Devotion 9 – Seeking Godly Counsel
Many young people marry because of guilt and commitment due to the sin of fornication. One should not marry just because you had sex with him or her. Letting an act of sin to lead you into a lifetime of foolishness does not honour God.
Marriage is not just about us, it’s about the kingdom of God, it’s is about our future generations. Punishing ourselves by going through an unwise marriage is blindness to God’s grace and mercy and a potential act of cruelty toward our future children.
Another common mistake people make in choosing to marry is self-pity. Do not make the mistake of a lifetime by marrying a person whom we know is not a suitable match, just because we feel sorry for ourselves, or are afraid of loneliness or are trying to escape a dysfunctional family or for any other practical reason. Do not take a bad situation and make it worse.
Getting married will not necessarily make you happier or solve your loneliness; getting married simply makes you…married. There are a lot of people out there who are married yet lonely and miserable.
Unfortunately, unmarried people are often reluctant to end these dysfunctional partnerships. They may feel they’ve invested too much time in the relationship or that they won’t be able to find someone new. Some acknowledge still loving their partners in spite of their unacceptable actions.
This is unhealthy, risky and short-sighted thinking. Agreeing to married to someone for fifty years because you have been in a frustrating relationship for five years make no sense. At some point, you have to learn to cut your losses. One should be careful of developing a gambler mind-set in a relationship (they keep gambling thinking that they can win back what they lose). If you make a foolish decision to stay in an unwise relationship, do not then made a second catastrophic foolish decision of cementing the relationship.
Do not be manipulated by fear and sympathy
“I am scared of what the person might do if we break up…”. You might be afraid that the person will hurt you, or himself or herself because of your decision. However, either response only highlights the person’s unsuitability as a marriage partner. Do you want to live in fear and be manipulated for the rest of your life?
This is the time to get free and not to maintain the nightmare and certainly not to create children who will share your nightmare. You would be feeding the illness and not curing it.
It’s never your fault if someone hurts himself or herself because you initiate a breakup if you do so with integrity and compassion. You’re not responsible for his or her emotions.
Therefore, it is vitally important to keep in mind that this isn’t an opportune time for ministry. Don’t feel you need to rescue your partner. The breakup will undoubtedly cause pain for your partner. You can’t prevent that from happening.
You must learn to let go as you we will be too enmeshed in the relationship to think objectively or to give the right counsel. And worse, the other party might misinterpret your actions and harbour false hope in the relationship. So, don’t try to be friends. You probably won’t have a pleasant relationship following the breakup. There will be anger and hurt feelings that need to heal. Once the emotional dust has settled, you may be able to rescue the friendship. But that shouldn’t be your immediate goal.
Principles of Seeking Counsel
Prov.15:22 – “Without counsel, plans go awry, But, in the multitude of counsellors, they are established.”
Psychologists liken infatuation to an addiction. Neurochemically speaking, the two are very similar - when romantic partners who are intensely in love are exposed to photographs of their beloved, the regions that become activated are the same regions that are activated in addicts when they are craving cocaine.
Thus, “falling in love” at the beginning of a relationship is an illness. Our brain releases a kind of hormone that causes us to be “intoxicated” and gets us “under the influence of love”, just like people who are under the influence of alcohol, drugs, etc. This syndrome causes us to lose the ability to see reality clearly. Love may not be literally blind, but it does make us incapable from our logical reasoning. That means we are extremely vulnerable.
Most of us are moved by feelings rather than by wisdom. That is we tend to think with our ‘heart’ rather than our mind. Hence, it is vitally important for us to recognise that we need the eyes of our parents, spiritual leaders, and godly friends to help us see clearly, analyse and process with us our feelings.
Our brain focuses on two tasks during infatuation: getting that person and keeping him or her. As a result, it incapacitates us from being able to make wise evaluations. And no matter how old we are, when infatuation hits us, we are as foolish as any teenager experiencing his/her first crush. Our heart, when it’s engaged, can dislodge the brain or shut down the mind to think rationally.
Timing for Counsel
The best time to seek counsel is before you consider a relationship, not after. Unfortunately, marriage counselling is normally part of a program for couples who are already entering marriage, and conducted as part of wedding planning, lumped together with booking of hotel venue for wedding dinner, etc. If we truly want to glorify God in every aspect of our lives, we need to be growing into Christ-likeness even in our courtship. A good relationship helps us to grow into our destiny.