The Effect of Money on Marriage

Good morning wonderful people of God. It’s another wonderful day and another wonderful reason to be grateful to the most high King. The God who has blessed us with His breathe today and made us wake to the see the raising of the sun and enjoy the dawn of a new day. He is the God who has blessed us with His word again today so that our lives and marriages can be more beautiful and fulfilled.

So in today’s post I want us to look at Marriage and Money. It’s a topic that I know has been touched on on this blog, but still there are more to say about it. Money they say is the root of all evil and to say that money has caused deep rift and distrust in many homes is to say the least and anything that is causing a crack in marriages is worth discussing over and over again until we have totally gotten reed of it. Just like the need to continually have immunization programs until the attacking disease is completely eradicated. So we will always have something to talk about until there is a significant increase in the level of successful marriages.

A lot of men are of the opinion that once their wives are wealthier than they are, she automatically stops being submissive to them. Men feel that when a woman becomes rich, she becomes proud and uncontrollable. This ideology has prevented a lot of men from helping their wives grow in enterprise or her endeavor in making wealth.

In some other cases some men get relaxed in fulfilling their financial responsibilities to the home once they know that their wives are financially capable of bearing the burden of the home. So they stop to provide for the home and let their wives do it and some even go to the extent of collecting money from their wives to fulfill their personal lust.

On the other hand quite a handful of wives are of the opinion that the financial responsibility of the home belongs to their husband and they have no part in it, and so whether they are financially buoyant or not their husband must drop the money for all that needs to be done in the home, they really don’t care or want to know whether he has it or not. Whichever way he knows to get money he should, just as long as he is meeting up with all the demands and spends of the family.    

Now, in as much as we know that God said in 1 Timothy 5:8 that if anyone does not provide for his family he has denied the faith and worse than an unbeliever which we have conveniently interpreted to mean if a man does not provide for his family he is worse than an unbeliever, we need to also note that Proverbs 31:12-23 shows us how active a wife of noble character is in meeting the financial needs of her family.

I agree that the man is the head of the home, he should rightly be the head in making finances available to the ones that God has pleased under him to care for, but even the head needs support. He cannot do it alone. The financial needs of the home is the responsibility of the husband with the support and help of his wife.

Whatever you do in life is a seed sown that germinates and produces fruits in multiples of what was sown and that includes taking responsibility for the financial needs of your home. The secret in doing this is that the one who gives gets replenished in multiples of what he/she has given. A husband who takes care of the financial responsibility of his family will surely get replenished and that which he has given will be given back in multiple folds. Jesus said in Luke 6:38 that “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Now this passage does not only apply to giving to Churches and God’s work outside of your home. It includes the giving to meet the needs of your home. So a man who gives to meet the needs of his home will have a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over poured into his lap by God. And this also applies to the wife who has been assigned by God as the suitable helper second in command of the home. She is the neck that holds the head in place, the heartbeat through which the whole body functions well, including the head.

I will say a man who provides for his family is a man who has learned the secreting of prosperity, because God will always pour into his lap in the measure with which he has given. But I thank God because the wisdom of God cannot be measured, His plans for the man cannot be comprehended in any way. God knows that there will be times of dry valleys in the life of the man who is the head, He knows that there will be times when business will go bad and/or the man will lose his job and unable to meet up with his financial responsibilities to his family. He knows that there will be times that though the spirit of the man will be willing to give but his pocket will be dry. And against such times He has provided for him a suitable helper in the wife of his youth, who is talented, equipped and gifted to work and earn income to support with the finances of the home until the man is able to get back on his feet. What a wonderful God we serve.

The husband and his wife are to complement each other in every way and even in financing their home and not compete with one another. A man whose wife is doing great in her endeavor and getting good income should encourage her because she is God’s fall back plan for him when things get slightly unfavorable. She is not his competitor in any way, but God’s back up for him. Also the man should not use his wife’s wealth as an excuse for him to run away from his responsibility as a man, if he does he walk foolishly into the devil's plan of poverty and lack for his life. Remember that it is the measure with which he gives that will be given back to him. If he gives little, he gets a multiple of little, if he gives nothing, he gets a multiple of nothing and if he gives much he gets a multiple of much.

