Of Exegesis, Wedding Preparation and the Whole Lot of Things: Another Reflection

To those who know what happened, the past months since the start of 2016 had been very stressful to me. In the preparation to my impending wedding this coming October, my future father-in-law decided to throw a few spanners into the wedding preparation by declaring that he was not comfortable with me as a life partner to his daughter because I am a full time Christian worker and more importantly because I come from a different family background from her. The latter means that there are certain practices in my own family which are unthinkable in his worldview on how a family should function. This led to intense tensions between Angelina and myself. To compound the stress, NT Exegesis class was not that easy also and the stress of meeting the deadlines mean that I sometimes did not have the time to reflect deeper into the situations I was facing in my relationship. 

However, studying the text of Philemon 15-20 reminded me of the way we should conduct our relationship in Christ, especially in a relationship where both of us would soon become one. I noted in my study that Paul went all the way to remove all the obstacles to reconciliation between Philemon and Onesimus, offering to pay back everything Onesimus owed Philemon and even reminding Philemon constantly of their identity in Christ. It struck upon me that despite all the obstacles ahead of us, our identity in Christ, as brother and sister-in-Christ, trumps all other physical factors standing in our ways. It is the factor that should define how I lead in this relationship and how I should handle the tensions between the two of us, and the tension between my future in-laws and myself. After all, I know that God has divinely brought the two of us together (click on the link to read what happened back then) through His providence and sovereignty. And God removed the obstacles that may prevent us from getting together in courtship. So it is not the case that I come from my family and she comes from her family, but the case that we are now more than our identity as a member of our biological family, just as what Paul told Philemon in Phlm 16. 

I just thank God that as I am typing this reflection, the situation has improved quite a lot and I am anticipating that the situation will improve after our engagement ceremony in a few weeks time (and of course the end of my semester for the first half of the year). But the lessons learned remain. I do foresee that there will be future tensions, and there will be points when bad blood may happen between my future father-in-law and myself due to the differences in character and personality. 

The question is how would I manage the tensions that may spill over to my relationship with Angelina? How can we have a proper perspective of our relationship in Christ and practice biblical reconciliation? My findings from this module taught me to stay focused on my identity in Christ and that means that I might need to constantly take a step back to cool down and not let myself be too carried away in the tensions.