Question
Gramps,
Why do they tell us not to delay marriage for school? The average person received a Bachelor’s is 24.8. That is not an old age to get married
Gail
Answer
Gail,
The scriptures tell us that God’s ways are not our ways and that His thoughts are not our thoughts. The scriptures also tell us that the purpose of this life is to see if we will do all things the Lord commands. God has a plan for us… but we do not often understand how it is working. We should also have a plan for ourselves. Ideally these plans should be the same. Realistically they are not because we have a hard time understanding God’s plan. We should be striving to bring our plan into harmony with God’s. God however allows us to follow our own plan if we so desire.
When it comes to planning we tend to compartmentalize. We tend to think ‘I am going to school, when I am done with learning, then I will start work on building a marriage. Then when I have a strong marriage then I will have kids.’ The problem is God could have different plans for us and our life is not compartmentalized… We should never stop learning… we should never stop trying to strengthen our marriage, we should never stop being parents (once we start) and we should always be following God as best we can.
This means the boundaries of our personal plans are very arbitrary. We could easily find reasons to extend them. Those who tell you “Not to delay” understand this. They also understand just how important finding the right person, and marrying them in the right way can be to our mortal and eternal happiness. On of the most tragic things that can happen is for a person to miss that because of some arbitrary self imposed restriction on timing.
The important thing is to be open to God’s plan and changing yours to fit.
So what you do is you prayerfully make your plan. Then once you feel you have a plan that God approves of do do it… all the while be looking for any adjustments or detours or refinement that God might send your way. Because things rarely go according to our plan, and we rarely fully understand God’s.
So go to school, pursue your education but be open to the idea that God might have the right person ready for you before you think you are ready for them (clearly God thinks you are). Do not limit your willingness consider if a person is the right one, just because it does not fit your timing. Consider them anyways. Take that consideration to the Lord to determine if an adjustment to your understanding of his plan is now necessary.
Discovering the Lord’s will is key. This also means do not go to the opposite extreme. Do not take instructions to “Not delay” as a reason to thoughtlessly jump at the very first chance. Always prayerfully consider your options, which may mean sometimes you say no. Following God is never a delay, even if it might look like so to everyone else.
Gramps
