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Do you like stylish clothes? I do too. However, I don’t often think about clothes as being violent, even the styles I don’t like! However, there is something that covers our clothes with violence. Let’s consider these verses from the last book in the Old Testament.

Malachi 2:15b-16
So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

Malachi paints a vivid word picture. A husband who stops loving his wife and divorces her “covers his garment with violence.” It’s as if he takes a bottle of viciousness and pours it all over himself. What a picture! That’s why God hates divorce. Well, that and other factors.

God hates divorce for many reasons. He puts a man and woman together, and what he brings together, we should not separate. He expects husbands and wives to keep their vows. And he knows how divorce affects children. Check out these alarming stats on fatherlessness from Ed Glover at Urban Impact. The statistics speak to more than just divorce; they demonstrate the impact on children with an absent father.

• Fatherless children are five times more likely to be poor.
• 90% of homeless and runaway children are fatherless.
• 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes.
• 75% of adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes.
• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes.
• 71% of teen pregnancies are girls from fatherless homes.

Children need their fathers for more than just weekend visits. They don’t need fathers who have poured out violence on their clothes.

Lord, fix these statistics in our minds so we, as fathers, commit to staying with our families. In Jesus’ name. Amen.