The Marriage Series 20

Hello people, how are you doing today? I trust that by the special grace of the living God we are all fine and our homes are flourishing to the glory of the living God.

In my last post I promised to share another story about marriage and trust the Lord that we will learn a thing or two from these stories. So here is promise fulfilled again.

A young hardworking man working with a manufacturing company was given a brand new car in his office. This brand new car didn’t come on a platter of gold as this young man had been long overdue for this benefit which came with a four year repayment plan. It had taken days, weeks and months of prayers and fasting with the support of his loving wife to have this dream come to past.

Finally the car came and as the young man was driving his brand new car home from work at about 4.30pm, he came across a young lady on his way home and gave her a lift. He later arrived home at about 7.30pm and immediately showed his wife the new car, leaving the car keys with her so she can have a good feel of it while he went into the house to take a shower and freshen up from the stress of the day.

He was alerted by the shout of fire alarm raised by the neighbors and rushed to the scene of the fire only to discover that his loving wife had set his brand new car ablaze. Her reason for this bizarre action was that her husband was seen around 4.30pm in a brand new car picking up a beautiful lady on the road. The person who saw him on the road and reported the findings to her had returned to his house more than an hour before despite the usual traffic jam. But her husband returned much later and that translates to the fact that he was beginning to engage in adulterous act and if the brand new car will become a tool of adultery they were better off without it. This wife had gotten a keg of petrol fuel in wait for the husband’s arrival to carry out her act.

The husband kept calm and thanked the neighbors for their intervention but promised to get back to them when the time was ripe to deal with the situation.

Two days later the wife’s sister came visiting with her husband to come congratulate her sister and her husband on the acquisition of their new car and to wish her a happy birthday as that day was her birthday. On getting to the house the wife’s sister and her husband met the remains of the burnt down car and wondered what had happened. The husband pleaded for their patience and invited the neighbors who had witnessed the burning of the car to come hear the conclusion of the matter.

The husband sat his guests and asked his wife to tell her story all over again. After ranting and calling her husband all sorts of indecent names, she repeated her story as she narrated it on the day of the incident and after she was done the husband asked his wife’s sister to comment on all that she heard.

The wife’s sister explained how she was waiting for a means of transportation home on the day the husband was given his new car. At the bus-stop she noticed a brand new car park close to her; as she peeped into the car to see who was in it and why park so close she discover that it was her sister’s husband. He offered to drive her home and when they got her home he waited a while to see if her husband would return early so they could chat. When he had waited a while and the husband did not return he begged to take his leave and she promised that she and her husband will pay them a visit over the weekend and use the opportunity to pray and bless the new car and also wish her sister happy birthday.

It turns out that the assumed girlfriend that the husband was seen picking up on the road was the wife’s sister and no adulterous intent was in the picture of things. How is this man to deal with his wife after this kind of incident?

Before we carry one to call this loving wife many names, I want to point out that many wives do similar stuff in their marriages. I wish to humbly ask that we ask ourselves how many times we have taken very harsh decisions in our marriages without evaluating the matter and weighing it on a scale to balance things out first. How many wives have patiently heard their spouses out first before arriving at a conclusion and taking action? How many have of us have taken actions based on inconclusive investigations? If you have, then you are just as guilty as this loving wife.

In my last post I mentioned that in dealing with marital issues, it is better to deal with the emotion aroused by the situation first before dealing with the situation itself. In the layman’s language it’s called think before you act, some call it look before you leap. But when you think, what you think about is important; the direction of your thought is very important. This wife in question had thought her actions through obviously, but the big problem with her was that her thoughts were full of negativity. She didn’t deal with the emotions she felt, rather she allowed this negative emotion to consume her and dictate her cause of action.

1 Timothy 1:7 says, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. What this passage tells us is that we have the ability to discipline our emotions; we have the capability to direct our emotions in the path that is right, rather than let it run wild and control our actions. Jesus said in Matthew 19:8 that Moses permitted divorce because the hearts of men where hard. These are men who have not exercise self-discipline on their emotions.

Proverbs 14:1 says, “The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.” This woman in the story is a godly wife who supported and prayed along with her husband to achieve his dream and then with her own hands tears all that has been achieved down due to her lack of self-discipline on her emotions. Though she is godly yet she is unwise. And so we have a lot of godly unwise women in the world today. They know the word of God, they know how to pray, but still allow their emotions to destroy their sense of reasoning and their ability to take objective decisions.

