IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES (1)

This post has been sitting in my draft for a while as I wavered between to publish or not to publish. The subject matter is dicey and dangling between hard truths, expectations, and reality.

For context, this is a product of my own musings with the Holy Spirit and what He taught me while I was ruminating on the subject matter of Irreconcilable Differences. 

The phrase “irreconcilable differences” has always sounded strangely final to me. Like two people arrived at a courtroom carrying years of prayers, tears, disappointments, sacrifices, betrayals, apologies, and silence, only for everything to be reduced to two words that basically say, “This can no longer work.”

And maybe that language makes sense legally. Maybe the courts need categories. But spiritually? Especially for Christians? I’ve wrestled with it.

Because Christianity, at its core, is a faith built on reconciliation.

Not avoidance. Not cancellation. Reconciliation.

We preach a Gospel where God keeps pursuing deeply flawed people who repeatedly fail Him. Peter denied Christ publicly. David abused power terribly. Paul persecuted Christians. Yet the entire Christian story insists that no human being is too damaged, too sinful, too far gone for redemption. We say this confidently every Sunday. We sing about mercy like we actually believe it reaches the worst parts of people.

Then marriage gets hard, and suddenly we start speaking a different language.

“I just can’t do this anymore.”
“We grew apart.”
“We’re incompatible.”
“Irreconcilable differences.”

For clarity, I am not pretending every marriage problem is minor. Some situations involve deep betrayal, abuse, addiction, manipulation, chronic dishonesty, emotional cruelty. Real wounds. Serious damage. I’ve seen marriages where two people sit in the same room, and you can almost feel the exhaustion hanging in the air. Years of unresolved hurt can turn love into survival mode. So I’m not speaking from a place of ignorance.

But I do think modern culture has quietly lowered our threshold for perseverance.

That part is hard to ignore.

We now live in a time where personal happiness often sits at the center of every decision.

Phrases like "Life is selfish", "Do what makes you happy"... sound like great wisdom.

If something becomes emotionally difficult for too long, people immediately start asking whether they should leave rather than asking what redemption might require.  Sometimes we’ve absorbed the world’s language so completely that covenant now sounds negotiable depending on the emotional weather.

Yet Scripture keeps dragging us back to reconciliation.

Not because reconciliation is easy. It isn’t. Sometimes it’s humiliating. Sometimes it demands that pride die first. Sometimes it means sitting across from someone who wounded you deeply and choosing, slowly and painfully, to rebuild what both of you helped damage.

That is hard work. Very hard work.

The post is getting long and will be concluded tomorrow.

What are your thoughts?

Welcome to June. Happy New Month.

Book recommendation: Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas.