Question
Pastor Chris,
Hello I have a question you see I’m 18 and I have an issue and I need help and advice I don’t know what to do you see I’m 18 and I still live with my parents and well my issue is I want to make my own decisions I don’t want to ask my parents for permission I feel I’m old enough to make my own decisions.
~ Briggit
Answer
Briggitt,
As long as you live under your parents roof you are to live under their direction. This is difficult for them as well as difficult for you. They have to learn to balance your maturity with their responsibility to care for you and protect you.
Parents have to learn to let go. I am a parent myself and it is not easy, not because you want to control your children but because you love them and desire to protect them. A parent has life experience that can save a young adult son or daughter a lot of problems if he or she will listen and learn from that parent. A parent has to pave the way for a son or a daughter to walk toward adulthood. Part of that task is to allow them to gradually make more and more consequential choices. The Bible says, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6, NIV).
I exhort you to be patient with your parents, listen to them, learn from them, and then get ready move out and provide for yourself. This is the natural way of life. Until then you are to be subject to them. Even Jesus subjected Himself to His earthly parents and He was the Son of God (Luke 2:51-52).
~ Pastor Chris