Now for the woman, you have so much wealth and everything working for you not because you are so righteous, but because God is storing up in your account a serve for your family when it is needed. This is not an excuse for you to be proud and look down on your husband. Your wealth has not made you the head of your husband. Rich or poor, the man is still the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. The rules of giving as we have seen in Luke 6:38 applies to you also. The more you give the more you receive. Jesus tells us in Luke 16:10-12 that “Whoever can be trusted with very little will also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” (Try read the rest up). God has entrusted you with wealth, are you showing Him that you are worthy of that trust? Humiliating your husband with money and pride does not in any way show that God can trust you with very little. And you can imagine what God has in mind when He refers to what you consider much as very little.

I do not in any way mean to say that a wife should take up the responsibility of the breadwinner of the family because she has more money than her husband. The husband still holds the responsibility of the breadwinner of his family as long as he is earning income. But if and when he needs help, you as his wife are the God given helper that has been placed in his life to help him and God has equipped you to play that role sufficiently well, so it depends on you.

I am just praying that the seed of the word of God shared in this place is germinating in the marriages and lives of many people. I pray that the Lord bless our homes in Jesus name. 

Lessons On Sex In Marriage

Hello beautiful people of God, I bless God for your lives and the grace to be used by God in bringing about great and positive difference in your homes. We’re getting ready for Christmas and I must confess that I am excited even though I am still trusting God for a relaxing Christmas vacation for me and my family; so I am also praying for open heaven on the finances of my family.

In today’s post I want to be a little silly and talk about sex in marriage. I have done this several times on this blog so I think I am getting more confidence and boldness to speak about sex far more than when I made the first attempt.

There are a lot of beautiful roles or should I say purpose that sex plays in marriage and so it’s just important that we keep talking about it for a healthy marriage. In my post today I will try to highlight some habits that we either need to imbibe or throw away in order to encourage a healthy sex life in our marriage.

• The first habit you need to imbibe in order to encourage attraction between you and your spouse that would lead to sex is good personal hygiene. I have come to understand and appreciate that a bad body or mouth odor does not encourage sex between couples. Mere sitting close to someone with a bad body or mouth odor tends to repel not to then talk of body contact that would lead to sex. As a man or a woman who desires good sex with his or her spouse, try to put a good effort into your personal hygiene. If your work makes you sweat a lot then ensure you wash your body as soon as you get back home from work. Invest in deodorants, body sprays, and perfumes. Also, ensure that you take care of your breath. If you have a mouth odor and it seems to become embarrassing, try to visit the doctor to make sure there is no infection of any kind. Then invest in mints; mint gums and mint sweets are known to help freshen one's breath. This, as we know, should be added regular brushing of teeth and cleaning of the mouth. And when you are the kind who indulges in alcohol (especially beer), try to kill the stench that comes with its heavy consumption before seeking for seeking from your spouse in case he/she is not one to indulge in alcohol. 

• I am not sure if I have mentioned this before while writing about sex, but I have not come across any part of the Bible where God prescribed the style of sex approved for married couples. What I have read in 1 Corinthians 7:2-5 is that the wife does not have authority over her body but yields it to her husband, and in the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. And that the two should not deprive one another except for mutual consent and just for a time. So I will say this, there is no Biblical restriction to sex between married couples. Married couples can perform any style of sex as long as it is pleasing to both of them and makes them happy. When you are making love with your spouse, always look out for his/her pleasure and satisfaction more than yours. When he/she is enjoying the act that is when it is called lovemaking. This is strictly for married couples, not for those engaged to be married, keep your marriage bed undefiled.

• Emotions play a vital role for lovemaking to really be lovemaking and be enjoyed between married couples; as a husband, take your time to make your wife happy if you want her to serve you well in bed. And as a wife, take your time to make your husband happy if you want him to yield his body to you.