A very big catalyst to the destruction of many homes is the fanning to flame of negative emotions and allowing it to be the basis of our judgment and decisions in marriage. No beautiful marriage happens by chance, it’s a product of positivity against all odds. You cannot build your home with truckloads of negativity stored up in your heart; you won’t make progress in your marriage when all you perceive of your spouse is negative. Don’t judge your marriage by the outcome of another’s marriage; you don’t know the full story of how they got the negative outcome. No matter what your spouse has done, try to be positive and hear each other out first. May the Lord bless our homes.

In my next episode, I will share another story that I hope and pray we can learn from. Till then please remain blessed. 

The Marriage Series 19

Hello great people of God, it’s yet another great day and another wonderful opportunity to share the truth of God’s word. As usual I am delighted to write this post and I trust God that as you read you will pick up something valuable from this write-up.

In my last post I promised to share a story and here I am making good my promise. So in this marriage series 19, I am sharing the story I heard from a friend and got the permission to share on this blog.

This story is about a duly married couple; both husband and wife are working and fending for the family, but because the wife has a higher paying job and she earns more, she carries on a little more financial responsibility than her husband. This isn’t so much of a problem though, but the problem in the marriage is that the husband is cheating on his wife and having extramarital affair with another lady.

Bad as it were, this unfaithful husband borrowed money from his loving wife. Now, there is nothing wrong in a man borrowing money from his wife, but the wife didn’t have as much money as her husband was demanding to borrow and so she had to take soft loans from office colleagues to make up the amount of money her husband was requesting she borrowed him.

All of these are no a big issue if you will say, but the aspect of the story that hurts deep into the heart is the fact that this unfaithful husband took all the money he borrowed from his wife, part of which she had to borrow from her colleague in the office to buy a gift for the girlfriend he is having an affair with. Now how much worse can this get?

The wife discovered all the atrocities of her husband just by chance when she picked up a call that came on his phone on his behalf while he was in another room in the house. Before borrowing him the money, she had demanded to know what he needed the borrowed money for and he declined telling her but rather played the emotional game on her; telling her he only needed a genuine help from her and if she wasn’t ready to help she should forget it and not bother to query him on what he needed the money for. As at the time I heard of the story, the husband is not even aware that his wife has discovered his wrong doings and unfaithfulness. All he knows is that his wife’s mood in the house has changed and he is still playing the loving caring husband, trying to console his wife on whatever it was that was causing her a heavy heart.

My pain in this story that I have just shared is that: what kind of a man would cheat on his wife let alone collect a huge sum of money from her to buy a gift for a girlfriend. This really sounds wicked to me. It is as though this wife was stabbed at the back; and she was not just stabbed at the back by someone she loved and trusted with her life, the knife was turned and twisted within her body to ensure she really died. And this is my analogy of the story I just shared.

But a lot of people will advise that this kind of husband is worth no good and so he is not worth fighting for. So many will advise this young lady to talk a walk from the marriage and get a better man that can be trusted, who will get his priorities right in life and show a decent measure of responsibility in life. But I will say there are other ways to handle this situation that would yield to better result and more respect from the husband to his wife.

This seems an issue that might be hard to forgive, but forgiving in this case does not make the wife stupid or a dumb head as some would think. Forgiving her husband would make her husband respect her more if he still has any form of dignity in him. If my opinion where to count in this matter, I would advise that the wife let her husband know that she knows about his little undignified secret and though he has broken her heart and betrayed her trust, yet she is willing to forgive.

If this husband is a man with conscience, he should be the one looking more stupid and begging for forgiveness. The fact that his wife knows so much of his adulterous life style and still willing to forgive should make him respect her for life. In shame, he should repent of his sinful ways and find a means of paying all that he owes in the act of committing adultery.

This to me is a better approach to the matter with better results. This approach is far more dignifying than to tear the roof down in rage or take a divorce. Why take so much time and effort to build a home and then tear it down with your own hands. The Bible says it’s only foolish women who do such. If you have made good effort to build your home, then make better effort to keep it standing; even against all odds.

