Simply Jesus - Reality or Ideals

By Guest Blogger - John Dangana

Mark 10

"Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" (Mark 10:2)

Don’t we all love ideals. We say things like, ‘This is the way it should be’. We kick and scream, push and shove, strive and strain to attain the ideals. Great! The problem is, we don’t always attain ideals. We constantly seem to fall short. It’s even worse when we see others falling short; it reflects our own imperfection which we hate!

God created marriage to last a lifetime. Our selfishness and stubbornness may lead to divorce. Moses allowed divorce, contrary to God’s ideal. The reality was that Moses chose the lesser ‘evil’. Permit divorce or let the couple live together with more sinister consequence?

The reality is no one can live up to God’s ideals. I constantly struggle with loving myself, not to mention my wife (who’s my closest neighbour). And God? Isn’t he a figment of my imagination? And Church? Is that not just a crowd that gathers on a Sunday and couldn’t give a fig about you on a Monday? Forgiveness – Doesn’t it only seem to come up when you’re the offended party?

Is it reality or ideals or reality and ideal?