Marriage God’s way:
A very strong part of repentance is turning from the old life and being strong enough to deal with those who try to take us back to the past, “we must deny them and stay strong, or be strong enough to move on and be with people who understand us.” This is all a part of spiritual change and how we act towards those of the past will have a big effect on our future.
During our lives we gain attachments to people, and sometimes we believe that those attachments are good and healthy but they are not. Many of us maintain relationships with people that continually cause us unhappiness or misery but we have such an attachment (and it may not even be love, but we may feel that it is love) to those people that we don’t want to break free. Jesus is clear who our family should be here:
Matthew Chapter 12, verses 48-50: …Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
For example with marriage. If you were a people-pleaser and a mummy’s girl then God will try to break that slavery attachment that you have with your mother. Why?
Because the mother will call her daughter (the wife) all the time on the phone (manipulator types are addicted to their controlling their victims lives, or some just can’t control their want to interfere all the time), the mother will tell her what to do (and often it is the opposite to the wife’s plans with her husband), and the domineering mother will have a far too greater influence on their marriage and in many cases have caused the split-up. There is nothing that is so miserable for a husband or wife as an interfering mother-in-law or father-in-law.
God’s plan is that we think for ourselves. When the poor suffering husband complains about the wife’s mother, the daughter is horrified that he does not have the same adoration or submissiveness that she has for her mother. The daughter cannot understand why the husband does not let the mother rule their life together. To the daughter who has been groomed to love and accept all that her mother’s ways, her mother is fantastic and has a knowledge of everything, and only wants the best for her treasured daughter and her new marriage etc. The reality is that the daughter is a slave to her mothers will, opinions, guidance and demands, and that is an ingredient that will destroy the strongest love in a marriage.
It becomes a true battle for the husband to try to wrestle his wife and marriage away from a domineering mother-in-law. But it is a battle that the husband and wife should never have to fight. That is why God offers us repentance, and a new life of courage. Please remember that God does not wave a wand over you to give you courage. You have to become courageous from trial and error, from learning and understanding, from wisdom and finally breaking free from your true tormentors.
When the marriage is destroyed that is new confirmation to the mother that she is the god in that daughters life, she rules her whole existence, and that is what God is trying to free the daughter from. God wants the daughter to think for herself, and to love her husband with all her heart and soul as well as love their future children.
As the marriage is falling apart the daughter, in her new found stress and misunderstanding of her husbands intentions, will seek in confused desperation (as she always has done) guidance and help from her mother who has always been there for her. And her mother will put in the finishing touches to destroy the marriage convincing the daughter that “the daughter made a mistake” and that mother is always right. And with that the daughter will shamefully bow her head and continue to allow her mother to rule her life completely. This daughter will never find happiness in marriage. The husband goes away bitter, hurt, and may react in anger and violence because he was so incredibly frustrated in his wife’s choosing the mother over him.
Many of us know the misery of being married when one of the mothers tries to interfere with the marriage all the time. For us guys it is like, we make plans with our wife and all is well, until the wife’s mother rings up and wants the daughter’s time, and the wife still having that attachment of weakness to her mother drops everything and runs to do her mothers bidding, ruining all the families plans for that day, and over and over this happens. Mummies boys are just as bad, and this is misery for a new marriage. This always keeps the husband and children guessing and in stress and never ever feeling confident about the wife or any plans that they make.
In one case I know of the daughter adored her father and whenever he was broke he would ring her up for money and she would withdraw some money from the bank that her husbands wages went into and she would give it to her father – this constantly kept the family poor. She would use the family money to buy her parents gifts, pay their bills, and buy them food if they wanted it (Note I said wanted, not needed), put petrol in their car etc. This daughter was addicted to the will of the father. He always got his way and that was his was of showing the husband that the father was still number 1 in the daughters eyes, (the father was insecure and wanted reassurance that he was loved – he wasn’t poor in reality) and that when he made a demand of the daughter she did as she was bid as is what all slaves do. It guaranteed that the daughters marriage was destroyed. Daddy first, husband second… a recipe for disaster.
Where marriage is concerned God is clear that the two break away from their family to start their own family, and this means to break away from the controlling influence of mother, father, brothers and sisters ,auntie’s and uncles etc.
The two married will be as one, a new hope, a new adventure on their own as one.
Genesis Chapter 2, verse 24:
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
So you may find that God is trying to help you have the courage to deny family influence on your life and future.
Repentance means turning away from all of the past so that “All things become new”, otherwise your old attachments will ruin your new future. Let go, Let God!
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
20th of November, 2014.
20th of November, 2014.
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