I have heard a lot of people tell me that it takes great grace to practice the things I preach on my blog. But the truth of the matter is that, yes it takes great grace to practice these things, but that great grace is available to all those who seek it. We only need to tap into it and it will work for us. I have practiced these things and they have worked for me, I don’t have more great grace available to me than you, that grace is available for us all as long as we are willing to make use of it. When you yield to God’s great grace, it will work for you.

Another thing that forgiving will bring about in this marriage is that the wife will cause a change in the life of her husband more than she can ever know; not by words but by her actions. The simple act of forgiveness will cause newness in the life of her husband beyond what any fight can ever make happen. Over and over again, my husband has told me that I have impacted his life positively more than I can ever imagine. This was not achieved through fights and proving points and enforcing my opinion. This was achieved through submission and prayers. 1 Peter 3:1-3 says a godly wife will convert her unbelieving husband not by words, but by the actions; through the reverence and purity of her life.

Before you think this approach is timid and would not carry the weight of the hurt you feel, try it out first in any situation you may be faced with in your marriage and judge the end result of the approach. Handling situations with the full weight of emotions do not always yield the best result. Sometimes it’s important to deal with the emotions surrounding a situation first before dealing with the situation itself.

In my next marriage series, I will be sharing another story and I am positive there are huge lessons to learn from that too. Till then, remain blessed. 

The Marriage Series 18

Good day to you, trust you are doing great to the glory of God. To say that God is good, is to say the least. In my life God has been awesome. Indeed He has been a very great Father. I thank Him that I am privileged to call Him Father. And I thank Him for your life too. No matter how dark the cloud may be, in the arms of God there is always safety and hope.

So it’s the Marriage Series again and I want to talk a little more about the issue of submission that I had started in the last post. I would really want the women who read this to see the practical gains of submission as God has instructed. I want them not to consider it as a burden or a form of encroachment on their self worth, but as a tool in achieving great things in marriage. In truth submission is a tool of great success in marriage.

Last weekend I was having a discussion with two adult men, one in his late-40s and the other in his mid-50s. I am sure you won’t be surprised if our line of discussion bothered around marriage issues; God has laid that on my heart as a burden and a passion and so every opportunity I have to speak and make impact on a marriage I don’t waste such opportunity at all. Even if its just a gathering of two.

So, we talked about marriage and how to make it work; the errors the women make and the errors men make. I explained to these men that there is almost nothing a woman can’t achieve in marriage through submission. Initially they didn’t agree until I broke it down to them.

I explained to the men that if any of them gave his wife an instruction and she obeyed without questioning, in the first instance he might think there is something she wants from him for her to obey without hesitation. But if she continues in this trend for a very long time without changing, then she begins to win her husband's attention gradually. To this they both agreed.

I later explained to these men that if their wives still continues to obey their instructions much longer, she begins to win their love and affection and they also agreed to that too. So that is simply the way it is, and that explains why God instructed the woman to submit to her husband as unto God. As a wife wanting the joy of marriage, the easiest way to win the love of your husband is to submit to his instructions as head over your life. This is the ingredient to peace in your marriage.

As a woman you would then want to wonder if all these instructions dished out by our husbands are correct, since the Lord wants us to submit to these instructions. In truth our husbands are human and so they make mistakes but if correcting them will cause trouble in the home, then rather than correct, pray that God will guide their decision making and will cushion the effect of any wrong decision they make.

In as much as it will sound uncaring to watch your husband moving in the wrong direction and not bother to put up a word of correction, it is better to avoid a fight in the course of correcting rather than to correct and have a fight in the process. Two wrongs never arrive at a right. When you have a husband who listens and take corrections, then there is no issue giving him your opinion or a word of advise as long as it does not lead to a fight. But when your husband is someone still struggling with ego issues, then it wise to correct him on your kneels at the altar of prayers and let your good attitude, reverence and purity be instruments in the hands of God in bringing about the desired change in him.

In my personal life and based on my experience there have been times when I would lovingly advice my husband against some decisions he is about to take, sometimes he adheres to my advice and rethink his decision, other times he gives me reasons why he thinks his own approach is better, but a lot of times he bluntly just tells me to keep my opinion to myself and watch him do his thing, cause he didn’t ask for my opinion. And yes, this hurts. But I just hold myself in and watch as I am told. And I can tell you for free that a lot of these times, he has had to come back to apologize and hear me out. But it never ends in a fight.

