Thursday 12 December 2019

In Conclusion

In the midst of too many things to do, I have been struggling with keeping pace with the marriage blog. But just two days ago I discovered tons of comments on the blog that was awaiting moderation. And to the glory of God and to my heart’s delight I read so many of them and praise God that people are been blessed by the content of this blog. I will try to add the checking comments for moderation as part of my routine, may God help me to be consistent in it.
In the past couple of posts, we have been looking at the marriage of Abraham and Sarah and personally, I have learned a lot from Abraham’s wife Sarah. And so, we will move to the next couple of interest which is Isaac and Rebekah, but before we do that, we will try to summarize all that we have learned from the marriage of Abraham and Sarah.
The first thing to understand about that couple is that Sarah single-handedly built her marriage without the support of her husband. Marriage is not a 50-50 contribution quota. It is a 100-100 contribution quota; by simple arithmetic, when you add 50 to 50, you arrive and a 100, but when you add a 100 to another 100 you arrive at 200 which is twice as much as what you get when you only give half of you into the process. Irrespective of Abraham’s shortfall, Sarah didn’t allow that prevent her from giving her all into her marriage and as such God will not allow her to go into her grave without reaping of the harvest of all that she had sown into the marriage. Because God is faithful, if you are not yet reaping the desired harvest from your marriage whether you are the husband or wife, its important that you check the quality of your seed.
Another lesson that I learned from that marriage is that Abraham being a friend of God didn’t translate to Abraham being a good husband. His desire for an heir totally blinded him from his responsibilities as a good husband. And so that man being a pastor and being passionate about the things of God does not automatically make him a good husband. As a wife to a pastor or non-pastor, you need to always be in the place of prayer for the leading of God on how to manage your marriage well. Relying alone on the fact that your husband is a man of God who truly fears God and as such would be an excellent husband is dancing on self-deceit. Always trust God to perfect all that concerns your marriage.
Another lesson that I took away from this is the fact that just because your spouse is failing in his/her responsibility to you as a wife or a husband doesn’t mean you should fail in your responsibilities as a wife or a husband also. Two wrongs never make a right. We will all give an account to God and you can’t tell God that because your husband or wife failed then you failed also.
I very understand the fact that its really a good feeling when you show love and respect to your spouse and you get love and respect back in return. Its not just a really good feeling, but it’s a booster to your will to commit yourself more into the marriage. It encourages one to give more as you know that you are a priority to your spouse. But the work of building a successful marriage is not hinged on emotions alone. The bedrock of a successful marriage lies in divine wisdom, the wisdom that comes from God alone.     
When you give so much in your marriage and it seems there is nothing to show for it, that is not the time to stop giving your best, understand that seeds take time to grow. And the seed that is not well nurtured will die a seed and never germinate. So, you keep sowing and keep praying.
Sarah laughed last, and that husband Abraham must have loved and respected his wife dearly after God finished vindicating her. The Bible said he wept and mourned Sarah for days after her death and then bought a special burial place for her. The seed of Sarah, Isaac, was the only child God reckoned as Abraham’s son.

Sometimes it can be tough to be caught in the position in which Sarah was and still maintain one's cool and trust in God, 
having faith in the marriage. But there is always grace available in God if we try and not give up. The God who stood by Sarah is ready, willing, and available to stand by you and with you as you sow your seeds in your marriage.


Wednesday 4 December 2019

The Seeds of Sarah

This is my first post for the month and before we discuss the marriage issue, I will want to appreciate my God, the giver of life and the giver of His word for the abundant grace we have to see the last month of the year 2019. God has really been good to us despite all the challenges of the year. Through the times are tough, but we are tougher. We give all our praises to God.
So, we continue in our discussion on the marriage of Abraham and Sarah. It is interesting that when Sarah asked Abraham to take her maidservant as wife and have a child by her, he agreed without hesitation, but what got my attention again in this story is that when Sarah told Abraham to send the bondwoman and her child away, he became reluctant.
But before we discuss that, we will notice something interesting about the husband Abraham in Genesis 17. It was in Genesis 16 that Hagar and Ishmael came into the picture of things, and the first thing God was going to say to Abraham in Genesis 17:1 was, “I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless.” Between the time of God's visitation in Genesis 17 and the birth of Ishmael in Genesis 16 was about 13years. If God ever spoke to Abraham in the 13years that he fathered Ishmael, we don’t know but there was no record of such speaking until Genesis 17.
From my observation, the purpose of God’s visitation in Genesis 17 was to reinstate His covenant of making Abraham a father of many nations and at this time God demanded circumcision from Abraham and his entire household as a constant reminder of that covenant. He also changed Abraham's name from Abram to Abraham, all in the bid to instilled in Abraham's consciousness the covenant between them. It appears to me that Abraham probably didn’t understand God’s mission and so he kept whining about wanting a son till he got himself into sin.
But the interesting part of all the communication between Abraham and God is the position of God with regards to Sarah. Yes, there was a covenant that Abraham needed to be constantly reminded of, and a covenant can only be fulfilled through a covenant partner. As far as God was concerned the promised child can only come from Sarah the covenant wife. In God's faithfulness, Sarah could not have made all those sacrifices for nothing. What profit could her obedience to God and her husband yield to her if she went into her grave childless? God would never allow His children to trust Him in vain and He brings the harvest when it is sweetest the most.
In Genesis 17:15-19 we read about the discussion between God and Abraham on the issue of the covenant child, and in Genesis 17:17 Abraham fell facedown and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” and then he went on to beg God to pour the blessings on Ishmael instead saying, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”
That for me was a selfish way to think by Abraham. He had fathered a child and that was just okay, but as Sarah mothered a child? Did that bother Abraham at all? Did he care if Sarah went to her grave barren? If he believed God when God promised him a child in Genesis 15 and it was credited to him as righteousness, then why could he not believe God on behalf of Sarah in Genesis 17. Was it all over and okay now that Ishmael has been born? These are my reasons for respecting Abraham so much as a friend of God and as a man of faith but not as a husband.
After all of this analysis, what is the lesson to hold onto in this part of the story of Abraham and Sarah’s marriage? Again, I will focus on the wives. To be a wife like Sarah takes a lot of effort but to reap the same reward as Sarah did is a very sweet experience. Against all the odds that we see coming from Abraham who happens to be her husband who should love and protect her and also is a friend of God without changing status, yet Sarah stayed by his side as his wife, obeying God and obeying her husband and when the time came for God to bless her came, He found her at the right place. She was still situated within the covenant of God in Abraham’s life.
So many times, as wives we seek the validation of our husbands, and in truth, we are not wrong, doing so. But when we don’t get the validation we need what do we do? When their love is not coming forth or their cooperation is lacking, do we just pick our bags and move. There is are blessings that your sacrifices have accrued to you but those blessings need to meet us at the right place.

