Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Judges 11-12

On December 23, 1994, I vowed before God and 150 some witnesses, to love and cherish my husband until parted by death. With our 30th wedding anniversary quickly approaching, I’m so thankful that the Lord has given us both the strength to keep that vow.

Entering into the covenant of marriage is not something to be done lightly. If you are considering marriage yourself, please think seriously before vowing yourself to be faithful to another until death. Like Ecclesiastes 5:2 says, “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth.”

• Pray and seek wisdom from the Lord.
• Seek counsel from believing friends.
• Ask deep questions of your future spouse, making certain that they are committed followers of Jesus Christ before you enter into such a covenant with them.

When I started pondering this topic of keeping a difficult wedding vow, I started thinking about tough questions like these:

But, what if a husband is abusing his wife or his children? Or what if he is actively involved in an adulterous relationship and refuses to cut it off despite his wife’s pleas? Or what if he is destroying his family, squandering his health and his money on drugs or gambling? Would the Lord want a woman to remain with that kind of man in order to keep her marriage vows?

Charles Spurgeon said in his sermon titled, Retreat Impossible, “In Jephthah’s case there were good reasons for going back. He had made a rash vow, and such things are much better broken than kept…. If you have come under a rash vow, you must not dare to keep it. You ought to go before God and repent that you have made a vow which involves sin; but as to keeping the sinful vow, that were to add sin to sin.”

Do Spurgeon’s words apply to the marriage vows? Is it adding sin to sin to stay with an abusive spouse in order to keep your wedding vows or is it not? I don’t have the answers to these questions, but I’m sure thinking about them. I want my thoughts to be God’s thoughts, rooted in the character of God and the Holy Scriptures.

Heavenly Father, I lift up my sisters who find themselves in an abusive marriage. Please protect them and guide them. Protect their children. Protect their minds, hearts, and bodies. Help them to love their neighbor as themselves and do good to their enemies. Show them the way of escape that You have for them. I don’t have all the answers, but You do. Show us the way, Lord. In the Name of Jesus Christ, the perfect, sinless Lamb, we pray. Amen.