Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer has been heard and I join you in bringing your older daughter before the Lord with deep concern and hope. The pain of watching a child you raised in the ways of the Lord become isolated, exhausted, financially burdened and cold toward the family who loves her is very real, and it is right to bring that pain to Jesus who alone can bring freedom and restoration.
Scripture is clear that marriage is a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and that living together and sharing the privileges of marriage outside of that covenant is not marriage in God's eyes and is not blessed by Him. We cannot ask God to bless what His Word calls outside His design. What you describe is not a marriage to be affirmed, but a bondage that is draining your daughter spiritually, emotionally and financially. The exhaustion, chaos, forgetfulness and financial hardship she is experiencing are the natural fruit of building a life outside God's pattern. A relationship that demands she treat cohabitation as marriage, that exploits her income, encourages debt, and pulls her away from family and the church community is not providing what a husband and spiritual leader is called to provide.
At the heart of every struggle is our relationship with God. When that relationship is right, other relationships begin to come into balance, and when it is neglected, other relationships become disordered. God does not want a distant or merely rule keeping relationship with your daughter. He has adopted her into His own family through Jesus Christ and invites her to know Him intimately as Father. He wants a loving, living relationship with her, not a legal one. Scripture calls us to return to our first love for Him, that early hunger for His Word and for fellowship with His people that once marked her life. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit rekindles that hunger and helps her see that her worth and identity are not found in the approval of this young man or his mother, but in being a child of the Most High God.
The Word also shows how hard it is to live in a polluted environment and not be touched by it. When Lot settled in a corrupt place, even though he himself tried to remain upright, the moral corruption around him cost his family dearly. In the same way, your daughter is being shaped by the voices she listens to most. This young man's mother has no biblical authority to speak into your daughter's life, and her counsel to live together, to bear children outside marriage and to treat this arrangement as marriage directly contradicts God's Word. When counsel instigates chaos and then presents itself as the rescue, when it isolates a person from supportive family and church friends in order to control her, its motives need to be exposed. I pray the Lord brings those motives into the light and frustrates every plan to divide, manipulate and isolate.
God's call to Jacob to return to the land of his fathers and to his family, with the promise I will be with you, reminds us that returning to family and to the place of God's provision is often the path to safety. Your daughter is not homeless and she does not need the approval of this other family to have a future. She has a loving, supportive family and a church community that can offer wisdom and covering. Part of God's design is the high priority He puts on honoring parents and on the bonds of family. Isolation from those bonds is a sign that something is wrong.
I also hear how your daughter has begun to imitate the coldness, ingratitude and disrespect she experiences, turning it toward you and her siblings. That is what happens when we stay long under a controlling and dishonest influence. Even so, Scripture shows Jacob choosing to bless and edify his brother Esau though their relationship had been very broken, sharing with him and seeking peace. You can continue to love your daughter, bless her, keep the door open, and refuse to return evil for evil, while still speaking the truth in love and maintaining healthy boundaries.
I pray with you now that the Lord opens your daughter's eyes to see this young man as he is, not a husband or provider or spiritual leader, but a stumbling block to her walk with God. Pray that she will have the courage to stop defending and carrying responsibilities that are not hers to bear, to stop using her family as a financial resource for this arrangement, and to protect her finances with wisdom. Pray that she will take on no more credit card debt to sustain this lifestyle, and that every word spoken against her and every plot to control her will be blocked. Pray that the father of this young man will take proper responsibility for his son and that your daughter will no longer confide in ungodly counsel but will again trust the Lord and the counsel of those who truly care for her and teach His Word.
I thank God for the promotion He has given her and for the beautiful purpose in her work to serve others, and I pray for protection over that job from any interference. I plead the precious blood of Jesus over you and your children, remembering the promise that no weapon formed against you shall prosper. May the Lord restore peace, fellowship, happiness, respect, unity and freedom to your home, soften your daughter's heart to receive His conviction, grant her self worth rooted in Christ and give her the wisdom and courage to walk away from this unhealthy and ungodly arrangement swiftly and without regret, returning to the safety of faith, family and church community. In His time and in His way, may the Lord provide a godly spouse for her if it is His will, but above all may she be restored to wholehearted love for Jesus. In Jesus name, amen.