The situation in your marriage will not always be pleasant but the sacrifices of obedience, submission, patience, positivity, perseverance and long-suffering that you have sown into it, will yield a bountiful harvest of joy and laughter, peace and love for you as long as you always keep God as your focus.  


Friday 29 November 2019

The Sacrifice May be Big, But the Harvest is for Sure Bigger


A lot of times when I consider the man Abraham, I marvel at the strong bond between him and God. This was a man that God would say of in Genesis 18:17 that “shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” But in all of Abraham’s believe and walk with God, his life as a married man leaves a lot to be desired of.
In Genesis 15:2-6, Abraham petitioned God for a son, he didn’t want a servant in his household becoming his heir and to that end, he did nothing wrong. Immediately he made that request, God promised Abraham a son and even sons as many as the sands of the seashore and as the stars in the sky and we are told that Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness.
But in the next chapter (Genesis 16), we read that Abraham’s wife had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant. She told Abraham to take the maidservant Hagar and sleep with her and have children with her and Abraham agreed.
Now reading this on the surface, everyone will blame Sarah for taking such a call. And bad as it may look, I would rather blame Abraham for agreeing to such a call. Remember he is the husband, the head of the home and the leader of the family, he bears the responsibility of that decision far more than Sarah his wife. He had spoken with God received God's promise on his request, so what went wrong? 
The second puzzle that came to my mind on this matter is that; what would make Sarah consider giving her maidservant to her husband to be his wife? I am trying to put myself into Sarah’s shoes and imagine what will make me marry another woman for my husband because I can bear him no child. It's not just about Abraham not having children, it’s about Sarah also not having children. And this gives me so much respect for the person of Sarah at how much she was willing to sacrifice for the happiness of her husband even when it hurts her deep inside.
No woman in her right mind would be willing to make such an offer except for the level of the sacrificial heart such as Sarah had. We remember that in Genesis 12:10-20, she made one of such big sacrifices for the peace of her marriage based on her trust in God. Again, here we see Sarah making another of such sacrifices. As far as she was concerned her husband’s happiness was of big importance to her. But did Abraham feel the same way towards his wife? Was he willing to sacrifice as much for the happiness of Sarah his wife? That much we might never know as it was not stated in the scriptures, but all that we know is that Abraham agreed to Sarah’s offer and took Hagar the maidservant as wife, slept with her and she conceived for him. But if you ask me, I will say that Abraham was been insensitive to the feelings of his wife by agreeing to her offer.
The beautiful aspect of this story is that even though Abraham did to see and appreciate the sacrifices of Sarah, God did and that is why there remained a promise-child that could only come from the womb of Sarah. That child Isaac was the only child God reckoned as Abraham’s child and all of God’s promises and the covenants God made with Abraham was made manifest through that one child Isaac.
So, as wives, we take our learnings again from the life of Sarah. What sacrifices do you need to make for the peace and progress of your marriage that you are not making yet? Are you holding your husband’s attitude and negativity as a reason for your own failures as a wife? If Sarah didn’t do that, then you shouldn’t. I know and acknowledge that it can be tough been a sacrificial wife to a none appreciative husband but your validation does not reside in your husband, it rests in God. What your husband fails to see, God sees them all and the harvest of the sacrifices you sow in your marriage is far bigger when it is God watching over your seed to bring about a harvest than the acknowledgment of your husband.
As a wife, if you have not started sowing those sacrificial seeds in your marriage, then start now because it is only those who sow that expects a harvest. And if you have been sowing please don’t stop and seeds need time to grow. But your harvest is sure and far bigger than the weight of the sacrifices you have made and are making. Just keep trusting God and keep on sowing those seeds. I have been there before and so I know.


Tuesday 26 November 2019

When Obedience Doesn't Make Sense


And so, we move on in our study of marriages in the Bible and in particular the study of Abraham's marriage. There are so many lessons to learn from the marriage of Abraham and Sarah.
Genesis 12:10-20 tells us about how Abraham continued with his journey of the call of God in his life. It was in Genesis 12:1-3 that God called Abraham to embark on a journey leaving his father’s household behind, but still within that same chapter, we read something interesting that Abraham did.
In Genesis 12:10-20 we read that there was famine in the land and Abraham went down to Egypt, but just before entering into Egypt, he called his wife and told her not to say she was not his wife but his sister. The first thing that got me wondering is that if Abraham whom we read of in later books of the Bible that he was a friend of God and he believed in God and it was created to him as righteousness could not trust God to protect him from the hands of the Egyptians without putting his wife in harms way then there is a need for men to be very careful. Even those who are considered men of God. I respect Abraham so well as a man of faith, but as a husband, I believe he didn’t do so well.  
But that said, the lesson in this passage is for the wives reading this blog. I am trying to imagine what was going through the mind of Sarah when her husband made that proposal to her. Was she so in love with Abraham to have obeyed him so blindly or was she more of a woman of faith than her husband to obey her husband as the Lord had asked her to do even in the face of danger?
Going by the report of her in 1 Peter 3:5-6 and the way God defended her all through her years of marriage, I want to believe that she was more of a woman of faith in God than a woman in love. I do not believe that Sarah agreed to lie about her status as Abraham’s wife just to show her love to her husband, it would have been a situation of trusting God to protect her as she obeys her husband as He (God) had asked her to do.
Ephesians 5:22-24, Colossians 3:18, and 1 Peter 3:1-6 all says the same thing; “wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord,” and what we see Sarah display in Genesis 12:10-20 is the height of what God is calling the wives into in their marriages, and God will surely defend our obedience to His word for our lives.
When I first had the divine revelation of Sarah’s obedience in marriage, it felt like an impossible thing to do for us in our generation today. It’s almost just impossible for a woman to put herself in harm’s way like Sarah did just in the bid to submit to her husband in fulfillment of God’s instruction. To us it cannot be God telling us to obey His words to that extent; God can’t be so cruel. More so, when adultery is a sin, and then we run through the many what-ifs in our minds and tell ourselves God will understand if we disobey just this one time.
But for Sarah, she never doubted God. For her, there were no what-ifs, her husband said it and she did it anyway. And God in His usual faithful manner came through for her just at the right time when she needed Him to. I have also trusted God for this kind of submission in my marriage. My husband has never asked me to deny my identity as his wife but I have learned to obey him on so many occasions where we have extremely different and conflicting views about situations and instructions he has given. I have learned to obey him even when it wasn’t in any way or form convenient for me to obey. And not once have I had to regret such acts of obedience since I have allowed God to take the wheel of my marriage. And above all, I have earned my husband’s respect and trust simply because I obey God in obeying him.  


