sat there allowing the false accusations to land squarely upon me.  Perhaps in fear or perhaps in just wanting this meeting to be over with, no one with the exception of my wife came to my defense, but even she was quickly quieted.

After the meeting, my wife followed me to the parking lot for some fresh air.  I was visibly shaken.  I asked her, “What just happened in there?”  I was dumbfounded. I then spoke out loud my honest thought, “How could he say those blatantly false things?”  Before she had an opportunity to respond through her tears, a car pulled right up beside us and the driver, a board member who said very little in the meeting, rolled down his window.  He looked directly at me without any hesitation, and with a slight bewildering, albeit incongruent smile, blurted out, “That was pretty hard-hitting in there. True or not, here’s my response: After every death you die, there is a promised resurrection.”

He had some insight into death.  He saw it in our faces. Perhaps he didn’t intervene because this “death” was directed by the hand of God.  Today I can say it was a profound, penetrating and enlightening moment for me.  It was totally life-altering.  Numerous insecurities and pride, along with other areas in me and my leadership began the painful, God-driven, but mercy-led process of death.

Jesus said it this way: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”  (Luke 9:23, 24)

In the book Beyond Personality, CS Lewis wrote: “Give up yourself, and you’ll find your real self.  Lose your life and you’ll save it.  Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end; submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life.  Keep nothing back.  Nothing that you have not given away will ever really be yours.  Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead.”

It is like the father, who was also his son’s judge in the courtroom, came down off the bench and paid the fine he had just levied on his son for his crime. The judge, first a loving father, bore the penalty of the wrongdoing and paid the price of his son’s fine himself.  All the son had to do was receive the gift that his father, the judge, was freely and mercifully bestowing upon him.

Jesus’ death is that gift given freely to us.  His Father, our Father sent His Son for the penalty of our sin when judgement should have come to us.  There really are no earthly words for this and the best theologian, while being able to explain what He did, will never be able to explain why He did it except for one single word—love.  Love motivated the Father and love motivated the Son.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  (John 3:16)

While I should have been judged and found guilty, Jesus took the judgement of my sin and paid the penalty for me and all of humanity. Because of the price Jesus paid, I am now justified by Jesus, the only Just One, and I stand in righteousness before Him.

Question for reflection:

What do I need to die to in order to experience a resurrection?

To order your book for yourself, a friend or a group click here.

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Challenge, Children, Encouragement, Issues of the Day, Parents, Singles, Small Groups

The Trap of Emotional Dependency

A Thirty Day Devotional adapted from the NEW book: Identity: The Distinctiveness of You – Day 3

I am now God’s child. I John 3:2

I am highly esteemed. Daniel 9:23

When we solely look to another for our purpose, our meaning, our significance and our security, we might find ourselves in an emotionally dependent relationship.  

Everyone needs to know they are loved and approved of. Our first recognized source of love and approval is the family. Often, in dysfunctional homes, children may grow up with parents who are harsh, too strict, unable to be pleased, and critical. They control their children through shame and blame. These children can become guilt-ridden, confused about authority, overly responsible or compulsive. They frequently try to please their parents but seem to never quite measure up. In severe cases of this emotional roller coaster, self-identity problems emerge and an esteem crisis ensues. 

The second source of love, acceptance and approval is from God. I say “second” source because we recognize it after we recognize the need for a family’s love and approval. 

We need others. I am convinced relationship with God and with others is the most important thing in life. Jesus taught this principle when one day a Pharisee raised the question, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” Jesus then replied that we were to love the Lord our God with all our heart…soul…and mind…and love our neighbor as our self. (Matthew 22:36-39) However, our need for relationship cannot be allowed to become the center of another person’s life. The emotionally dependent person feels as though he or she cannot exist or function without this relationship. Mistakenly, this association is an attempt to meet the need for intimacy and security. 

We become vulnerable or susceptible to dependent relationships when we focus on our needs rather than the Word of God. When we lean too heavily upon one particular person, the emotional attachment can begin, causing us to lose our objectivity in the relationship.

Does the Bible speak to emotional dependency?  Not directly. But throughout the Scriptures, we are admonished to be self-controlled. Paul wrote in the book of Titus 2:1-8 about sound doctrine. Let’s see how they apply: 

You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the Word of God. Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us. 

You are first God’s child. In a healthy way you are dependent upon Him and interdependent with others. No one other than Jesus can satisfy your need for relational connection. It is He who highly esteems you!

