William said he wanted to end this marriage and start another one “from scratch.” He wanted to get on with his own life. He pointed to the Scripture that says that a believer is a new creation and that new things are coming. That’s right, he applied that verse to divorce. He took all the cliches that the world gives to support divorce and mixed them with “Christianese.” I couldn’t believe the attitude he showed toward his wife and the low view he had of marriage.
His reasoning would change, but his goal remained the same. First he would justify divorce by Gina’s unfaithfulness. He said he was “free.” When I gave him a hard time about this, he mentioned he had also committed adultery, and that she was free to marry someone else. I reminded him that he was divorcing her, not the other way around.
I asked him, “Would Jesus be justified to divorce you and give up on you and say this relationship is over?” He said, “I don’t know.” I said, “But you’re sure that you’re justified in divorcing Gina . . .” He said, “No, I don’t know if I’m right.” He was finally wearing down. I quietly said, “It’s not too late to make things right.”
I tried to figure out why William refused to forgive Gina. Somehow he could teach salvation by grace and at the same time maintain a self-righteous attitude toward his wife. He saw Gina’s sins as bigger than his, and he saw her heart as more evil than his. Deep inside he believed that his heart was good enough to accept Jesus but that Gina was too far down, too evil to turn around.
William would go to church and confess his sins. He told me that he would cry because he knew his sins were so bad. He said that Christ paid for him.
Yet, as soon as he saw Gina, he saw someone more sinful than himself. He wanted her to pay for what she had done to him.
I told him to forgive Gina, to take her back with no conditions attached and tell her that he was her friend no matter what, but he hated the idea. It sounded cheap to him. He said emphatically, “No, that’s not justice.”
He would look into the mirror of God’s law and ask for mercy and forgiveness. He wanted mercy for himself and justice for his wife.
The situation kept changing. He decided he would be a friend or acquaintance to Gina but never to work out the deep feelings of their broken relationship. He said that he could never love her the way he did before.
Later he said that she was changing. He believed that Jesus might be working on her. I said, “If there is hope for Gina, there might be hope for William.” I also told him, “I’m praying that God will give you a heart to love Gina.”
William told me that he was in love with his girlfriend from church. This would be nice except for a couple of things: one, that he was still married, and two, he did not know what love was. He said that this was true love, but he still thought that love was a feeling.