Saturday 23 November 2019

First Lesson from Abraham's Marriage

I guess the next marriage to learn from would be the marriage of Abraham. Though Noah’s life came before that of Abraham, little was said about his marriage. So, we can as well just move on to Abraham. The first thing that came to my mind in the marriage story of Abraham is found in Genesis 12:4-5. When God called Abraham and he obeyed, he didn’t set out alone, he set out in the company of his wife Sarah. I understand that he also took Lot his nephew with him but we will notice that by the time we get to chapter 13 of Genesis, he had to drop Lot off. But the journey of his life, his obedience to the calling of God over his life was done with Sarah his wife right by his side.
Bearing in mind that Abraham and Sarah were no longer two but one, we will appreciate why Sarah could not be dropped off. In the same manner, the Abrahams of today, husbands of today need to understand fully that there is no calling on their lives, there should be no pursuit in their lives that warrants the husband leaving his wife behind.
In thoughts, actions, plans, and purpose of a man, he needs to carry his wife along with him as he journeys on, in order to attain good success in his life’s journey. Ecclesiastes 4:9 says “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work,” this is just as simple as it is, planning for two and planning with the other in mind and engaging the other in mind as thought is more rewarding than planning alone. Even Jesus says in Matthew 18:19 that if two agree as concerning anything they ask for; it will be done for them by our Father in heaven.

The fact that Abraham journeyed on in obedience to the call of God for his life and carried his wife along is one big lesson I want to start the gleanings from Abraham’s marriage with. Marriage is not a competition between two intelligent individuals. It is not a superiority contest between a man and his wife. But rather it is a man on a journey to a Promised Land in the company of his suitable helper, his destiny helper, the embodiment of God’s favor for his life whom he is assigned to love with his life, cherish, hold in high esteem and respect well so that nothing will hinder his prayers.


Friday 22 November 2019

When the Sons of God Marry the Daughter of Men

So, we continue in our gleanings of the word of God for marriages in the Bible that we can learn from. Between the time of Adam to Noah and then to Abraham nothing much was said about marriage other than the fact that the men were having children and we know that these children were conceived by their wives. But nothing definite was said concerning marriage. But just as I am about to jump to the marriage of Abraham, my attention is drawn to Genesis chapter 6.

Genesis 6:1-3
When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

You might wonder why the sons of God marrying the daughters of men became something of an issue to God for Him to declare that His Spirit will not contend with man forever. Before this chapter, we will notice that men were leaving for up to 900 years and more. As a matter of fact, if not for the fall of man at the garden of Eden probably man would never have had any business with death. God did not forbid Adam from eating from the tree of life, so to say, that God’s plan was actually for man to live forever. But now, man not was just having death to deal with, man’s life span was being cut short and you wonder why?
When I began to seek the face of God for a clearer understanding of this matter, the Lord dropped in my spirit that the sons of God should be seeking God for a wife and not choosing wives for themselves. Beyond the beauty of the daughters of men lies hidden virtues and vices that only God knows about. It is only God who owns the ability to choose the appropriate and fitting wife of the daughters of men for the sons of God. This act of inappropriate independence by the sons of God was enough to cause God to make the declaration that His Spirit will not contend with man forever. If man had begun to exhibit independence from God and choose wives for themselves then they are indirectly telling God they don’t need Him any longer.
The interesting thing is that we still have many sons of God in our generation who still see the daughters of men that they are beautiful and they marry any of them they choose to without first seeking the face of God. As we proceed in our study on marriages in the Bible, we will come across the making of a life partner. And I am sure it was discussed earlier in the study of the marriage of Adam and Eve.
When God was to make Eve, He made her to the specification fitting for Adam. He made Eve as a helper suitable (fitting, ideal, comparable) to Adam. So, she was not just any woman, she was made specifically for Adam. In the same way, God has painstakingly made a wife suitable to, fitting to, ideal for every son of God He created. Without God, the sons of God cannot identify the daughters of men that God has created for them as wives. So, in the cause of marrying as they chose, they were mismatching each other. So to say, that they were marrying wrongly and that alone was enough to make God declare that His Spirit cannot contend with man any longer.
I have spoken to men who after marriage have concluded that they married the wrong woman. Some men have even gone the path of getting a divorce. But I dare to say that two wrongs never make a right. If you didn’t seek the face of God before marrying your wife and things aren’t going right, divorce is not the way out. There is no point when you invite God into your marriage that He doesn’t step into it, to right all the wrongs in it. He made that woman you call wife, and He can remake her into the woman fitting for you when you let Him and yield to His intervention.
Marrying wrong is not a death sentence, and seeking a divorce is also not the remedy. At whatever point you call God into the situation and let Him turn around the situation for good, yielding to His leading and following every instruction He gives to you, then you are on the road path to a beautiful marital experience. 




Wednesday 20 November 2019

The Husband is Accountable to God


I am really so very sorry for the inconsistency of sharing with you on the marriage blog throughout this year. It’s a big shame on me considering the fact that I know quite a lot of people take the time to read what I write. I could have given the reason of work for this but in truth, that isn’t good enough so I would simply just apologize.
We had started a series of learning from the marriages in the Bible and we will just continue from there. What I shared last was about Eve staying within the confines of the leadership of her husband as the head of the home. The importance of submission in marriage cannot be overemphasized but the wife alone does not make a marriage, so we need to have a look at the second component of marriage which is the husband and the head of the marriage. We will be looking at the husband from the viewpoint of Adam.

Genesis 3:6
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her.

Before going on with our study, I needed to, first of all, check another translation of this passage to have a clear understanding of what it says. Remember that Adam is the husband, he is the leader of the union, and then he was the one to whom God gave the instruction not to eat of the fruit of the tree of good and evil. And then he was with Eve when she ate of the fruit of which God said they should not eat because the Bible says “she gave some to her husband who was also with her.”
When the serpent was speaking to Eve and he was with her why didn't he stand to her defense? Why didn't he rebuke that serpent and take the lead that he was assigned to take? Why didn’t he stop Eve from eating the fruit of the tree of which God said they should not eat most especially when he was the direct recipient of the instruction? These questions are what is coming up in my mind when it comes to the role of Adam in that marriage.  These for me are the failures of Adam. No matter how we try to blame Eve for her errors, I think Adam share a larger portion of the blame.

