Advice

[Faith17]

How can someone handle parental opposition with reference to God's leading when it comes to the issue of marriage? Can't someone just go ahead and marry someone he/she believe Is of God for him/her regardless of parental consent.  

[missmuffet]

10 minutes ago, Faith17 said:

How can someone handle parental opposition with reference to God's leading when it comes to the issue of marriage? Can't someone just go ahead and marry someone he/she believe Is of God for him/her regardless of parental consent.  

How old are you?

[BeauJangles]

3 minutes ago, Faith17 said:

How can someone handle parental opposition with reference to God's leading when it comes to the issue of marriage? Can't someone just go ahead and marry someone he/she believe Is of God for him/her regardless of parental consent.  

A few things to consider that weren't mentioned in your post, Faith. If you feel a need for parental consent, or their blessing in other words, it gives me the impression that you might be either very young, or your parents are very controlling concerning getting married in general. Could this be the case, in either possibilities? I would also hope for the two of you to be equally yoked, spiritually, morally, and with general compatibility as a prospective couple. That being, is he born again as you are, and do the two of you see similar beliefs, doctrinally speaking? Just curious. God bless. 

Shalom, 

David/BeauJangles

[Justin Adams]

It is a seemingly good question, but underlying it might be an issue of reverence for ones parents, assuming they are of a negative stance regarding this. The Lord loves the 'systems' He has created and likes us to follow the authority structure those rules encompass.

We are to reverence our parents and their directives. But today, being a rebel is seen as a badge of courage. Is it more courageous to follow the Lord or the thoughts and intents of our hearts?

Interesting questions that will set us on our road to the future the Lord has planned. Thus I caution you to tread carefully.

[GandalfTheWise]

4 hours ago, Faith17 said:

How can someone handle parental opposition with reference to God's leading when it comes to the issue of marriage? Can't someone just go ahead and marry someone he/she believe Is of God for him/her regardless of parental consent.  

Marriage will affect your life deeply and intrusively.  It can be for good or bad depending on who you marry.   To put it bluntly, it can often be extremely difficult to sort God's leading from our own desires on this issue.   I've seen Christians make decisions and get into marriages and relationships that ended with much emotional and spiritual damage and fallout.  In most of those cases, they ignored abundant red flags that were waving in the wind.   Sometimes our friends and family can see things about a person that we are blind to.   Marriage doesn't fix problems in a person; it amplifies them.  Sometimes part of God's guidance in such decisions comes from the observations of others.  I've heard testimonies that have gone both ways.  I've known Christians who deeply regretted not listening to friends and family and spent many years or decades in a terrible situation of their own making.  I've known Christians who married someone their family didn't initially approve of but things worked out. I will have to say that the number of testimonies where it didn't work out does outnumber the one where it did.  Often friends and family see red flags about a person that we are blind to and they are God's way of pointing this out to us.

I've been married for over 30 years.  My entire family are still on all on their first marriages except one grandparent remarried after widowhood at a young age.  Our two daughters married into families with a similar background.  The pastor doing our first daughter's wedding commented on how rare it had become for the family picture to include all sets of parents and grandparents being in their first marriages.  I've observed many decades long marriages up close.   I can tell you that marriage is not about the wedding, the honeymoon, or even the first few years.  It is about 5 to 10 to 20 years in when you have both grown and changed and your marriage has to change to grow with it.  There are ups and downs for each of you and there are times when both of your downs happens at the same time.

Marriage goes through three general stages, infatuation, disillusionment, and contentment.  You start off with deep feelings of passion and often cannot see the other person clearly.  After some number of years, you start to really see them clearly and you start to become disillusioned and the feelings of passion and infatuation have subsided.  For better or worse, you are now left with the real person you married.  This is where many marriages end.  Then, if you have married a person of integrity and character and you are committed to each other, you move forward making a life together and have a satisfaction and contentment and level of comfort with each other that you are partners for life.

One of the things I observed is that you both are marrying the other's family and friends.  I had little clue how important that was until later in life when many of my peers talked about how much they hated visiting family for holidays.  In my wife's family, there is little self-inflicted drama.  Her family has had its share of struggles, but they've not taken it out on each other.  If there are issues and contentions before a marriage, there is a much better chance that there will be afterwards.   This is something that should be if at all possible addressed before hand.

God gives us direction and leading in many different ways and methods.  One of these is definitely our conscience and guidance of our heart.  However, for a decision as weighty and permanent as marriage, God usually confirms our choice of partner in various ways often including a sense of unity among friends and family (on both sides!) that this is a good match.  There are some unhealthy domineering parents who shouldn't be listened to, but if one's parents and family are relatively normal, this is something not easily dismissed.

 

[Billiards Ball]

7 hours ago, Faith17 said:

How can someone handle parental opposition with reference to God's leading when it comes to the issue of marriage? Can't someone just go ahead and marry someone he/she believe Is of God for him/her regardless of parental consent.  

Are your parents born again believers, giving wise counsel, or is that you are saved and they aren't?

One leaves one's parents chief authority to be married (Genesis 2:24) as ordained by Jesus. However, there's a way to communicate your wishes to your parents that honors and blesses them, and keeps the peace.

[simplejeff]

9 hours ago, Faith17 said:

How can someone handle parental opposition with reference to God's leading when it comes to the issue of marriage? Can't someone just go ahead and marry someone he/she believe Is of God for him/her regardless of parental consent.  

"Hear this very good news, JESUS CHRIST said in (Matthew 11:28-30)28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” "

HONOR your father and your mother, THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH THEE,  ........ 

the first commandment with promise.