A lot of people use sex as a punitive measure against their spouse when they feel hurt by their spouse and want to get back at them. This is so very wrong and against God’s instruction for our marriage. 1 Corinthians 7:2-5 says the husband should fulfill his marital wife to his wife and likewise the wife to her husband. So the act of love making is a duty just like the duty of providing for the family. It is not a duty to be relegated to the bottom of our priority list in marriage. Then each couple should know that you owe sex to your spouse. And it is not a tool of punishment in marriage. The husband does not have authority over his body but yields it to his wife and the wife does not have authority over her body but yields it to her husband. They are both not to deprive one another except for mutual consent which is for a short while. Any action other than this is a sin.

When there is a misunderstanding between married couples and the issue of sex is introduced by any of the two, the proper action to take is to suspend the fight and deal with the urge for sex. Satisfy each other and if you then feel like resuming the fight after you are through, you can go ahead, which I am positive that as Christian that would not be the case.

I sincerely hope we are getting better understanding concerning a lot of hidden and unspoken issues in marriage. In my next post I would be sharing on the issue of money and our marriage. It's another of the important factors of a happy marriage that needs to be discussed repeatedly so that we have a healthy marriage. I trust the Lord to open up His word to us and give us clarity as we make effort to please Him with our marriages.  

Dealing With a Third Party Situation in Your Marriage

I am so very grateful for the responses I always get from you. I really appreciate you and by the mercy and grace of God, I won’t stop sharing these truths with you as long as the living God inspires me to share.

It’s a beautiful day and a beautiful time and opportunity to share the word of God with you. So in today’s post I want us to consider the reaction that we can possibly have if for any reason we discover or suspect any infidelity in our marriage.

I have heard a lot of women say that that will be the day their marriage ends. I have equally heard a handful of men say they can never go on with such a marriage. Sincerely speaking I believe God Himself understands how hurting such a feeling can be because God in whose imagine and likeness we have been made is a jealous God. As a matter of fact, infidelity in marriage is about the only reason Jesus gave as a near acceptable reason why a man can divorce his wife. But let’s look at it from another angel.

I always try to advice that when you are faced with a situation the first thing to deal with is the emotion arising from the situation before dealing with the situation itself. For whatever problem you have in your marriage, and even in any other area of your life, never deal with the problem in the middle of boiling negative emotions. Because when you do, you might not particularly like the outcome of your reaction to the situation. So it’s always advisable to deal with the emotion first. Suspend your reaction to the problem for as long as it takes for you to deal with the emotions within you first.

With that said I want to go back to the intruder matter; what I am about to write next might seem almost impossible, but hear me out first. Now, when you suspect your spouse is cheating on you, its important not to react because your suspicion might be wrong. No matter what it looks like, it’s important to have a confirmation of your suspicion before jumping into conclusion.

If you have confirmed that what you fear is happening is actually happening, please take as much time you wish to either cry or mourn the betrayal that you feel, you can even ask God why He allowed that to happen to you, but please don’t react. Hold back your anger from reaction to the situation. Don’t fight your spouse, and don’t do anything irrational.

When you are done with the emotions and you are able to think objectively, weigh the options before you. First you can decide you don’t want to continue with the marriage, but before you take that decision, you need to understand that the marriage is not all about you alone. First you are in that marriage because you are on assignment for God, so you need to put that into consideration. Then you need to consider the children in the marriage, is sacrificing the happiness and the need for your children to grow up in a normal home worth the breakup of your marriage in the wake of a betrayal? Then you need to consider yourself, the time and effort and sacrifices you have put into building your home to the point it is at the time of the betrayal. Is all the effort going to waste really worth it? And then lastly you need to understand that once you go for the decision to divorce, God’s verdict is that you are not allowed to marry someone else (1 Corinthians 7:10-11). The option you have left is to reconcile with your spouse.

But there is a side to it that I think is very interesting; it’s the decision to forgive rather than walk away. When you choose to forgive, it’s important to do so prayerfully. You won’t just forgive and hang in their feeling miserable with a chance of a repeat and the probability of being taken for grant by your spouse. But when you choose to forgive, you hand over the situation into the hands of God; you commit your cheating spouse into the hands of God that the Lord will fill him or her with a sense of remorse and a sense of guilt such that he/she will not be willing to return to that sinful act any longer.