This style of relationship is what I pray and plead that a lot of married women will adopt in their homes. When they apply this approach and play the fool in submission to their husbands in obedience to the word of God, they will influence and affect their husbands more positively.

There is this story that I hope to share in my next marriage series and I can tell you for free that it is worth waiting for. What will you do if you caught your husband cheating on you? Hold your breath and read the details in my next post. Until then, please remain blessed.

The Marriage Series 17

Is it possible to ever stop thanking God for His faithfulness and mercies? The Bible says it’s only the living that can thank God and that I am alive and able to share the word of God today, I give all the glory to the Most High God. And I thank God specially for those of you who take the time to read these posts, may your homes and lives be transformed positively everyday as we follow the leading of God in our lives and marriages.

In today’s blog post I want to share a personal experience with the women, the godly wives that God has strategically placed in the lives of men He desires to use for His glory.

I have a lot of Christian wives complain about their husbands; pastors wives who believe that their husbands should understand them and live by their rules. These wives mean no harm at all, they love their husbands dearly but cannot comprehend why these men they love dearly don’t see things from their own point of view.

Let’s take for example, there is a need in the home; the wife sees it as an urgent need that should be attended to immediately. As far as she is concerned heaven might as well just fall if this need is not taken care of immediately, she is not going to leave it to chance, and she roams in her head of all the what ifs, and the possible damage that can happen if this issue is not given the urgency that it requires. But the husband is quite nonchalant about this need. He is not attaching the kind of urgency to it as his wife does. He feels there are other issues more pressing than the so-called urgent need in his wife's head and so these two wonderful people differ in opinion and approach over the matter.

Now the instruction of God to the wives is that we should submit to our husbands as unto the Lord. In this kind of situation where you feel a matter deserves so much attention and should be a priority on your scale of preference for attention and your husband just waves his hand and says “leave it, we’ll handle that later not now.” Is it so easy to obey such instruction against what your instinct tells you is urgent, or follow your guts feeling and do what you think is right against obeying what your husband says you should do? This issue as I have just simple put it is causing a lot of problems in homes and marriages today, causing wives to arrive at faulty conclusions about their husbands just because he does not see things the way they do.

In my own life it’s not any better I confess to that, and a lot of times I get really angry when my husband just does not see things from my own point of view. I sometimes don’t even tell him things until I have taken a decision, just because I believe his approach will most assuredly differ from mine. But the question that follows is: I am always right? Reluctantly I started abandoning those issues for him to solve and handle if he does not attach the same importance to them as I do. And I discovered that heaven never falls after all as I always assumed it would. But I can tell you for free that it’s difficult to obey one's husband in such circumstances as I have just described, but God’s rules of submission has no exception. God didn’t tell us when to submit and when not to submit, all that God instruct us to do as wives is to SUBMIT to our husbands as we would unto the Lord (Ephesians 5:22-24, Colossians 3:18 and 1 Peter 3:1-6).

To submit according to the dictionary is defined as “to give over or yield to the power or authority of another”, another says “to yield oneself to the power or authority of another.” Now what God’s instruction to the wife means in plain terms is that God wants the wife “to yield herself to the power and authority of her husband.” This instruction is irrespective of what she regards as urgent or not, and it is not subject to the fact that her husband must see issues through her eyes or agree with her opinion on all matters.

But what can a godly wife do with this kind of rule for her from God? The important thing for her to do is pray. She is not to pray that her husband should agree with her on all issues because she might not be right on all issues and her opinions might lead to disaster if implemented in some cases. But she should pray that her husband’s view should always be in line with God’s views. She needs to pray always that God will instruct her through her husband and that her husband will not take a decision outside the will of God even if he is not a born-again Christian. If the husband is saying no to a matter then it should mean for her that God is saying no to that matter owing to her prayers and request to God and she should let it rest.

When you have prayed like this and you know the God you serve as a God that answers prayers, then submitting to your husband will not be a problem at all and you will have peace in your life and peace in your marriage. You will have more respect for your husband and he will treat you like his queen that you truly are.