Scripture is clear that marriage is a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and that living together and sharing the privileges of marriage outside of that covenant is not marriage in God's eyes and is not blessed by Him. We cannot ask God to bless what His Word calls outside His design. What you describe is not a marriage to be affirmed, but a bondage that is draining your daughter spiritually, emotionally and financially. The exhaustion, chaos, forgetfulness and financial hardship she is experiencing are the natural fruit of building a life outside God's pattern. A relationship that demands she treat cohabitation as marriage, that exploits her income, encourages debt, and pulls her away from family and the church community is not providing what a husband and spiritual leader is called to provide.
At the heart of every struggle is our relationship with God. When that relationship is right, other relationships begin to come into balance, and when it is neglected, other relationships become disordered. God does not want a distant or merely rule keeping relationship with your daughter. He has adopted her into His own family through Jesus Christ and invites her to know Him intimately as Father. He wants a loving, living relationship with her, not a legal one. Scripture calls us to return to our first love for Him, that early hunger for His Word and for fellowship with His people that once marked her life. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit rekindles that hunger and helps her see that her worth and identity are not found in the approval of this young man or his mother, but in being a child of the Most High God.
The Word also shows how hard it is to live in a polluted environment and not be touched by it. When Lot settled in a corrupt place, even though he himself tried to remain upright, the moral corruption around him cost his family dearly. In the same way, your daughter is being shaped by the voices she listens to most. This young man's mother has no biblical authority to speak into your daughter's life, and her counsel to live together, to bear children outside marriage and to treat this arrangement as marriage directly contradicts God's Word. When counsel instigates chaos and then presents itself as the rescue, when it isolates a person from supportive family and church friends in order to control her, its motives need to be exposed. I pray the Lord brings those motives into the light and frustrates every plan to divide, manipulate and isolate.
God's call to Jacob to return to the land of his fathers and to his family, with the promise I will be with you, reminds us that returning to family and to the place of God's provision is often the path to safety. Your daughter is not homeless and she does not need the approval of this other family to have a future. She has a loving, supportive family and a church community that can offer wisdom and covering. Part of God's design is the high priority He puts on honoring parents and on the bonds of family. Isolation from those bonds is a sign that something is wrong.
I also hear how your daughter has begun to imitate the coldness, ingratitude and disrespect she experiences, turning it toward you and her siblings. That is what happens when we stay long under a controlling and dishonest influence. Even so, Scripture shows Jacob choosing to bless and edify his brother Esau though their relationship had been very broken, sharing with him and seeking peace. You can continue to love your daughter, bless her, keep the door open, and refuse to return evil for evil, while still speaking the truth in love and maintaining healthy boundaries.
I pray with you now that the Lord opens your daughter's eyes to see this young man as he is, not a husband or provider or spiritual leader, but a stumbling block to her walk with God. Pray that she will have the courage to stop defending and carrying responsibilities that are not hers to bear, to stop using her family as a financial resource for this arrangement, and to protect her finances with wisdom. Pray that she will take on no more credit card debt to sustain this lifestyle, and that every word spoken against her and every plot to control her will be blocked. Pray that the father of this young man will take proper responsibility for his son and that your daughter will no longer confide in ungodly counsel but will again trust the Lord and the counsel of those who truly care for her and teach His Word.
I thank God for the promotion He has given her and for the beautiful purpose in her work to serve others, and I pray for protection over that job from any interference. I plead the precious blood of Jesus over you and your children, remembering the promise that no weapon formed against you shall prosper. May the Lord restore peace, fellowship, happiness, respect, unity and freedom to your home, soften your daughter's heart to receive His conviction, grant her self worth rooted in Christ and give her the wisdom and courage to walk away from this unhealthy and ungodly arrangement swiftly and without regret, returning to the safety of faith, family and church community. In His time and in His way, may the Lord provide a godly spouse for her if it is His will, but above all may she be restored to wholehearted love for Jesus. In Jesus name, amen.