You can just imagine that you caught your husband in an affair with another lady and he expects you to react but you don’t. And he tries to push you to just say something but day in and day out you just keep mute over the matter without any word or reaction. You carry on with your life and marriage as if nothing happened; after a while such a man will be consumed with guilt, then with a deep sense of remorse. Without any reaction from your end but you pray rather than act, it won’t be long before the man calls off the affair and put his act together. That singular act of holding your peace rather than fighting back will make you his queen for life. He will never want to hurt your feelings again because he feels grateful to you for the way you handled his misbehavior.

I really understand that things like these are really hard to hold in, but they are not impossible. When you consider the fact that you have labored so hard on your marriage only for an intruder to come steal it away from you, you will be wise enough to keep that which God has blessed you with. But when you are weak with emotions, pray for grace from the Living God to see you through. He is always willing and available to answer when you call and provide for you all that you need when you need them. May the Lord bless our homes in Jesus name.

It’s Time to Change That Mindset 2

It’s a new day and a new week, and its almost the end of the 11th month of the year; God has kept us this far and personally I just want to give all the praise and glory and honor to Him. And again it's a very good feeling to share something valuable on this blog and impact your marriage in a positive way. I thank God for His word and I pray that our lives, marriages and home will please God and give us all round peace. I have come to discover that when a man and his wife are at peace with each other and I mean genuine peace and not pretense, there is prosperity in such a home. I plead with you to try it out and get back to me on your personal experience on this piece of experiment. Let your husband win all the arguments if you are the wife, and let your wife win all the arguments if you are the husband. First there will be peace in your home and then you will begin to discover that prosperity is creeping little by little. Just do away with your will to be right and see what happens next.

In my last post I promised to deliver the part B of the changing mindset post; one that speaks to the men. There are areas of marriage norm and culture that we have lived with and used as a yardstick to measure the performance of our spouses, but when these traditional norms are not giving us the desired result, then its important to change our mindset and measure the performance of our marriage based on different set of values.

Below are some areas where the men need to change their mindset when it comes to their marriage. Please just give these new values a good consideration, hopefully we will have better marital experiences with them.

• Your wife is your suitable helper; she is God’s assigned helper for your life that enables you succeed exceedingly. It’s like a man on assignment and he needs tools to succeed on that assignment. Without these tools he will fail woefully. Now what God has done for you as a man is to package all that you need for success in your assignment for God and all other areas of your life and put them all in the wife He has given to you as your suitable helper. So Proverbs 18:22 says “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.” Your wife is that container in which the Lord has package all that you need to succeed in life; she is the favor of God in your life in the form of a person. Rather than disdain and maltreat her, you better start handling her with care and love.

• The secret to unleashing your God given deposit packaged inside your wife is by loving her. Do you desire that your wife be all that you want her to be and more? Try loving her unconditionally and you will be surprised at the extent to which she would pour herself out for you. It is often said that women have the capacity to multiply whatever you give to them so if you desire to reap the best qualities from your wife, then give her your best and it will be returned to you in multiple fold.

• Maltreating your wife is a very wrong approach to handling the mistakes your wife does or the things you perceive not right about her. When you maltreat your wife, you stand the risk of having your prayers not answered by God (Malachi 2:13-14 and 1 Peter 3:7). When you maltreat your wife, you mishandle God's favor for your life. If you then do that, is it possible to go back to God for another gift? Obviously not. If you really need the favor of God in your life, then begin by taking good care of the container of favor that God has blessed you with - the wife of your youth. The best way to right the wrong in the life of your wife is to love her. God requires unconditional love from you to your wife and so when your wife does anything that displeases you, correct her in love and go the extra mile, pray for her. Pray and don’t stop praying until you see the desired changes in the life of your wife. 

In a nutshell, when you change your approach from seeing your wife as that woman who should just bear you children and rear them for you, cook your meals and be quiet when you speak and you form an habit of showing unconditional love and care for her, then you have the best woman in the world as your wife. If you desire to be the king of your home and in the life of your wife, then you should begin by making your wife the queen of your life. It’s just that simple. 

It’s Time to Change that Mindset

Good afternoon wonderful people of God I trust that we are enjoying our weekend. I was almost not sharing anything today being a weekend, but I after speaking with a friend I felt the need to share a word.

