The Menace of Domestic Violence 2

I thank God for another beautiful opportunity to share the word of God with you. I hope and pray that we are ready for a very wonderful Christmas, as long as you have your mind stayed on God, your expectation and faith in God will not be in vain. I have come to realize and know for sure that God is not held by time and He is never too early nor too late, He is always just right on time.

Today I will be sharing a continuation of what I discussed yesterday on domestic violence. A friend who read my post yesterday asked me this question: “Should a woman leave a man for being victim of physical abuse and should a man leave a woman for being victim of physical abuse?” This will be the question I will be answering via today’s post and I pray the Lord will reach many hearts today through this post and make right a lot of wrong that we see and experience in marriages today.

The answer to this question will depend on the fighting spirit and the will to succeed in marriage of the couples, especially the one who is the victim. When I say the fighting spirit, I do not mean the ability to fight your spouse and win, but your will to fight the true enemy of your marriage who is also the enemy of your destiny. Leaving your spouse who is violent is like dealing with a problem from the top rather than from the root. There is a force that makes him or her become a violent person and that force is what needs to be fought and eliminated.

A violent man or woman is one who needs help; if you as a wife are married to a violent man, you need to appreciate that your husband needs help and you are the suitable helper that God has assigned to him. Though you are at the receiving end of his feast and anger, yet you are his suitable helper in all problems in his life including his violence. When you want to fight in your marriage, you will not be fighting to win when you exert your energy at fighting your husband. But you will be fighting the real battle when you confront the forces of darkness that has taken refuge in the life of your husband and are ruling his life. When you fight this battle against the forces of darkness in his life and you fight with the full armor of God and you fight with your life of obedience to the word of God, you are sure to win. You are winning and with the victory comes a peaceful and joyful marriage, and then you would have depopulated the kingdom of darkness by one candidate and that candidate is your spouse. You would have won a soul for Christ.

And the same goes for having a violent woman for a wife. Dealing with her will just be touching the tip of the problem, but dealing with the forces that transforms her into an aggressive personality is dealing with the root of the problem. While dealing with the root of the problem, all that you wife needs from you is love. True love that will touch the core of her being and turn her around inside out; the Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Matthew 19:8

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.

1 Corinthians 7:10-11

To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from the husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

I will not say that a wife who is a victim of an abusive marriage should remain in that marriage if she does not have the will to fight for the turnaround of her marriage. If you ask me if she has the ability to turn things around, I will say yes, because if not the Lord will put a stop to that marriage Himself. But it’s not a question of the ability, but a question of will power. Jesus said that divorce was permitted by Moses because the heart of men where hard. So you will agree with me that it’s not a question of ability but of will power. And this is also the case with a man who is a victim of an abusive marriage.

Paul said that if you have to leave your husband, then you must remain unmarried or still be reconciled to that same husband, and that the husband must not divorce his wife. So if you consider yourself as a victim of domestic violence and decides to take a bow from the marriage, then you cannot go ahead to marry another man. You will have to remain unmarried for the rest of your life. And for the man, you are not permitted to even take a bow.

Can you then say that God is unfair with this strict instruction? Well God knows why He is making His rules so. It’s because He knows that taking a bow is not the best option for you and He knows you have the ability to fight it out and win, you now have to work on your will power because all you need to win are within your reach, in fact they have already been made available to you.

But I will not say a man or woman who is a victim of domestic violence or abusive marriage should remain in that marriage if they don’t have the will to fight the key battle and obtain victory. But that leaves them with the rule of remaining unmarried if they want to follow God's rules and His ways and pattern for their lives.