Yesterday I had the opportunity to sit down with a couple who wanted me to marry them (we will call them Mike and Mary). I began with my normal questions about their salvation experience and journey. Even though I wasn’t satisfied with their answers and their testimony wasn’t all that convincing, I went ahead with some further counseling
The next thing I explored was their resolve to glorify God with their lives. They both verbally committed that they really wanted to glorify Him, so I told them I was going to ask them to make a very difficult decision.
I took them to 1 Corinthians 6:18 “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.”
I told them that if they wanted to please God, they had to stop living together until they got married. As you can imagine, that was too hard for them. There were just too many obstacles and I was asking for the impossible.
We had to walk through some details of what this separation would look like and how they could make it work. There were some questions they needed to ask and answer for each other and themselves first:
Ø If you cheat with me now, how do I know you won’t cheat on me later?
Ø If you won't do something difficult today, what makes you think you will do something difficult tomorrow, 2 or 5 years down the road?
Ø What about our 2 year old daughter?
Ø Can’t we still live with each other and just not have sex?
Ø What about transportation and housing issues?
Wow! God has the answer for every one of those questions. I want them to glorify God now! I want them to know God has the answer and wants them to succeed even more than I do! I wanted them to see that they probably would cheat on each other if that continued to be a pattern in their lives. They probably would have difficulty making tough decisions if they did not set a pattern for making the tough ones now. I wanted them to be able tell their daughter when she might be tempted later in life how they obeyed God’s command to flee immorality.
I wanted and offered to get them the help they needed to be able to please God in this seemingly impossible situation. I wanted to just say okay, it is too tough, you just go ahead and live together, and after all you have a little girl anyway. However, I just could not compromise biblical principles and I wanted them to experience the fullness of God’s blessing on their relationship.
Well, Mike decided that what I had asked them to do was just impossible. He accused “you have put yourself in God’s place.” He stormed out of my office and went back to the nursery to pick up their daughter.
Mary looked at me, apologized for his behavior and said that she was surprised by his reaction. Not the fact that he did not want to do the difficult thing but storming off like that. I should have and wish I had told her to reconsider marrying him.
It was wonderful to share the gospel with them. I still don’t think they are saved but will continue to pray for them and trust that God will lead them back into our lives.