Quite a number of people are falling into depression to the point of developing psychiatric problems owing to issues in their marriages; some people have become suicidal as a result of problems in their marriages and a handful of some have opted for the divorce option as a means of escape from marriage problems. Now, does it have to get so bad? Marriage is a very beautiful thing but I am sensing that the number of people who feel fulfilled in their marital experience is far less than those who don’t. Some walk out of the marriage when they have exhausted their endurance threshold, while some stay for fear of shame or thought of where they would possibly go when they leave and the thought of starting life all over again.

We then get to wonder how God would fold His hands and watch our marriages degenerate to this level or is this what God had in mind when He instituted marriage at the beginning?

I have experienced God so well in my marriage to know and appreciate those words when God said in Jeremiah 29:11 that “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” So if this is the mind of God for us, then we need to begin to search Him out for better marital experience. In Jeremiah 33:3 God says, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” And that’s just want we will do in today’s post.

I titled today’s post “It’s Time to Change that Mindset,” because I believe that if we dear to change our approach towards some issues in our marriage we will get better results. When you do something in a particular way and you are not getting the desired result, it’s just simply wise to change approach and so I will list some of the things we need to change our mindset on in marriage.

• As a wife, never expect your husband to be perfect. As a matter of fact it is because he isn’t perfect and he needs help that God placed you in his life as his suitable helper or helpmeet. Accept him for his many shortfalls and pray for him always.

• As a wife, never try to change your spouse because you can’t and never will in self-effort. When you see traits in him that are not right, pray about it and allow God make the change for you. You will only get frustrated and depressed trying to change your spouse. You call it helping him, he calls it dominating and controlling. Always be reminded that your husband’s character is beyond your control, his spending habit, talking habit, eating habit, choice of friends, his relationship with others are all outside of your control. So take care of the things that are within your control and leave those things which are out of your control. It is within your control to fulfill your God given assignment in his life do that with all diligence seeking God’s approval and anticipating God’s reward. When you do this, the Lord will do for you what you cannot do for yourself because nothing is outside of His control and He alone can right the wrongs in the life of your husband and put your love back into him and he will love you beyond what you ever imagined. Remember Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

• When you are in a troubled marriage, expect very little from your spouse. Remove your expectations from your husband and place them on God. Have this approach: It is God who assigned you as a helper into your husband’s life and it is from Him that you should expect a reward for work done. Don’t whine if you don’t get gifts like you should from your husband, a time will come that you will have abundance of gifts; by the time God is turning the situation around in your favor. Don’t hold it against your husband if he is not yet treating you like he should, the Lord who sent you on assignment in his life will equip you with all that you need to succeed. Know the Lord who is your God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. If your husband is not fulfilling his responsibility as a husband by providing for his family, that is his problem and not yours. Malachi 2:13-14 and 1 Peter 3:7 says he risk his prayers not being answered by God, but as for you, you will never lack anything good because you put your hope in God. The Lord will always find a way to meet all your needs, if not through your husband; He has a million other ways to do that. But be rest assured that your needs will always be meet as long as you remain in Christ Jesus. Never let your husband’s action make you lose focus of God in your life or your assignment as a wife.

• In a troubled marriage, your husband will always say things or do thing that will hurt your feelings. But your husband’s actions and words will only affect you to the extent to which you let it. You can go on and reminisce or even meditate on your husband’s wrong doings and get depressed by them or you can choose you block it out of your thoughts. So in short your husband’s actions and words affect you to the extent to which you allow it. When you keep going over it again and again the end result is depression. But when you see him as a man needing help and you have been placed in his life by God to help him, you will pray for him more rather whine over his actions or inactions, noting that it is for that purpose that God made you his wife and God expects that you help rather than get hurt by his actions. Always keep it at the for front of your mind that whatever you do for your husband you do in obedience to the word of God and when you obey God’s word you receive God’s reward.

I so strongly believe that if we can re-orientate ourselves with these values then we will be having more happy and focused women in marriage that can face the challenges of their marriage headlong and still come out victorious. Depression and suicide thought over marital issues will be on the decline. And the beauty of it all is that at the end of the day our husbands will love us more than we imagined because we let God do the work for us that we could not do by ourselves.