Genesis 3:9
But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Let’s now see this from the eyes of God. When the Lord was going to seek an account for the wrong that has been done, He didn’t ask Eve, He called out to the man. This is simply because the responsibility of the union rests on the head of the man who is the head of the marriage union and home. He is the one answerable to God over the affairs of the home.
In today’s world there are still so many Adam husbands around. It is so important that the husband and wife work together in agreement but the responsibility of the marriage union rests on the husband. If a marriage fails the world might seek accountability from the wife, but God will seek accountability from the husband. And that is why we read in Malachi 2:16-19 that God warns the husband to be careful and not break faith with the wife of his youth.
The husband is assigned by God to lead his wife, protect his wife, care for her and love her as Christ loves the Church and died for her and he is answerable to God over her life. This is deeper than just as simple as it appears on this blog and I pray the Lord will enlighten the hearts of the husbands and give them a divine revelation of the matter.


Thursday 31 October 2019

Eve Should Have Stayed in Lane

By common knowledge, the first thing that comes to mind when we speak of helpers is that they support, they mostly are the backend support that makes things happen. When you speak of a helper you don't first think of such as a leader. But moving from common knowledge, by virtue of God's arrangement in marriage, the husband leads and the wives follow. But she just doesn't follow blindly, she supports and helps. 
Going back to common knowledge, a leader gives instructions and the followers obey the same. Based on God's principles in marriage, the husband leads, and the wives submit. The dictionary meaning of the word submission means to willingly yield yourself to the authority of another. So as a wife what God expects of you as found in Ephesians 5:22-24 is that you willing yield yourself to the authority of your husband just as in the manner in which you willingly yield yourself to the authority of God. A deviation from this pattern is a road path to chaos in marriage. 
That was what happened when Eve decided to leave the path of following the lead of her husband. But before you go negative on me, just follow me closely. I very well understand that the husband makes mistakes and some husbands seem unworthy to be followed. I am a wife and I am no angel so I feel like every other wife feels and I have experiences too that are not perfect or near perfect. And many years ago I thought just like you might now that my husband was unworthy to be followed. And I began to pray. I knew God's word wouldn't change and if I want peace in my marriage I must obey that word of God that says I must submit to my husband as unto the Lord. So I prayed that God will fill my husband up with Himself such that the words of my husband will come in the form of instructions and will be God's words and instructions for me. And with confidence that what I have prayed for God will answer, I learned to submit to my husband even in the silliest things and it has really paid off because it has fetched me peace of mind in my marriage and helped me build the bond of unity in my marriage. 
I will share a story of my personal experience on the issue of submission. About 20months ago I began a business and my husband got me a shop to sell lace fabrics. He renovated the shop and did it so tastefully. I had assumed that with much beauty built into the shop he will give me a good sum of money to stock up the shop. But to my disappointment, he gave me so little that it was about a fraction of what he used in renovating the shop that he gave me to buy goods in the shop to sell. In fact what I got from him then couldn't even fill a shelf. I was pained but I remembered that notwithstanding I was still supposed to submit to him as my husband. And submit I did. 
But rather than getting hurt, I began to think and pray on how to kick start the business and grow it with the very little I had. To the glory of God, ideas started pouring into my head and I began to implement them. Then I learned to use social media to boost my sales and the sales I made using social media far outweighed what I ever thought of selling in the shop. 
Now the lesson there for me was that if indeed I had gotten the big money I wanted from my husband and stocked the shop with so many goods, the poor sales would have frustrated my business and I would have been perceived as a failure. But because he didn't give me what I wanted and I submitted to him irrespective, I was able to challenge myself, think outside the box and pray and launched my business beyond what I would have been able to do given that I had all the money I wanted. God used my husband to teach me and I am happy I didn't resist the lesson. 
If Eve had just stayed within the limits of following her husband, the serpent would not have had a hold on her. When you feel your husband isn't making sense then turn to God in prayer but never leave the covering of God's commandment for your life, never move off the position of submission to your husband as the Lord has ordained and ordered you to as a wife. Prayer without deed is dead and so prayer without submission is dead and also submission without prayer is powerless.

Thursday 26 September 2019

There was None Found Comparable to Him

So will continue our marriage discussion by continuing our focus on the marriage of Adam and Eve. In the last post, we looked at one of the purposes of God for marriage judging from the first marriage, the marriage of Adam and Eve. We were able to conclude that based on God's design marriage was designed to help the couples in it to develop and grow from the position they were before marriage. 
There are many other lessons I have learned from the marriage of Adam and Eve and I will like to share them with you. So in the next couple of posts, we will be dealing with that marriage and learning from it.
The first interesting thing about the marriage of Adam and Eve is found in the latter part of Genesis 2:20 which says "But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him" (NKJV). The NIV version says "But for Adam no suitable helper was found." What I understand from this single sentence is that no matter how you view your marriage at this moment, for God to sit on His throne and watch your marriage ceremony take place without any disruption, then He knows for sure that you as a wife are the suitable helper that God has found or should I say made that is comparable and suitable for that man. Of all the living things God has made you are the one found comparable to that man who is your husband. 
Now, that does not translate to the fact that your husband is perfect and without fault, it doesn't mean that he is so sweet and husbandly and a dream come true husband, it only means that you are the one God has made to complete him. You are the one found suitable or should I say comparable to him to complete him and perfect him. God made you and place you in his life despite all the shortfalls in the life of your husband because He (God) knows you have what it takes to help him develop from who he was before God brought you into his life
What this tells me about you as a wife is that you are more than what you think you are. God thinks more highly of you than you think of yourself. God knows that you are more capable than you think you are. Your strength in God is beyond what you know. 
If you are in a challenging marriage situation, never think of yourself as the victim, because for God to watch you in that situation, it is because He knows that if you harness the potentials in you with His (God) support, strength and power in you, you are capable of turning the situation around for good and become victorious over that marriage challenge, being a change agent in the hands of God in bringing a glorious renewal in the life of your husband. Of all that God created that is living and moving around, there was none found comparable to him except YOU. Think about it. 

Tuesday 24 September 2019

What is Your Marriage Producing?

