Balancing The Line

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” “What did Moses command you?” he replied. They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Mark 10:2-9 NIV

The Pharisees were always testing Jesus with controversial questions, trying to trip him up and discredit him in the eyes of the people. There were two very strong opinions within the religious community of Jesus’ day regarding the criteria for getting a divorce, and the Pharisees were hoping to riddle Jesus’ teaching with controversy.  They wanted to debate the reasons God allows divorce, but instead, Jesus focused on God’s design for marriage.

Why is it that our human nature always leads us to walk as close to the line as possible? Instead of focusing on all that God has for us, we tend to focus on just how far we can get away from His plan and still have His approval. Perhaps our hearts are just as hard as those of the Jews when Moses wrote that part of the law.

I can’t help but wonder how much more fulfilled we’d be if we focused more on God’s perfect plan for us, pursuing that with all our hearts, and less on those things God permits us to get away with.