I had promised in my last post to discuss on some gains of
investing in your marriage and I hope to make good that promise in this post by
the special grace of God.
It's common knowledge that men and women are built with different mindset and event different body structure. The way we think and rationalize issues as women are totally
different from the way men rationalize issues and that accounts for a handful of misunderstandings in
marriage. The wives are mostly consumed in their convictions that they feel
they are right no matter how the situation is perceived. And the men are always "the he who must be obeyed,” so whether they are right or wrong just do it the
way they want it done and there will be no troubles.
I am convinced God is so very mindful of this trend in
husbands and wives for Him to provide the rules for marriage as we find them in
the Bible (Ephesians 5:22:31). Though I don’t have facts to support my claim and
so would not be so assertive on what I am about to write, but it is wildly
postulated that women are more emotional than men. While women act based on
feelings. Men act based on reasoning. So we can conclude that women think with
their hearts.
From what the Bible gives us as God’s law for marriage in
Ephesians 5:22-31, we read the instruction for the wives in Ephesians 5:22-24
that wives should submit to their husbands as unto the Lord, and that they
should submit to their husbands in everything as the husband is the head of the
wife just as Christ is the head of the church. Now the problem with this instruction
for woman is that because they are emotional beings and act based on emotions,
they need some form of emotional justification in order to obey this rule for them in marriage. A wife would want her husband to show her love which is an
emotional feeling to justify her submission to him. And this is where marriage
investment comes in.
When you want to invest in a thing, the rational thing to
first consider is the profitability of your investment. You try to envisage
your Returns on Investment before you decide to invest or not to invest. And even
though some investments are high risk, you are still compelled to invest anyway
before you know that the ROI on that investment is high. So you don’t make the
risk factor a focus for your business decision as much as you make your ROI the determining factor of your investment. So because the ROI is high, you invest
anyway.
Applying the same principle in your marriage this is what
it looks like: The husband who is a logical man and acts based on reasoning and
not on emotions would want a justifiable reason to love his wife, so he asks
himself questions such as: can she be a good wife? Is she supportive? Is she
submissive and respectful? Is she a good home maker? Can she cook? Is she
making herself a good mother to his children? Is she presentable in appearance? etc
and all these add up for him as reasons to or not to love is his wife. And this is eliminating the fact there might be another woman somewhere vying for his attention and love too. And if that be the case there is something called comparative analysis setting in. So he also might be considering who is better of the two woman, not giving thought for the covenant he entered into with his duly wedded wife.
But if a wife decides to go beyond what is presumed to be normal or rather the expected limit of a woman and she stops to be just like any other woman to
become an extraordinary woman who is rare and highly valued, she would go
beyond the limits of emotions and make some high risk investment in her
marriage making God Almighty her ROI and staking her investment risk on God. If
she decides to do this, she will choose to obey God’s instructions for her
marriage above any emotional feeling she might crave for in her marriage as justification to submit to her husband and
her focus for doing so has nothing to do with her husband but everything to do
with God. She would decide to submit to her husband obeying him in everything
not because her husband deserves it or has earned that respect, submission and
obedience from her, but because of her love for God and her willingness to obey
God thus obeying her husband as an act that pleases God. She is submitting to
her husband because God says she should and her Return on Investment on that
decision comes from God. And I am a living witness to the fact that you can’t trade with God and
lose. You cannot be in partnership with God and fall short. That is the only
impossibility you can find in God; He will never disappoint your trust and
faith in Him, and when you obey His instructions despite every opposition, you will gain much. God rewards obedience to His words.
When you decide to go beyond the ordinary, and you place
yourself in the league of extraordinary women who do God’s will in every area
of their lives including their marriage and so decide to obey your husband and
submit to him in spite of him and all the negative outlook that seem to surround your decision, some things are bound
to happen. First, because you have chosen you do the will of God above your
will, God will visit you marriage and heal it. God will begin to turn things
around for your good, and those problems that fights, arguments, malice,
quarrels were not able to solve for you, God will solve them and all you need
to do to make that happen is simply obey Him and submit to you husband.
Then the second thing that is bound to happen is that by
submitting to your husband, you find yourself doing things to please your
husband. When you please your husband in the bid to please God, you give your
husband more than enough reasons to love you. So logically you have earned
your husband’s love and respect too; and that's all because you have chosen to leave the
league of ordinary women to extraordinary women who truly keep God at the
focus of their thought, actions and decisions. Now your simple investment of
submission to God through the submission to your husband has yielded for you returns on investment of a peaceful marriage and a loving husband. Sincerely,
it just that simple. So you have the love of God over your life, you have the love of your husband because you are doing it God's way and then you have a peaceful and loving marriage.
And the same thing applies to the husbands; now ordinary
men love their wives for reasons. For them there must be something she is doing
right that attracts them to her and makes them love her. But what if this wife
is waiting for her husband to love her first before she submits to him? This is where some men become
extraordinary men, they go beyond what an ordinary man would do and they invest in
their marriage staking their investment on God and not on any other reason to love their wives.
Such men would go ahead and love their wives unconditionally for no humanly conceivable
reason just because they are doing it to please the Lord. God is the only
reason they love their wife enough to die for her. God is the reason this
extraordinary man would love his wife despite her many shortfalls. People who
know him thinks he is foolish, but he knows that he is in business with God and
his reward for that investment comes from God.
We all know that God's instruction for the man in marriage is
to love his wife as himself and as Christ loves the church and care for her
(Ephesians 5:25-29). So this extraordinary man is loving his wife to fulfill his
mandate from God for his marriage.
When a man makes this kind of decision and follows it
through with persistent action of love and not giving up, things are bound to turn
around for good for him in that marriage. First his decisions and actions will invite God into
his marriage and God will turn around that marriage for his good. And all that
his ego and muscles have not been able to achieve for him, God will begin to do
them for him effortlessly. And secondly, his persistent love for his wife gives
her the emotional boost she needs to begin to submit to him like she
should. When her husband shows her love, it becomes very easy for her to submit
to him and their marriage becomes a haven on earth for them and they will begin
to know and enjoy the gains of their investment in marriage and this is just
the beginning of the positive yields that they are bound to receive as positive
returns on the investment they have made in their marriage.
If you have been blessed by this, and you have learned much
from this eye opening marriage write up, you might want to check out more books
inspired by the Holy Spirit and written by me on My Book Store here. These are
books written based on the truth of the Bible, and are guaranteed to make a
huge and positive difference in every area of your life. They are worth more
than their money value and they will bless your life greatly. If you buy now,
you will enjoy great discounts on purchase. But nevertheless, you will always
have a seasoned word from God on this blog that will bless your life absolutely free.
In my next post, I will try to share a story with you on
the gains of marriage investment that we are learning now, until then remain
very blessed.