It's been two months since I last shared a post on the marriage blog and I sincerely feel ashamed of that. But I can either stop making an impact in the lives of people or cover my face and yet start all over again. If any explanation is required for my absence, I will stay I took time off in pursuit of an income-generating venture. But while at it, I shouldn't abandon God impacting venture too. In all, I apologize for my long absence. 
Before I took off we had done a lot of learning from the book of Esther and just like you, I learned a lot. So we will continue into the year learning things from the marriages of the Bible. We will glean from the marriage of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Issac and Rebecca, Jacob and his wives (Leah and Racheal), Lot and his wife, David and his wives, Job and his wife and many other marriages we can glean from and try to relate what we learn from them in to our everyday life. 
So we start from the very beginning, the very first marriage which is the marriage of Adam and Eve. It is common knowledge what the marriage of Adam and Eve was like but the one thing we need to look at and learn from is what the marriage of Adam and Eve should have been as intended by God. 
From what we can see in Genesis 2:18, one of the reasons God created the wife for the husband was for support, as a suitable helper. So we can rightly conclude that the marriage of Adam and Eve was designed for developmental purpose as the wife was placed in the life of her husband to help him succeed in what he has been assigned to do. Noting that this is the first marriage with marriages following after that, we can that say that wives are placed in the life of the husband as a support and a helper and so marriage is designed by God for developmental purpose. 
My question following this conclusion is: Is your marriage fulfilling the developmental purpose for wish God designed it? We learn from Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 that two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor, and then we read from Genesis 2:24 that "for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and will cleave to his wife and the two shall become one." If two are better than one, then we understand better God's reason for saying that it is not good for the man to be alone. And two who labor together will have a better reward for their labor than when one labors alone then we know for sure that the design of God in bringing a man and woman together in marriage is for developmental purpose. So the man and his wife coming together as one laboring together with the wife as a suitable helper and the husband mandated to love and care for his wife as himself then growth and development are bound to take place in their lives as a single unit and in their individual lives. 
So the question again is this: In your marriage, is growth and development taking place like it should? Is your marriage producing fruits of development in your life and that of your spouse like it should? If yes, I congratulate you and bless God for your life. If otherwise, then it is important that you begin to search out the reason for the shortfall and start to deal with it. 
For your marriage to bring about the development and growth we are learning about, there must be a true cleaving between the husband and the wife in soul and spirit such that it can truly be said that they are no longer two but one. Been married to the world yet separated in mind and spirit does not bring about the development that God designed for marriage. Seeing your spouse as a separate entity from yourself and treating him/her as such does not produce the kind of reward of labor that we read of in the passages we have highlighted in today's post. 
Your battles in marriage are not battles you should target against your spouse, but that you working with your spouse on a common goal in fighting the external enemy. When you see your spouse as your enemy, then you are no longer one but two separate entities and your achievements in that marriage will be limited. On the long run, you short-change yourself ignorantly. For you to enjoy the dividends of marriage, you must make a deliberate effort at keeping and maintaining the unity of your marriage. God's word never lie, your marriage is designed to make you better than you were before it began

Thursday 25 July 2019

It's Brilliant How Esther Did It

Another thing that caught my attention in the book of Esther was the wisdom in which Esther handled her issues. I can tell you for free that no matter how beautiful you can be, it is not enough to hold a marriage. But God’s wisdom embedded in good character and prayers will take anyone to the greatest height attainable in marriage. Proverbs 24:3 says, “Through wisdom, a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with precious and pleasant riches.”
The book of Esther chapter 3 was where Haman began to plot the destruction of the children of Israel and when this got to Esther, the first thing she did was to highlight her restriction, but that was not good enough for her Uncle Mordecai. But what really gave me so much respect for Esther was how she handled the matter.
For some, she should have just walked up to the king, demand her right as the queen and insist that her people be spared, and Haman be destroyed. After all, she was the queen. But Esther took a different route, a more subtle yet technical route. A route that was devised in wisdom and covered with prayers, that she knew could never fail.
So, the first thing Esther did was to pray. You might wonder why a wife would need to pray before approaching her husband for a request that she was entitled to. Well, I learned to use the prayer approach too in my marriage and it works well for me. Building a marriage on an entitlement mentality is not too good. Always have it at the back of your mind that your spouse owes you nothing except what God has laid in his/her heart to deliver to you. With that, you seldom get disappointed and learn to trust God more irrespective of your spouse. 
And after her prayer and fasting which she did along with the whole of the Jewish race on the land, she decided to take the bull by the horn and approach her husband whether tradition allowed it or not. Although the tradition of the land at that time did not permit Esther to approach the king when she was not called on but through prayers she had prepared her path, she knew that she had secured the intervention of God in the matter. And to the glory of God, she got what she wanted.
So many times, there are pressing issues that I want to discuss with my husband and with the emotional weight that I carry in me, I was sure the discussion would most likely lead to a fight. And all the time that I have prayed before speaking up it always ended in praise. You might wonder if I can’t approach my husband on issues without first praying about it, at least he is my husband and not my God. Well like Esther I love to choose the prayer route first so that I get to laugh after all said and done. Sometimes when I pray, I might not even need to discuss with him anymore on the issue no matter how pissed off I may be because the Lord will speak to him on my behalf and the matter is resolved without me venting my anger or airing my views.   
When I need something that I am sure my husband has to give like the case of Esther, I have learned not to trust that my husband will give me because he has it to give. With this approach, I seldom get disappointed because my expectation is little and I have killed totally any form of entitlement mentality that I should have in my marriage. So, when I have a request, I present it to God even when I know my husband has. It is now God’s choice to determine how He chooses to make available my request. He could choose to use my husband as a vessel to answer my prayers or decide to find other means suitable to Him. But one thing is sure He answers me when I call.
Applying God’s wisdom and praying in all situations brought about victory not only for Esther but for all the Jewish race in the 127 provinces. Applying God’s wisdom in your marriage gives you peace, joy, and love in your marriage far more than you can ever achieve in your limited effort. There is absolutely nothing too trivial in marriage to pray about. Disturb God about everything because that is what He wants you to do. When you free yourself of the burden and put it all in the hands of God things begin to happen for your good. Not because you did it, but because you let God do it for you.