Question for reflection:

Are you dealing with any emotional dependency in your life that you need to turn over to Jesus?

To order the book at a significant discount for yourself, your family or for a group study click here.

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Challenge, Encouragement, Healing, Insecurity, Issues of the Day, Parents, Small Groups

The Presence of Insecurity in our Lives II

A Thirty Day Devotional adapted from the NEW book: Identity: The Distinctiveness of You – Day 2

I have eyes to see God’s eternal purpose. II Corinthians 4:18

The Spirit Himself intercedes for me. Romans 8:26

Several years ago my mother visited our home, bringing with her a handful of report cards.  She had kept every report card from kindergarten on—every one. Wondering what I would do with them, I set them aside.  

A few weeks later I began to peruse through them.  My grades were quite good, especially in grade school and middle school (high school might have been a different story with certain subjects…just saying.).  However, it was a comment that my kindergarten teacher placed on my report card that caught my eye.  It read, “Steve has difficulty using a scissors.”  I failed scissors cutting!  Really?  Yes, really.  (But honestly, could those dull, blunt-nosed scissors cut anything?)

Truthfully, I was nervous and apparently when placing a scissors into my four-year-old hand, I could not cut paper.  It was an outer expression of an inner insecurity.

Insecure persons struggle with relationships.  We walk out life with certain fears and ongoing feelings of failure.  We struggle with our esteem and can retreat within ourselves.  We become nervous around persons who we see as secure or we feel an inner judgement coming from them.  Some of us would claim shyness, but the truth be told, we lack social confidence stemming from our own misbeliefs.  

Going deeper, we can become emotionally dependent on others to be our security or find persons or substances that help to create or foster a false sense of security.   It seems as though there is no end to our negative self-talk and repetition of neediness when it comes to insecurity.  How can something that each and every human being needs so deeply be so difficult to acquire?  What makes security so elusive?

Working with a drug addict for many years has given me a new appreciation of what these persons suffer, not to mention what their love ones suffer along with them.  Drugs can take on a life of their own.  One can be a drug addict and work, earn a living, be many things, but that will not be their focus or define their purpose in life.  They can have a family, go to church, pay their bills, but those things will not capture their ultimate attention.  What will?  Drugs, and the need for more drugs.

Drug addicts can eventually take on the identity of a drug addict because their lifestyle requires it, or should I say, forces it.  At the end of the day, all else takes a back seat to the most important thing in their life—drugs.  Please hear me, I am not saying for a minute that this life is chosen or preferred by them or that they are just trying to be totally selfish, but the addiction now leads them.  It takes any worth or esteem they might have, any identity or security, and forfeits it all for the next high.

In your insecurities have you gripped onto idols or stuff of earth that continue to promote insecurity?  It’s a vicious cycle that ends in even more insecurity. According to our knowing who you are in Christ verses for today, God has already established eternal purposes for you and has given you the eyes to see those purposes, as the Holy Spirit intercedes for you.

Question for reflection:

Can you identify idols or “stuff of earth” that continue to promote insecurity in your life?

To order the book at a significant discount for yourself, your family or for a group study click here.

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Challenge, Encouragement

The Presence of Insecurity in our Lives

A Thirty Day Devotional adapted from the NEW book: Identity: The Distinctiveness of You – Day 1

I am not condemned; I have everlasting life. John 5:24

I am free from my past. Philippians 3:13

The presence of insecurity in our lives fights with the human need of identity.  

What are some of your insecurities?  What triggers insecure feelings in you?  Write them down or at the least make a mental list. 

Once you do this you might notice many of our insecurities are fear-based, but most tend to connect to some life experience from our past.  From those life experiences we arrive at a decision to fear, be anxious or feel inadequate and our security level suffers.  Insecurities focus on what we feel we cannot do or on becoming anxious about what we might do in the future.

You are not alone in your insecurities; we all have them.  Comedian Ray Romano once said, “It’s my insecurity that makes me want to be a comic, that makes me need the audience.”  And famous Hollywood actor Ben Affleck has been quoted as saying, “I’m always described as ‘cocksure’ or ‘with a swagger,’ and that bears no resemblance to who I feel like inside.  I feel plagued by insecurity.”

In today’s culture we are faced with an abundant supply of self-worship opportunities.  A key to identify this is to look at how many decisions are being based on feelings rather than factual truth and information.  For example, to some people it is more important how they feel about a certain political candidate than what that candidate actually stands for.  How we feel about math class and the teacher can trump what grades we are receiving or how hard we are working.  

