Ask Pastor Mike Live

Guest (Male): Help me, Dr. Lee. There's a handle for you. Pastor Mike, I'm a new believer and the only one in my family. My parents never mentioned Jesus once my whole life. Does my fiancé have to wait for them to bless our marriage before the wedding?

Focal Point Ministries: No, the short answer is no. It is great for the sake of your family peace if you have the blessing of your in-laws. That's great, or your parents. But the reality is your parents are operating on a whole different value system than you are as a Christian under the lordship of Christ.

I have to deal with this all the time as a pastor dealing with issues like solemnizing marriage covenants. I would tell you that I would have no problem standing up before a congregation solemnizing a relationship where there was a set of parents that never signed off on it, that never got on board. It would have to be a situation like the one you're describing where the parents have no grid, no value grid that's based in scripture, and they're saying no for silly reasons.

What I would want for you, though, Lee, if I can call you that, is that you would have some people that are like parents, some godly older people that could look at your relationship and could give it a thumbs up. The kind of thumbs up that would say, "Yeah, I think your fiancé is just the right kind of person here, and I think this is going to be a good marriage." There's victory in the abundance of counselors. Be sure you get the counsel and the input. It would be nice to get the thumbs up from outsiders, not just two people that are romantically in love, and that will help a great deal.

You want to be as obedient as possible. I get that. You make your life easier if you can get even non-Christian in-laws or, in your case, non-Christian parents to like your fiancé and give them a thumbs up. But here's the deal: if not, it doesn't mean that it's wrong. It just means that you don't have the kind of blessing that would make your future easier. Remember this: there are so many things, if you run the timetable forward, where you're going to want your parents on board. Hopefully, you're going to have kids one day. They're going to be grandparents and babysitting and all the rest. All I'm telling you is it would be good if you could secure that.

I had a situation not long ago with a young couple in our church, and I just kept telling this person to just keep trying to get your future spouse's in-laws on board. If we have to postpone this, let's postpone it for a while. But I wasn't going to postpone it indefinitely. I wasn't going to advise that he postpone it indefinitely because you may not ever get that. I can't say no to what is right before me as something allowable by God.

God calls it in 1 Corinthians 7 a blessing from God. I'm not going to wait on that until some non-Christians, even if I'm related to them genetically, give me a thumbs up. I'd like it. It's good to get it. If you can't get it, make sure there are others that will give you that who are godly and wise, and move forward.