Monday 8 July 2019

What About You

There is no time more appropriate to be mindful of one’s appearance as a woman than when you are married. I do understand the pressure of being a wife and a mother but in the midst of all the various important things that vie for your attention as a woman, the way you look and care for yourself is also very important. And that takes me to the third thing I learned from the book of Esther in the Bible.
After the exit of queen Vashti, there was a need for a replacement and a search began in the 127 provinces under the rulership of king Ahasuerus. In Esther 2:12 we read that each woman gets twelve months of beauty treatment before presenting herself to the king for consideration as queen according to the regulations for the women. So, in the days of Esther, the women were required to undergo twelve months of beauty treatment. I want to believe that this regulation is not only for those vying to be queen but for all women in the land as it was a regulation for the women.
Sometimes I just want to think if such regulation should be reintroduced in our days where it is compulsory for women to pay attention to how they look and smell. One of the things that qualified queen Vashti as a trophy to her husband so much that he wished to display her to the princes and nobles of his province was her beauty. It is so easy for a beautiful woman to relinquish her beauty if she doesn’t take time to care for her beauty. Just as it is easy for a woman who was considered ugly to become a beautiful pride of her husband when she begins to pay more attention to herself and her appearance.
The importance of one's appearance and hygiene cannot be over-emphasized. Your appearance does not just qualify you as a trophy to your husband, it also boosts your self-esteem. The way you dress and carry yourself goes a long way to determine the way you will be addressed. Beauty they say is deceptive but nonetheless, beauty attracts. Being a lover of God does not undermine the need for us as wives to take care of our appearance in a decent and modest manner. 
In as much as "character" is the number one value of a wife, but good-appearance is a value that is a wife must-have. Even if it on a ratio of 8:2, a wife must make efforts to look good for her husband. There is something about you that made your husband decide you fit enough to be his wife; always ensure you maintain the freshness of that one thing. I totally agree that beauty cannot hold a marriage and I preach same. But the way you look is a catalyst in marriage. A good look is required for you to earn the respect of those who see you, your husband being the most important one. So while not overdoing it and keeping your marriage and its health in focus, ensure you pay attention to yourself as a wife. It’s the least you can do for you.






Wednesday 3 July 2019

The Sin of Vashti

The next thing that caught my attention in the story of Esther that I read was the resolution of the advisers of the king over the punishment that should be dished out to Queen Vashti. As read in Esther 1:16-20, it's not the punishment to dethrone queen Vashti and give her place to another that is the big deal to me but the analysis of her action. The adviser of the king said it wasn't just the king that was wronged, but all the princes, nobles and the entire men within the 127 provinces under the rulership of the king.
You might then want to ask that how can a simple refusal of one’s husband’s request become such a big deal? Well, Memucan the king’s adviser explained it to us in Esther 1:16-20. He says, when the women in the province hear what queen Vashti did with no repercussion or consequence, they will adopt that kind of behavior and the impunity within the province will be widespread. That for me is the main focus of today’s post. In my last post we discussed being your husband’s trophy but today we will take it a little further to understand the impact of our private actions on the watching public, those we never knew were watching us.
One of the reasons I started getting interested in marriage issues is the way and manner I hear some pastors’ wives talk about their husbands just like an unbeliever would. They trivialize marriage as though there is no hope ever for a beautiful marriage simply because they lack the understanding of what it takes to make it work yet what they refuse to understand is that they are not just been hopeless about their own marriage but they are killing the hope of a good marriage for those who are watching them or looking up to them as role models.
One Saturday morning, I went for the Parents Teachers Forum meeting in my children’s school and was leaving. Another mother who lives close to me asked me to give a ride home and I agreed, while on my way home, I received a call from my husband who was babysitting our children in my absence. He wanted to go out and wanted to know how much longer before I got back home. Meanwhile, the woman in the car with me couldn’t help but hear my conversation. When I got home, she dropped from the car and trekked the little distance left to her home.
I met her a few hours later on the roadside talking with someone I knew, apparently, they were talking about me. I walked up to them and she couldn’t help but bare out her mind. She told me she was just discussing with the other person about her experience while inside my car. She had overheard my conversation with my husband and assumed I was talking to my husband due to the way I was talking on the phone. She said I spoke with so much respect that she thought it was my father on the other line but when I reached my house and she saw my husband standing at the gate waiting, she realized it was my husband I was conversing with all along.
She told me sincerely that she learned something new from me that day, she said now she understands what her husband meant when he was complaining of her not showing respect to him as her husband. She couldn’t imagine anyone speaking with so much respect to a mere husband. And till date, that incident has not left me. That I could unconsciously minister change into a marriage just by the way I handle mine has left me grateful to God.
In Proverb 31:23 we read something about the virtuous wife, it says, “Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.” Why this is included in the characteristics of a virtuous woman calls for thinking. Obviously, there must be a value-add in the life of a man married to a virtuous wife as a result of the positive actions of his wife. The NIV Bible version says, “the husband is respected at the city gate,” a wife who has learned to respect her husband as laid the precedence for others to respect him. And much more than that, she has laid an example for onlookers who might not know otherwise to learn to respect their own husbands too. And for this, she will be rewarded.  
You might say that as a wife your husband does not respect you so why should you respect him? Well in my world you don’t correct a wrong with a wrong and as a child of God, you are called to be the light in the darkness. When you shine your light no matter how little, you illuminate your husband’s world and drive away the darkness within him. Remember that God called you to be a suitable helper in his life. The more you respect him, the more you teach him to respect you in return. 





Monday 1 July 2019

The Husband's Trophy

Again, I got to read the book of Esther in the Bible and sincerely there are loads of things to learn and share from the book. So, I will be sharing a lot from that book in my next couple of posts.  
The first chapter of the book of Esther tells us about a king named Ahasuerus (the NIV Bible version called him king Xerxes). He reigned over 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush (Esther 1:1). And so, this very powerful king decided to show off his wealth and splendor and the Bible tells us that he took 180days doing that, and then capping it up with a 7days banquet. And just to crown his show of splendor, he decided to put his beautiful wife on display. That beautiful queen was his trophy that he was very proud to show off. And just like the Bible didn't see anything wrong in that, so also do I not see anything wrong in it. The first question I would want to ask wives reading this write-up this, are you the kind of wife your husband would delight to put on display to show off to the world? 
What king Ahasuerus sought to show off in his wife was her beauty (Esther 1:11), but you would agree with me that beauty is relative. What is beautiful for me might be ugly to you. But for your husband to deem it fit to marry you, then you are beautiful to him. So, what then are you doing to sustain the beauty he saw in you that caused him to pick you amongst the many women around him to be his wife?
I attended a women's program in my church where we were taught on ways to spice up our marriages, and my pastor's wife spoke out my mind on the need for a woman to pay attention to her physical appearance. Indecent dressing is not prescribed for a covenant child of God but a beautiful appearance in modesty and decency is a must for a wife who desires to be her husband's trophy. 
But dressing isn't the only thing that a wife needs to make herself her husband's trophy. Some wives are a disdain to their husbands simply by their attitude as we read of Queen Vashti. Interestingly, God clearly instructed the wife to submit to her husband without exemptions. I totally understand the fact that King Ahasuerus had had more than enough wine and was in high spirit from too much alcohol as at the time he decided to put his wife on display, yet that was not a good enough reason for his wife who should be a woman under submission to her husband to decline his call. 
We read in Ephesians 5:22-24 and in 1 Peter 3:1-6 that wives should submit to their husbands, but God didn't put an adjective to qualify or describe the kind of husband wives should submit to. So, whether good or bad as long as he remains your husband, the instruction of God concerning your life in that marriage is to submit to him as you would do to the Lord. 
Queen Vashti would have just been a perfect trophy when you combine her outward beauty with the inner beauty of a noble wife. But she had one good attribute and lacked the other. She possessed the outward beauty but lacked the inner poise that would have qualified her as a trophy in and out. She was a beauty to behold but a disdain to her husband by her attitude. 
Every wife loves to be appreciated and praised; a wife loves to be a trophy to be displayed by her husband to the world, but this just doesn't happen by chance, as a wife you need to make it happen. A combination of prayers and Holy Spirit led actions will get you there and believe me when I say it's a sweet thing to be your husband's trophy. 