On a lighter note, I want to share two brief stories of how this submission issue has applied to me. A couple of weeks back my refrigerator developed problems and I got someone to come fix it. While trying to fix the fridge the technician that worked on it got it really dirty. He finished work on the fridge late on a Saturday night, so I got to work cleaning the fridge before plugging it on and filling it with stuff. My husband walked up to me and said I should stop the cleaning and go to bed as the cleaning can be done the next day. But I was quite irritated by the state of the fridge and I knew I couldn’t put foodstuff in it in that state, more so, I evaluated the chores I had to do the next day knowing that top on the list was getting my family ready for a new work week.

My husband went to bed immediately he dished out his instruction and knowing he was asleep I continued cleaning. As I was cleaning the spirit of the Lord spoke to my heart on obedience. I tried explaining to God on all that I had to do the next day and why it would be easier for me to lessen my chores by getting the fridge issue out of the way.

I was done with the cleaning and very impressed with myself. I loaded the fridge back what all that needs to go into it. I monitored the performance of the fridge and and everything appeared fine with it until after four days; the fridge developed fault again. I was mad. It was as if my efforts were in vain. I asked God to speak to me on why the fridge is still give me headache and He simply told me “Obedience.” God told me that if I find it hard to obey the simple instruction of my husband, how then can I obey Him.

This simple act of disobedience is what is plaguing many marriages with so much bitterness today. I share this with women because I have heard women speak. The heaven will not fall if it does not swing the way you want it to. God will work with your obedience and make a beauty of it.

Another story of mine in the opposite direction; I just feel compelled to share this story too that we might learn as I have.

Again a couple of days ago the bore-hole that supplies water to my house developed some fault as it was pumping up colored water. I called my husband’s attention to it and got his permission to call the plumber to come look at it. We tried treating the water and for three days we kept flushing the bore-hole system. We had spent money and time on it and there was not improvement. At the weekend when he was home, he called the guy to dug the bore-hole to come have a look at it because in the two years that we’ve been using the bore-hole we’ve not had a problem like this.

It bothered me so much because the laundry had piled up and getting water to cook was an issue. After about 7 days of work on the water system there was an improvement but not as good. The water was still not water-clear. I was agitated and I was of the opinion we get another person to come have a look at it, but my husband was done on that matter and he just said that we should leave it and with time the water will clear out by itself. Honestly that didn’t sound right to me but I struggled with it and held myself from calling another person to look at the water system. But believe me after about three days the water started clearing out by itself until it became satisfactorily clean.

These experiences that I write about are hardly any different from what a lot of wives are experiencing that is causing problems in a lot of homes. Logically the wife may sound right, a lot of people will agree that the wife is logically making sense, yet the husband sees it differently and still the wife has to obey her husband as unto the Lord. It’s hard to comprehend, but that’s just the way it is and that’s how God has made it to be. When I asked the Lord why I have to obey my husband even when his reasoning is not making sense to me and logically I appear right and he is wrong, the Lord told me that if I am having a problem obeying my husband’s instruction then how can obey His own instructions for my life when His word clearly states that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts not our thoughts. God’s approach is so very different from ours, and that our logic in it's richest form cannot match God ways.

Sincerely this has weakened me a great deal that I can’t help but share this with you. And just as I write this I am realizing all over again that God doesn't works with how plans or way of doing things even when the issue concerns us personally. When you think this is the approach with which God will fulfill His promise for you or answer a pressing prayer, He moves and touch you from an angel you least expect. The only thing that is important is not to think out a solution for God, but just obey as He directs.

Obeying your husband is just a simple act of mastering obedience. When you have learned to obey your husband’s instruction when you can’t even comprehend the rationale behind such instruction and it does not fall in line with your own thought direction, then you are practicing how to obey God even when He does not make sense to you, because in truth God does not have to make sense to you; He is God Almighty who brings forth the things that are seen from things not seen and calls the things that be not as though they were. He is God who makes impossible possible.  

There is something interesting on my mind for you in marriage series 18, so just keep your fingers crossed and stay blessed. 

The Marriage Series 16

I will always bless God for His grace on our lives; not just my life as a tool in His hands to reach your hearts as readers of His messages, but your lives also, the lives of those who receive God’s messages through this blog and are continually blessed by it. May our names and that of our families never be found missing in the Lamb’s book of life.

