The Marriage Series (6)

I appreciate the Lord for another wonderful opportunity to share with you on the marriage series and I pray that the Lord Himself will open His word to us all in Jesus name.

In today’s post I would want us to look at the importance of unity in marriage. The interesting truth that I have discovered is that when a group of people are united on a particular mission or purpose they always succeed. A society whose people are united in objective and goal always meet target on their collective goal. But we will look into this unity issue from the marriage perspective.

Genesis 11:6

The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work.

If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no-one to help him up.

Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Matthew 18:19-20

Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them. 

There are some very vital secrets to success in life that we are so ignorant of and the devil has so capitalized on our ignorance and used it as a mean of robbing us off a lot  our many blessings. Unity is synonymous to success, and where there is unity the barriers of impossibility are broken. There are so many problems in the world today because there is so much disaffection. People have so turned against each other that rather than growth themselves, they would rather expend energy destroying the other person. The resultant effect of that is the chaos we have the world over today.

But bringing it down to the smallest unit which is the husband and the wife, things are not any better. These are two people that are suppose to come together to form a unified force and make just one entity and work together such that nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. But even with as little as two that form the foundation of a family unit, coming together to speak with one voice is almost impossible. So rather than both of them putting together their talents, resources, abilities, knowledge and gifts to pursue common goals with better results, they would rather chase after individual goals with their limited resources, talents, abilities and knowledge and arrive at close to nothing. In every pursuit of the individuals, even if they are working together, the hidden thought is always “what is in it for me or what do I stand to gain” and not “what is in it for us or what do we stand to gain.” Selfishness has now overridden selflessness.

But what we have failed to know and understand as a secret to success is that we have more when we pursue the goal as us and not as I; the goal is more attainable collectively than when pursued individually. Even Jesus said that a house that is divided in itself cannot stand.

Going back to the Bible passages above, the first thing that came to my mind was that why would God give His approval with just as little as two people? Jesus said if two of you on earth agree on anything you ask for, it will be done for you by God in heaven, what a wonderful thing to note. And what a secret to success that we are always so ignorant of. The trick of the devil is to ensure that even those two do not agree, because if they do, they will succeed. So he fills them up with pride and selfishness that they will always pursue their goals as one and not two; as I and not as Us. This is one of the reasons why marriages fail, companies fail, friendships fail, relationships fail. This is because the smallest unit of all which is two cannot even be achieved.

Try sampling a marriage where there is genuine love and togetherness between the couples, you will surely find prosperity there. It’s not that the husband and wife don’t have their individual differences, but they play it down for the common goal of the two rather than individual pursuit. With them ours is more prominent in their speech than mine, and they use more of we than I in all they say and pursue. And in such a marriage like this, the aroma of peace, love and joy always fills the air. They might not be material rich, but they are rich in love and contentment and if they search deep and seek God more, material wealth is not far from them.

Look at the world around you, when you find disagreement, disaffection and distrust, you find destruction, and where you find destruction, you find poverty. No matter how rich a man is  as an individual, there is a limit to the growth of what he has when he strives alone. A wealthy man who desires to own a house cannot achieve his dreams without an architect to design the house for him, without an engineer to interpret what the architect has designed, without manual labor to lay the foundation and put up the structure. In achieving his dreams, he will need a bricklayer, a plumber, a carpenter, an interior designer to mention just a few. When one part among these ones that I have mentioned decides to opt out of the deal, work stops on achieving the dream of this wealthy man. So God did make a mistake when He said “if as one people they are able to do a thing like this, nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”

Are you a man desiring success in your life? Then partner with your wife first. Key your dreams and desires with hers and marry your goals and with hers. Form a tight bond of your goals and hers and let the two of you agree together on a common goal and then present this same goal to God and see if He will not answer you speedily. What you will be doing in wisdom is killing two birds with a stone with less effort. God is very passionate about His words, if you want to hold God by the balls (if that is ever possible), then get familiar with His word. God will always honor His word, He will break protocol to honor His word; Heaven and earth will go, but the word of God will never go unfulfilled. Now if God said that if two of you on earth agree concerning anything you have asked for, it will be done for you by God, then you better be quick to come into agreement with someone today and form a bond in presenting your case before God. And who else is more ideal and more approved by God for you to come into agreement with if not your spouse; that one sure partner that the Lord has provided for you to help you be the best in life and fulfill your destiny.

But unity as a key to success requires sacrifice, it requires making compromises, it requires playing down on what you think should be for what it actually should be. The problems that often surfaces in marriages when it comes to succeeding together is that the wife or husband so believe in themselves that they don’t want to give up their dreams in order to help the other pursue his/hers. Submission on the part of the wife and love from the husband are very important ingredients of unity in marriage. But you really don’t have to give up your dreams for the other, you can both succeed together taking turns at success by helping one another. As a matter of fact you can agree on both dreams and goals, marry the two together, pray to God about both goals after you have married them together, and helping each other achieve these goals as long as there is no competition, no resentment, no strive and no hatred. Whatever success is achieved is for the good of two and not one.

The key to every form of success in life is unity, determination to succeed and the intervention of God. For marriage to succeed unity also plays a very key role. 

I believe we have learned a very vital key to success in this post. So we will continue to look at other key things that make marriage a beautiful thing. I believe sex is one of them, so we might just be looking at the issue of sex and how it affects marriage in my next post. Please just stay tuned and have a blessed day.