Prayer, Patience, Persistence

Hello wonderful people of God, it’s another glorious week and another great reason to give thanks to God. It’s not by our understanding, ability or righteousness that has made us to see this day but just the grace of God. That wonderful grace of God has brought us this far, from January till the end of November; that grace has fought the battles of our lives for us and granted us victory over the challenges of our lives. But if you think God has not been fair to you, understand that the fact that you are still alive to think such thought is because of His grace.

So today I want to discuss with us on some very vital ingredients to success in marriage and in fact every area of our lives. In life we face situations and circumstances that are way beyond us; there are spiritual battles of life that we come across that our abilities put together cannot handle and so we need to seek a power superior to ours to fight these battles. But most importantly we need to seek a power that is superior to the power that is confronting us in order to be victorious over these challenges and that is why it is important to prayer.

Every day that we wake and move around is a victory over death for that day because by ourselves we cannot conquer death. We don’t know what the next second holds for us so we need to pray. We are constantly in battle whether we acknowledge it or not.

In the same way in our marriages we need to be in constant prayer over it. Yes we can be submissive as a wife and we can be very loving as a husband but that is the aspect we have control over; what about the aspect we do not have control over? You have control over what you do or do not, but no matter how hard you try, you don’t have control over what your spouse does or does not. And that is where we need to pray. Cod has control over all. He has control over your life and that of your spouse. So what you do to achieve success in marriage is to control that which you have control over, and commit that aspect which you don’t have control over to God. So when I get to speak about what we need to do for a successful marriage, I tell the wife to prayerfully submit to her husband and I tell the husband to prayerfully love his wife. When you obey the word of God and pray, great and positive things happen.

Patience is the time frame of waiting for those things you have prayed for to happen. The time ultimately depends on God, because He is the God that makes all things beautiful in His own time. You don’t lay the foundation for a building today and the entire building is completed the same day; and also you don’t sow a seed in a day and it grows and begins to bear fruit that same day, also a woman does not conceive and give birth all in a day, it takes time. And the manifestation of what you have prayed for takes time to happen, and it is worth waiting for.

Persistence is when you keep sowing the seed of obedience to the word of God and prayer into your marriage as you wait for the manifestation of answered prayers. I hear people say "I can't take it any longer," we find it easy to seek God and hold on to him for our many dreams, desires and aspirations, but we find it really hard to wait on God for the turning around of our marriage which can ultimately lead to the manifestation of our many dreams and aspirations. With a good marriage, two will be working as one and goals are easier to achieve in twos than alone. 

The interesting thing to note in marriage is that persistence does not just bring about the manifestation of answered prayers for success in marriage, persistence also helps you to sustain and retain success in your marriage. You don’t just obey your husband once and pray for him once and believe that’s all you need to sow, and likewise you don't just show love to your wife once and then pray to God and just watch for a magic to happen. You need to keep obeying God’s word for your marriage and keep praying if you wish to see the hand of God move on your behalf.

I have heard a lot of people say “my husband cannot change or my wife can never change.” Well that will be so as long as you have given up on God to bring about the positive change they need and you have given up on obeying the word of God for your marriage and you have given up on praying.

In your waiting time, don’t look at the clock as it ticks; look at Jesus who is bringing about the change that you anticipate. Do away with anxiety and fix your eyes on Jesus, the change you expect will surely come and it will not delay. While waiting, God is also preparing you to be that wonderful wife deserving of a loving husband and that wonderfully loving husband deserving of a good and obedient wife. May the Lord bless our homes in Jesus name.