Imagine yourself, faced
with a sobbing lady who had come for counselling, having prayed with her, you
listened very patiently to her as she shares her problem with you. All of a
sudden as if to sandwich the weeping, she broke down with these words only: “My
in-laws are dominating.” Surely you will wonder why, how and to what extent is
this allegation true. A proof of the fact that any married couple is prone to
have this problem is that, almost all intending couples are always warned
against the interference of the outsiders especially the in-laws. We would
examine the causes of this problem, its effect on the Christian home and the
remedy for this cancer of the unwise Christian home.
First of all, I wish to dwell on the theme
of this symposium - A balanced Christian home. The triangle for this theme
shows 3 vital steps that must be taken if indeed the Christian home were to be
balanced. These are – LEAVE, CLEAVE, BECOME ONE. They all come from the word of
God in Gen. 2: 24.
LEAVE:
The first step in marriage is that the man should leave his father and mother
and in fact his own family to set up his own home. The danger of not leaving
one’s family was immediately realized by God when he was even going to choose a
nation to be loved by him through Abraham. He was to leave his family and
kindred and home town to a land that God will lead him to. He was not to be
influenced in his decision and association with his new-found bride-groom.
Leaving
calls for physical, spiritual, emotional and psychological maturity to be able
to separate from old association and pioneer a new kind of living entirely. The
problem many people have today is that they marry prematurely and thus had to
depend to a large extent upon their parents. It is imperative that he who
provides for your sustenance dictates your life. A man who has his mother or
father as the only confidant and adviser needs to break this cord of dependency
and realize that he now has a help meet. At this point I wish to suggest that
the family background plays a great contributory part in this problem.
We
shall look at some practical problems:
A
sister once came up with a problem. She has a non-Christian boy-friend that she
has been going on with for quite some time. She knew within herself that she
was not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers but because both parents have
known of their association and are constantly pressurizing the couple to get
married, she felt she would be offending her parent if she fails to marry this
man. Obviously if she fears hurting them and prefers to disobey God instead,
she would always seek to please them to the extent that they will rule her home
for her. Moreover, the non-Christian husband would not believe in the principle
of leaving; they can neither cleave nor become one because they are
incompatible. I will therefore ask our
complainant, “Is the foundation of your marriage sound?”...
No comments:
Post a Comment