I’d like to get into the second reason I believe that lead to divorce. I have termed this, “Not Counting the Cost.” Any big decision takes thought, consideration, counsel and prayer. This is true for choosing careers, planning a career change, moving or planning a trip. Think of the last vacation you planned. Didn’t you think about dates, coordinate potential dates with work obligations, and how you being out of town would affect those around you?

We spend so much time and effort planning a vacation and a career but our society as a whole spends less time considering the important decision of a marriage. A decision that makes two people united; two people “won”, a decision that has implications for the rest of our lives, a decision that affects all other decisions afterwards, is made with less thought and consideration than choosing what pair of shoes one should buy.

Don’t believe me? Ok, after I said “I do,” decisions of what I was doing after work, on the weekends, or where we should move were made not by me alone but by discussion of two who became “won.” Why? My spouse became part of my flesh and my body part of hers. What happens to my kidneys will ultimately affect other body systems. A marriage is no different. We are now interdependent.

With the backdrop of how two independent bodies start functioning as one, we can now look at how ignoring this can lead to system failure. Imagine for a minute an athlete training for a team fitness event such as a doubles tennis tournament, a team crossfit competition or a soccer tournament. Although these are very different events, if the athlete preparing for his/her respective event ignores proper nutrition, his/her body will struggle. If hydration several days before the event is lacking, performance during the event will suffer. In short, if person training for these events does not consider the amount of training required, the proper amount of rest, the sacrifice that is needed to excel and compete against other elite athletes, he/she will come up short, get injured or exhibit system failure. In other words, not counting the cost of what preparation it takes to perform well will obviously affect the team’s ability to excel.

The same can be said of a marriage where failure to consider the give and take, the sacrifice, and the team work it takes for two to become “won,” will severely affect the effectiveness of the union. Although not a passage about marriage, in Luke 14, Jesus talked about the cost of becoming a disciple, which can have an application for considering the cost of a marriage. In verse 28-30, Luke wrote, “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’?”

Likewise, ladies and gentleman, if we don’t sit down and count the cost of what it means to sacrifice, what it means to love, what it means to become “won”, there will be a shaky foundation which will be difficult to last the tests of a marriage.