Friday 14 June 2019

This Is How to Handle It.

Unverified information shows that rate at which we have infidelity in marriage is on the increase just as we have an increase in the rate of divorce. From discussions with various people, it appears that married women are not spared from this spate of infidelity in marriage. So just as men are been driven by lustful desires to the point of sin, so also are women.
The interesting thing I have found about this is that some married women are actually having illicit affairs with married men who are not their husbands. They have a lot of reasons they have postulated to justify this. In fact, I hear some say that he was the man they were meant to marry initially but as God will have it, fate brought them back together again and the love, attraction, and chemistry between them is so strong they can’t help themselves.
Sincerely, I am not sharing this to judge anyone but simply stating the right from the wrong. I know a lady whose husband was having an issue with another lady in his office who had a crush on him and wouldn’t let him be. To the glory of God, the wife happens to be a prayerful wife who took her marriage matters very seriously and she had been a formidable part of her husband’s progress. They had a good relationship, but interestingly the husband didn’t come home to tell his wife about the lady who was crushing on him in the office. In fact, the problem started when the husband started helping the young lady out with some personal issues she had and along the line, she began to fall in love with him yet she was also married with children.
The man didn’t want to hurt her feelings but didn’t want a relationship too. He was been polite and tried to avoid her which wasn’t working. She would find every excuse to be extra nice to the man to the point that it was becoming obvious to the other colleagues at work. In all of these, the husband only painted this lady as a friend to his wife. When he began to get harsh with the lady at work just to push her away, his male colleagues began to tell him he was been too nasty to the lady and that he should put her feelings into consideration, that it wasn’t easy for a lady to come out and bear her feelings to a man. Yet this man was happily married to another woman and the said lady was married to another man.
Then one day the man needed to carry out a medical procedure and was admitted into the hospital. His wife was by his side to help him through the process. After the medical operation was done and the man was put under observation and was recovering in the hospital, this crush lady (office colleague) came to visit him in the hospital. His wife was there by his side. Interestingly, the careless crush could not hold her emotions as she began to get unduly worried over every sigh of discomfort the man made, coupled with the uneasiness in the hospital room where the three of them (the man, his wife, and the office crush lady) were, the wife could not help but notice a sense of awkwardness around her.
She managed to hold her peace while the crush lady was around and later asked her husband if there was anything between him and the lady who had come to visit. It was at that point that the husband confessed to her that the lady had a crush on her, and he had done everything to push her away to no avail.
The wife didn’t complain, fight or say anything afterward. She began to pray hard, calling God to remembrance over the issue of her marriage and just continued to be a good wife to her husband and made sure she was there for him at every turn. She was a very nice wife before then but became nicer to him than before. Eventually, the intruding lady was transferred to another branch in another country and that was how the faithful young lady’s marriage was saved.
It is only a lazy wife who would abandon her own assignment to lust over the success of another woman’s assignment. You have the capacity to have the best husband in the world if you are ready to be the best wife in the world. Good things don’t come cheap but good things are worth working for. And when you are a good wife and there is a treat over your marriage, be calm and pray. Don't become your own undoing as a result of lack of wisdom. Rather be a better you. That is how to achieve success.

Friday 31 May 2019

A Sacrifice For Your Wife

Marriage as the Lord has instituted it is the coming together of a man and a woman to form a single unit, to fulfill all that God has destined them to fulfill together. It’s a lifetime bonding in which the Lord puts love between them to facilitate this bonding. Marriage is a bonding with its own instructions that makes the bonding last a lifetime. So, following the instructions of the union makes the union a very beautiful one. The advantages of the bonding are enormous, but it only works for those who know the rules and follow the rules.
So much has been said to the wives as though the men need not contribute anything. But the bigger responsibility of the home belongs to the men. Now we read in Ephesians 5:25-29 that a man needs to love his wife like Christ loves the church. What a big responsibility that is when we consider the depth, height, and width of how Christ loves the church. We all know that it is the love that Christ has for the church that made him lay down his life for the church. So, to say that God is instructing the man to love his wife to a point where he is willing to give his life for hers. You will agree with me that this is huge.
This instruction seems easy when the wife is such a submissive wife and obeys her husband’s instructions to the very last detail. With such a wife the husband is very proud, and loving her for what she is investing in the marriage is not a challenge at all. A submissive wife makes loving her easy. But what of the wife who is not submissive? Does the same instruction to love apply? Unfortunately, there are no exceptions to the rule. If this love must be in the pattern in which Christ loves the church, then it must be unconditionally selfless and sacrificial.
An old classmate of mine shared a story on our class’s WhatsApp group of her visit to one of her friends who kept eulogizing herself of how she’s had to put up with her husband’s excess just for the peace and progress of her marriage. Well, the husband was not there to say otherwise. And then on another day she and her husband met with the same friend’s husband and he was also full of praises for himself of how he’s had to put up with his wife’s behavior just for the peace and progress of their marriage. And then you ask, who is putting up with who? They both feel each of them is the one making the sacrifice that is keeping the marriage together. The truth is they are both working and so their marriage is working, and they are getting the peace they have worked for. Now, it is important that we understand that we can’t get what we didn’t work for. The result of your marriage is determined by the level of work you put into it. If you seek a good wife with the qualities you desire in a wife, then you need to invest continuous prayers in her, then invest continuous love and then patiently wait for a bountiful harvest of a wonderful wife and a glorious marriage. Note that you cannot possess what you are not willing to pursue. 