Yes I have the men in mind too; by the special grace of God, in my next post we will deal with changing mindset for the men. So please just keep your fingers crossed, it’s going to be a very interesting one too. 

Feeling Neglected? 4

Hello people how are you doing? I trust the Lord that we are all doing great and we give all glory to God.

So today we continue in our Bible research on how to earn the love and attention of our spouses. I pray that the Lord has spoken to your hearts from the previous lessons we have learned and He will still speak to our hearts as we continue to learn.

Quite a number of times, I marvel at the insight of God; in truth we cannot match the wisdom of God in any way and when God tells the husbands that they should love their wives just in the manner in which Christ loves the church He sure knows what He is talking about.

As a woman, I can tell you for free that there is no better way to earn a woman’s attention, love, devotion, respect and even submission than to prayerfully love her. I will always add the word prayerfully because it's actually not your self-effort love that makes your wife the wife you desire or want her to be, but rather it is God who makes that woman the perfect woman for your life through the love that you show to her in obedience to God’s instruction for your life as a husband.

Ephesians 5:25-29 states God’s instruction to the husbands and begins with: “²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” When a man loves his wife because of what she has to offer, then the wife’s self-services becomes the reward of his love and the moment the wife changes in character the love ends because that which is fueling his love for her has gone dry.

But when a man loves his wife, not just because of the self-service that he derives from her but as a man obeying the command and instructions of God for his life as a husband, then come what may, he won’t stop loving his wife. Even when the wife misbehaves, the husband is quick to forgive her despite the hurt he feels. This unconditional love has the capability of filling the wife with guilt and make her come into repentance over her wrong actions and is also quick to seek forgiveness. This is when you hear people say that the marriage has been tried and tested but it is still standing because the fuel of love in the life of the husband in not found in the good deeds and actions of his wife, but is found in God.

When you have a wife that you need to win her love and attention, love her unconditional and let that unconditional love that springs from the your will to obey the command of God in your life as a husband compel you to pray for her. When you continue to pray and love her, it’s just a matter of time for her to become the virtuous woman that you seek in her, knowing that it’s not just your love that will change her life, but that it is God working in her and bringing about the changes you seek in her working through your love for her.

And so we round up this four part series on winning the attention and love of your spouse. By the special grace of God, the next post is something to look forward to. Until then, stay blessed. 

Feeling Neglected? 3

It’s a bright new day and a great opportunity to do something for God; so if you are yet to be a blessing today, then make sure that before the day runs out, you do something that will count for God’s Kingdom in the life of someone.

I was hoping that we will be moving on to check out the men aspect of our discussion; how a husband can earn the attention and love of his wife, but I think it’s better I share some of the responses I got from the last post and try to answer some of the questions asked. So below are some of the questions raised and the answers to these questions will follow.

Question

@ Mrs. Derin Obasa, “when you combine your outward beauty with the inner beauty of submission to your husband which shows forth through the purity and reverence of your life and you garnish it with prayers to God, you will not just earn your husband’s love and attention, you will be the queen of his life.”

This quotation is from today’s word. Hmmmmmm, I know of a wife who has done both beauty and service to her husband for almost 5 decades, I have never seen such loyalty, patience and submission and perseverance in my entire life, and her reward is nothing but being taken for granted, neglect, and treated shabbily. Now the lady is soooo bitter that all her years of labor to this man was all in vain. And she can hardly free herself, forgive and live happy for the rest of her life. What is your take on this ma.

Response 

I am so very sorry that this can be happening to a dedicated wife in our own perspective. The word of God does not lie and God would not give an instruction for us to follow and then not give the benefits accrued to those who have followed through with His word diligently. You will note that I mentioned in my last post that a woman can slave for her husband and yet be neglected, this is because God didn’t asked us to slave for our husbands, He said we should submit to the authority of our husbands.

A woman can respect her husband, protect his interest with her blood and yet will be neglected and this is because there is a difference between respect and submission. In fact there are so many prayerful Christian wives in that category of which I was one of them. From the very first day that I got married, I worshiped the ground my husband stepped on. You would hardly find me talking back at my husband and I would do everything to avoid an argument with him but that didn’t make him love me or treat me with the dignity of a wife. In fact I saw myself as a glorified housemaid to him and this went on until I began to grow hatred for him.