I just finished reading a book this afternoon “Redeeming Love” by Francine Rivers and I was overwhelmed by the display of unconditional love from a husband to his adulterous wife. It was such a rich and beautiful kind of love that I wish we could find such in marriages today. If only such a love can exist for real, it would have been a very beautiful feeling. And may be it actually does.

But what is real is the story of a man who reached out to me a couple of days ago, full of pain of betrayal from the wife he loved dearly but says he loves no more owing to her unrepentant infidelity and disloyalty to her marriage vows and her husband and children. This man feels pained and insulted at the fact that his wife is having extra-marital affairs with a man almost two decades younger than her, and seems more loyal and committed to the family she was supposed to leave behind much more the family that God has asked her to establish. Now despite all my pleas to this man, he is hell bent on taking a divorce and walking out of the marriage as a means of relieving his pain and getting his sanity back. He has concluded within him that his wife is beyond redemption.

This case is one of so many cases like it where the couples feel like there is no more hope and nothing to hang unto as a means of lifeline that the marriage can hinge on for possible survival, but that is all so wrong. I had shared in my last post that God hate divorce, and we all know that doing what God hates is a sin, so God forbid that our marriages would drive us away from God rather than closer to him.

The man who reached out to me about his wife and her unrepentant wayward lifestyle wanted me to share his story so that other people can learn from it and while I await his full story, I still will want to say a thing or two to him now, much more than to his wife whom I am yet to hear her own side of the story.

I was listening to the radio this afternoon while in my car and I stumbled on a radio show on marriage. The anchor pastor of the show shared the story of a woman who was complaining about her marriage and lamented on all the effort she had made to change her husband to no avail. And this pastor said he told this lady to stop playing God in her marriage and know for sure that she can’t change her husband, rather she needs to work on herself to become better each day and in the process enhance the change in her husband.

I can’t agree more with this pastor and it is from this angel that I want this hurting husband to view the situation in his marriage. It hurts, but it is a fact that you cannot change your wife. Yes you are her husband and she is supposed to submit to you as her head, but that submission cannot be forced, it’s a choice she has to make and abide with. But what is within your own control is you. You have control over yourself and you are within your own reach. Let the change you seek in your wife begin with a change within you.

Just as the Lord instructs the wives to submit to their husbands who is their head as she would submit unto God, so did God instruct the men to love their wives unconditionally. The response of your wife to you should not be a determinant factor to the extent of love you show her. Loving your wife when she does what pleases you is not what God asked of a man to his wife, but loving her even when she does not do those things that make her a good wife. Loving her despite her flaws and faults, loving her when she gets on your nerves is the extent of love God requires of you as a man towards your wife and even more. The Bible says in the pattern in which Christ loves the church.

When you love your wife in this manner and you continue non-stop till eternity, its just a matter of time before the story of your marriage changes for the better and your wife will be all that you have prayed her to be and more. Every marital problem does not have to end in a divorce; God has better and more beautiful way of handling things if only you don’t let the hardness of your heart get in the way.

I pray that we have been able to learn some valuable lessons from today’s blog post. There is still more to come. I hope to share a testimony of submission in marriage in my next blog post and it promises to be a very interesting piece to read believe me. Please do always keep a date with us here, with God you can never get it wrong. 

The Marriage Series 15

Hello beautiful people of God, I pray and believe that we are all having a wonderful time in Christ. Yes the times are hard, but still those who put their trust in God will never be put to shame. You might not be able to rationalize how things will work out, but believe me, they surely will. God is able to make a beauty of any dead situation we might find ourselves.

In my last post I promised to write on the issue of divorce, but I can’t take any credit for what comes out of this blog, all that you read here are birth from the inspiration of God. I am just learning as much as you are, and I can tell you for free that I am applying these principles in my marriage and I have loads of testimonies of how God has proven Himself great in my marriage. I am happily married not because I am lucky, but because I have worked hard to get to this level of comfort in tears and prayers and obedience to the word of God and I have pleasant results to show for it all.

There are several times that I have got feedback for my post where people are of the opinion that it’s easier to write and say these things that I write about, but putting them to use is a different ball game. In truth practicing what is written as guide to a successful marriage on this blog might appear not to be easy for those who have a problem holding down their emotions under control. But like every pursuit in life, it takes a determined heart to succeed. The determination to succeed is not just that you make sense of your marital life, but that you please God and make Him proud of you in the process.