The idol of self is to be more preoccupied with your image, your own self-concerns, your needs of affirmation and attention from others.  It is an inordinate preoccupation with yourself, your feelings, your thoughts and your opinions.  In the book my wife and I co-authored, Staying Together, Marriage: A Lifetime Affair we wrote concerning the idol of self, “When our identity becomes intertwined with our insecurity, we can become steeped in self-adoration.” 

Each of us long for security, but gravitate to the stuff of earth—the things we can touch and see.  Joyce Myers said concerning insecure persons, “…[They] derive their sense of worth and value from the acceptance of others rather than from who they are…, becoming approval addicts, always needing the approval of others to be happy and secure.”

The gospel of self in looking for comfort for one’s soul and purpose for one’s life will all too often end in self-hate, self-destructive behavior, loneliness, anger and a slow death of one’s emotional and spiritual being.  It is mentally fatiguing needing to think ahead of what others might be thinking or how others might be reacting to you.  It is wearing to one’s physical being and exhaustion can set in, eventually leading to a “who cares anyway” attitude.  Insecurity will allow the enemy of our souls to take us where we do not desire to go.

Proverbs rightly records, “The fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts the Lord is kept safe.”  (Proverbs 29:25)

Insecurity is self-condemning, but in knowing who you are in Christ, you are not condemned, rather free from your past.  You have already inherited eternal life.

Question for reflection: 

As you discover some of your insecurities, how can you relate them to this statement: “Insecurities focus on what we feel we cannot do or on becoming anxious about what we might do in the future”?

To order the book at a significant discount for yourself, your family or for a group study click here.

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Challenge, Encouragement, Issues of the Day, Leadership, Parents, Training

Starting Tomorrow for Thirty Days!

Watch your in-box for some very special blog posts.

Starting tomorrow for 30 days you will be receiving a daily blog post and exerpt from my new book, Identity: The Distinctiveness of You.

I hope you enjoy this challenge and will take the time to read it each day. I pray you receive much from every post.

Pass it on to others and feel free to add your own comments. See you soon!

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Encouragement, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Premarital, Women

Is There Hope for Marriage and What Is the Actual Divorce Rate?

We have been lied to. We have been told that marriage is archaic and a dying tradition. We are told that one half of all marriages end in divorce repeatedly and maybe even you have spoken those words yourself. It makes for a very pessimistic outlook to marriage doesn’t it?

Enter Shaunti Feldhahn and her book, The Good News about Marriage: Debunking Discouraging Myths about Marriage and Divorce. She says, “Divorce is not the biggest threat to marriage. Discouragement is.” 

In Feldhahn’s eight-year research she found that the divorce rate in America is nowhere near 50% and NEVER has been. And truthfully, she adds that the divorce rate has been on a steady decline since 1980. She writes, “In reality, 71% of women are still married to their first spouse…widowhood reduces the remaining 29%, bringing us to an approximate 25% divorce rate for first time marriages.”

*Further good news is that Feldhahn states that the rate of divorce is even less among Christians. From Barna’s comprehensive research in 2008 there was a “…27% decrease in the number of divorces among those who had been to church in the last seven days.” In a “…National Survey of Families and Households between the years 1987 and 1994 there was a 50% lesser occasion of divorce among those who share the same faith and attend church.” A Family Life Family Needs Survey taken among 50 churches found that only 22% of those ever married had been divorced. (*AFA Journal, January 2015)

What has increased? Cohabitation. There is a significant rise to the incidents of cohabitation in the last 20 years. This provokes and promotes a noncommittal attitude and an open back door to the relationship and when these persons do marry, their incidents of divorce are higher.

There is great hope for marriage. Most married couples are happy. If they are unhappy, but remain committed within five years most couples (eight in ten) find themselves to be very happy in their marriages. It turns out that when a couple is making the effort to remain married and work through their issues, it pays off. Discouragement comes when one spouse is unwilling to work or doesn’t realize the needs of the marriage.

Remarriage statistics, we have been told, have had even more dire divorce results. Once again, Feldhahn found that “…according to the Census Bureau, 65% of women in second marriages are still married to their second spouse. And because second and third marriages tend to occur later in life, the percentage of those marriages ended by death is expected to be higher than first marriages, resulting in a second marriage divorce rate of 30% or less.”

Put the once touted divorce statistics behind you and know there is great hope for marriage and its future. Marriage is a creation act of God and He stands by His word for men and women who either desire marriage or desire to remain faithful until “death do they part.”

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