Tuesday 28 May 2019

Changing Your Wife to Be What You Want Her to Be.


“That woman calls you husband, do not hurt her to fulfill your fantasy.” I just found this quote on tweeter and it caught my attention and got me thinking. There are a million and one stories of husbands walking away from their marriages because of another woman they fell in love with. Some have been able to get away with it but not without their consciences dealing with them every now and then, but some have had a bag full of regrets after realizing that it’s actually not greener on the other side, and it’s a little too late to make amends.
I have written a lot of blog articles addressing the wives on the need to be a complete wife lacking nothing and to occupy their marriage and their husband’s life such that there is no room for an intruder in their marriage, but on the flip side there is the need to look the side of the husbands for redress too.
A husband is the head of the home and so he is the leader of the home. Based on God’s mandate on his life, the husband’s leadership pattern should follow after the leadership pattern of Christ Jesus. In my last post, I outlined the expectations on such leadership if it has to be in the pattern and order with which Christ led and is still leading the church. It is tagged a servant-leader style of leadership.
So, if a husband is following after the leadership style of Jesus Christ, the feelings of his wife should be a priority to him and that brings me again to the quote above which says “That woman calls you husband, do not hurt her to fulfill your fantasy.” A good husband that is so concerned about God’s appraisal over his life will not and should not hurt his wife just to fulfill his lustful fantasy.
No matter how you think about it, it is not greener on the other side. If you conclude that your wife isn’t giving you peace and as such you seek it outside of God, know for sure that the peace you seek is not found in abundance on the laps of adultery, it only comes from God. Nothing derived from sin ends in praise. What you invest in your wife determines what you get as returns from her and what you sow in your wife determines what you reap from her and the harvest comes in multiple increases of what was sown. That is how it works. It is easy to make a woman be all that you want her to be but you must be willing to sacrifice first. 

Tuesday 21 May 2019

Let's Discuss the Husbands


In the course of our first Silver Lining Couple’s Clinic program we had last year, I learned more than I thought I knew about the male gender and while we think the wives need to do so much to make a marriage work, the husbands need to do a lot more. Based on the societal believes the male are the gods who must be obeyed and judging from the instructions from God as found in the Bible which states that wives must submit to their husbands as unto God, that seems to be true.
But with leadership comes a huge responsibility. The leader in Christ wasn’t One who lord it over those who followed Him, but Christ led through service. Like Pastor Myles Munroe called it then, it was a servant-leader style of leadership. So unlike what the society has made up believe in which some have convenient backed it up with scripture without considering the context holistically, the man is actually required to lead his wife in the pattern in which Christ led the church and that leadership style is known as the servant leadership style. That kind of leadership that puts those you lead before yourself. It’s the sacrificial kind of leadership. It’s very different from the master-servant; a husband-wife relationship that is playing out in the society today.
So, the leadership of the husband just like we have in the leadership of Christ, is the leadership that protects, it’s the leadership that provides, it’s the leadership that advocates, it’s the leadership that defends, it’s the leadership that listens, it’s the leadership that encourages, it's the leadership that cares, and above all it’s the leadership that loves unconditionally. I want to believe that if most wives have husband-leaders with these qualities then submitting to such a leader will not be a problem, and then a lot of marriage crisis will be averted.
So as a husband, what kind of a leader are you? Are you the Christlike leader who practices the servant-leader style of leadership or are you just the boss-master? In order to have your wife submit to you whereby you can go to sleep rest assured that your home is at peace, then you need to follow after the pattern of Christ and adopt the servant-leader style of leadership. With prayers and practice, it gets easier and more rewarding. And like my dear friend Deji Irawo would always say, its time to begin to unlearn the errors that have so far shaped humanity and relearn that which promotes.

Friday 17 May 2019

When You Speak Marriage You Speak Unity

One of the secrets to great success in life is the power of unity. Unity is so powerful when it is maintained in marriage. Jesus said in Matthew 18:19 that if as little as two agree on anything and they ask for it from God, it will be done for them by our Father in heaven. And then we read about God saying in Genesis 11:6 that if as one people (note that plural term PEOPLE, it speaks of more than one person), speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. And so, I see impossibility crushed by the power of unity. But you might want to say that Jesus did not imply that the two must be husband and wife and I will tell you that there is no better two that can agree on anything and ask God and He will hastily answer them than the two of husband and wife whom God has joined together in flesh and spirit as one entity, and made them His own.
So to say that, the agreement of the husband and his wife in thought and mind mixed with prayers creates a lifetime of successful achievements because what they ask in agreement they get from God.
Now, the devil knows this, and because he has come only to kill, steal and destroy he ensures that the husband and the wife don't agree on anything and so they make individual requests before God and have their prayers pending because such prayers or request requires they be done in agreement. And so, we will notice that alongside a messy marriage are a messy financial life and lost opportunities. It always looks like once the home front is not smooth, it affects all other areas of the individual lives of the couples.
But as children of God, we should not be ignorant of the devil’s pranks. God has given His word; it is our duty to ensure that we make ourselves eligible for the promise of God. God has told us that if we agree and ask then we will receive, the receiving is God's doing, but the agreeing and asking is our doing. God will not force us to agree, that is our own duty to ensure. It is our responsibility to make that agreement happen and believe me, it does not come easy, but it is very possible and doable.  
Quite a number of times I have viewed things differently from my husband, but mindful of the power of unity I make effort to see things through his eyes and align with him and believe me we have achieved great things simply by the power of alignment. And the interesting thing about this is that I get to win in the long run. Because after a period of time, he will be still turn around to see things from my own perspective. Yes, sometimes it takes years for him to see it my way but with patience and a good heart I get to win it all in the long run.
I want you to keep this thought dear to you, “it pays to lose the battle just to win the war.” Conceding to the will and instructions of your husband as the Lord has instructed us as wives to submit to our husband as unto the Lord might mean that you lose your conviction momentarily, but it's only to win the love of your husband, the peace and joy of your marriage and the progress and promotion of your life. And above all it means to win the love of God as you obey Him, it means to walk in unity with your husband and have all your request before the Lord answered without delay.
I have tried it and it works. I am enjoying it and I am reaping the benefits of that which I am sowing. I might be losing the battle every now and then, but I am winning the war. 

Why Do We Worship God

Many people feel like they should only praise God when they have received a blessing from God. Honestly, I was in that category too, so I am...