Malachi 2:16

“I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the Lord Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. 

God says He hates divorce, yet the people of God have not been able to guard themselves in their spirit to find a better resolution to their troubled marriages other than to do what God hates; going for the divorce option. There are several times where we hear the people of God hide under the “irreconcilable difference” phrase to put away their spouses and get a divorce, and so it appears as though such excuse can be admitted as an excuse for a divorce. Jesus, in Matthew 19:7-8 has this to say: “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.” So we are realizing that divorce was birth from the hardness of the heart of man. I am tempted to say that in the plan and purpose of God for marriage at the beginning, the phrase “irreconcilable difference” did not exist.

As a matter of fact there had been a call by so-called men of God for wives to run for their dear lives in cases of abuse in marriage as though that was God’s option for them in dealing with their situation, yet the Lord says He hates divorce and never gave an exception to the rule. If God did not give domestic violence as a reason for Him to permit divorce, it’s because God has better ways of dealing with that domestic violence if only we are opened to hear His instructions, obey His words for that situation and follow His instructions for marriage. You will not die in that marriage no matter the situation if and only if you have the courage to truly search for God, and obey exactly what He tells you to do. If what you hear is contrary to what the word of God says, then it is not God who spoke to you.

The surly and mean husband that we read of in 1 Samuel 25 was the one who died and not his wife. I do not mean to speak down on domestic violence, but a wife who truly has a relationship with God and obeys and follows God’s instruction will be a tool in God’s hands for Him to draw her husband to Himself. She will be the change agent in the life of her husband through which he will know the Lord rather than die as a result of marriage (1 Peter 3:1-2). 

Matthew 19:9

I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery. 

1 Corinthian 7:10-11

To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

When it looked like Jesus gave marital unfaithfulness (not domestic violence) as a justifiable excuse for divorce, God through Paul put the final full-stop to that excuse. The Lord said, if you choose to divorce based on marital unfaithfulness then you will remain unmarried or else be reconciled to your spouse. And this is the verdict of God and not any man. If there be anyone who tells you it’s okay to divorce, be sure of this; such a person is not speaking the mind of God.

If you have had a divorce in your marriage once, I do not stand as a judge against you to condemn you by this post. The Bible said all have sinned have fallen short of the glory of God. And in Christ old things have passed away and all things have become new, so what has been done in the past is actually past. But moving forward, do not let the devil deceive you again to conclude that divorce is the only rational way of resolving marital challenges. God says “He hates divorce” and He is yet to change His made on that.

I have heard and read several people testify that God told them to get out of their troubled marriage and since they did, their lives had taken the turn for the better. My Bible tells me that God and His word are the same. The Lord says God honors His word more than His name, if this God is a God who honors His words more than anything else and He does not change, how come He will say in the Bible that He hates divorce and yet tell some to quickly get a divorce and run out their marriage. There must be a mix up somewhere and since God is not a man that He should lie, neither is He the son of man that He should change His mind, if this is truly the God we speak about, then it wasn’t Him who spoke to these testifiers.

I was once in a troubled marriage, the walls were closing in on me in that marriage and all the goodness of marriage eluded me, like everyone else I had a good mind of walking out of it; I had loads of reasons that for me were justified to say I was done with that marriage, but I prayed. I had known the Lord then and pleasing Him was important to me; so I prayed to God for a sense of direction as I was not in any way happy in my marriage. When He spoke to me He didn’t tell me to divorce, rather He said to me to go and SUBMIT to my husband.

I felt bruised all the more because I thought I submitted to my husband well enough. I don’t speak back at him when he is yelling at me or insulting me and yet the Lord says I should submit. But I dared to obey God and submitted to my husband the more. I did only what my husband wants me to do even though I felt his approach towards issues was not good enough. But still I obeyed, knowing well that it was God I was obeying. Today I am in the same marriage, with the same husband and I am happy; and indeed very happy.and I know this same testimony will be for those to dare to obey the word of God.

I pray you have been blessed by what is shared on this blog and I assure you that there is more to learn as we press towards a blissful marital life. If you have been so blessed please just stay one the blog and expect more and most importantly, share with a friend. Remain blessed.