When I noticed that I was beginning to hate my husband, I began to pray and ask God to help me. The Lord saw the sincerity of my heart and spoke to my heart that I needed to submit to my husband. Sincerely I was almost angry with God, and I thought what more submission was there to give, as far as I was concerned I had given it all. But I went back to God and prayed that if there is still any submission to give, then He should help me out and give it through me.

It was not until then that I realized that I only respected and honored by husband, but I really didn’t submit to him or obey his instructions. Because I felt more righteous than my husband, I didn’t think it right to follow his instructions because I didn’t just want any man to lead me away from God. But the Lord being faithful helped me to submit to my husband. Anytime my husband gave me an instruction and I was going to do anything to the contrary, that small voice will always put me in check and gradually I started submitting. Overtime I began to see the changes in my husband’s attitude towards me and today, after almost 13 years of marriage, I feel like a new bride again. For over 5 years now my marriage has been a paradise for me. Though we are not rich but we have what money cannot buy in the love, joy and peace we share in our home.

One truth we need to understand is that nothing we do or do not do can change our husbands, only God can. Now if we want God to intervene in our situation and change it positively then we first need to follow God’s instruction. If God says submit to your husband, don’t submit to your husband because you expect any returns from him, but because you expect a reward from God. Your husband didn’t instruct that you submit to him, God did. And so the reward is not earned first from your husband, but from God which is then made manifest through your husband.

You and I might look at this woman who has been loyal, submissive, endured much, is patient and shows forth perseverance in her marriage and give her the credit, but what is God’s assessment of her? Has she convinced God enough with her submission to her husband for Him to do in her marriage what her self-effort cannot do and make her husband love her? Or are there hidden secrets that are known only to God and not you and I?

God not a partial God, for every instruction He gives, there is a blessing attracted to those who obey. If we truly are in submission to our husbands as unto the Lord, then we can be sure that the Lord will come into that marriage and perfect all that concerns it.

Question

Derin, please can you tell us the difference between respect and submission for clarity sake.

Response

The dictionary defines respect as “to hold in esteem or honor; to show regard or consideration for. Another definition says esteem for or a sense of worth or excellence of a person.” So I would say that to respect someone is to hold the person in high esteem or honor or to have high regard for the person. But on the other hand, to submit is to yield oneself to the authority of another; so to say that you are placing yourself under the authority of another person. The synonym word for submission is obedience. So when you submit to someone, you obey the person’s instructions and commands.

Now from these two definitions we can obviously see that we can actually respect our husbands, hold them in high esteem, regard and honor them and still not submit to their authority by obeying their instructions. But when we submit to our husbands, we respect them in doing so. Now if we find it hard to obey our husband's instructions who we can see, how can we then prove to God that we are capable of obeying Him who we cannot see?

What a lot of women have for their husbands is respect which they conveniently translate to mean submission. But respect will not earn you your husband’s love and attention, obedience will. Submission is what God instructs us to give and not just respect. And when you have to submit to your husband please do so prayerfully as one obeying God’s command not expecting a reward from your husband, but from God.

Question 

Derin but there are people who don’t do both (respect or submit to their husbands) and their marriage still works out.

Response

Well one truth is that many people speak down on their spouses in the open but in the privacy of their homes, the reverse is the case. Don’t just believe the gist of a wife who talks down on her husband behind him, when they are both seated and she has the courage to disdain him in public then you can believe her claims.

But one truth is that no man will endure a marriage where his wife has no form of respect for him at all; men are more logical in the actions they take than doing things out of emotions. No man will tie himself to the wimp of any woman if there is nothing he is gaining from her. So my sister, if this wife truly does not respect or submit to her husband and her marriage still works, then she is satisfying him in other ways untold, unless such a man has a similar calling to that of Prophet Hosea in the Bible. If she is not making good her sex activities, then she is his ATM machine. With all due respect to all men, this is just being real.

If we want God’s intervention in our marital situation, then we must follow God’s rules and instructions in our marital lives. As God’s children we operate only by God’s rules.