The Marriage Series 14

Hello beautiful people of God, I trust you are all doing great to the glory of God. It’s another beautiful day and another beautiful opportunity to share some valuable truth about marriage. If only we can have the Kingdom of God come and His will be done in our marriages, in no time at all we will the Kingdom of God come and His will be done in our society. So you will not just be improving your personal life and experience when you apply the truth of the word of God in your marriage and home, you will be affecting your society positively by what radiates from your home and marriage. And you will go a step further by sharing what you learn from the word of God and on this blog with a friend. Little drops of love makes an ocean of pleasurable experience.

In today’s post we will be looking at some external interference in marriages and how to deal with these interferences. Some external interference that often affects the smooth running of a marriage are: influences from relatives namely: parents, siblings, cousins, in-laws, aunties, uncles and so on. Then we have the influence of friends, acquaintances, so-called parents in the Lord and any other person that you allow to have unnecessary hold or say in your marriage. 

Genesis 2:24

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 

In God’s marriage design at the beginning the interference of families and friends was not captured. In fact the Bible says “therefore a man will leave father and mother and be joined to his wife.” For a marriage to succeed there must be a breakaway of the married couples from every form of interference. A couple who seeks to have a successful marriage will shield their marriage from any external input.

I am not advocating that you ex-communicate your family members because you are married, but that your family which you originated from and your friends do not in any way have control over the family you are building in your marriage. They are two separate entities and should be handled and treated as such. Any attempt to marry the two families into one is the building blocks for a troubled marriage.

When you have troubles building your home and you genuinely seek help, not that you have made up your mind on the path you want to take but that you are lost and confused, first take a break and pray. The Lord will direct your way a voice that can speak out the will of God for you to lead you on the path to take to receive the help you need when you need it.

Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 4:9 that two are better than one, and I kind of wonder why he didn’t say three are better than one. It is often said that two is a company and three is a crowd; the company is what God works with and not the crowd.

I sometimes wonder why God instructed a man about to be married to leave father and mother to cleave to his wife. This same instruction was what the Lord gave to Abraham in Genesis 12:1 when the Lord called Abraham and told him to get out of his country away from his family and his father’s household to a land the Lord will show him. When I sought the Lord on this issue, I realized that this father’s household is unnecessary influence to what God has in store for the married couple and their marriage. There is the tendency that the father's household will pervert or contaminate God’s plans for the marriage. These are influences the Lord does not desire to work with as the issue at hand does not concern them.

Another important angle to view the matter from is that everyone has different races to run; each individual and marriage has different issues to deal with. The assignments for each couple are different. What God permitted for couple A might not be what He will permit for couple B, and so what works for marriage A might not work for marriage B even if the wives are sisters from the same mother or the husbands are brothers of the same father. So, on all fronts there is no basis for comparison, so when you allow couple A to influence you in your own marriage you might get it all wrong while it might be all right for couple A. God who made the master plan at the beginning now says leave them all behind and let Me go on this journey with you. With God in your marriage you can never get it wrong.

I once heard the story of a couple; the wife’s mother practically controls all that happens in their home. She measures the quantity of food everyone in the home eats and the wife depends on her mother’s advice for everything. She handles her marriage and husband exactly the way her husband tells her to. It got so bad that the wife’s mother moved in and began to live with them. The husband tried to cope with this for the love he had for his wife until he could no longer take the madness unfolding before him. He had become a slave in his own house. Then one day he took the bull by the horn and walked his mother-in-law out of his house and instructed her never to return. The wife cried and her husband bluntly told her its either she sticks with him or go marry her mother. And that was how they broke free from the domineering mother-in-law. But I tell you that I don’t blame the mother-in-law, she was given the space and she took advantage of it.

I do not advocate that we disrespect our parents or parents-in-law because we know that they should have no influence in our marriage, but we should apply wisdom in dealing with them, accord them their full respect while shielding our marriage from their influences. May the living God give us wisdom to be able to deal with external influences in our marriages.

I am trusting God to be able to deliver the mind of God to us on the issue of Marriage and Divorce. I hope and believe we have been enjoying the marriage series so far, if yes please pray that the God continue to open our hearts and teach us how to make our marriages a divine success. There are a lot more contained in the book Marriage: God’s Rules of Engagement, you can order a copy from the links provided below. I assure you that with God you cannot get it wrong in marriage.