How Can One Prevent Her Husband From Cheating

Hello wonderful people, I trust you are doing great, with God I expect nothing less for you all in Jesus name. So we will try to find something interesting to gist about in today’s post and I find one question coming from most women very interesting to discuss on, I think we should look at that question in today’s post. And the questions says “How can wives stop their husbands from cheating?”

Before I pen down anything on this topic let me first of all show you something I found on one of my social media groups and then I can begin to write.

A lady posted this. She's been married for over 25 years and in her mid 50's..

**BITTER TRUTH ABOUT MEN GENERALLY**

1). Most men cannot have sex exclusively with just one woman, for the rest of their lives.

2). Men are created with varied sexual appetite, some men can do without sex for a year, others cannot do without sex for 2 days.

3). A man who's madly in love with one woman may still have sex with other women but still love his 'woman'.

4). Some of the best husbands have concubines or mistresses. Their extra marital affairs play a role in keeping the man sane and free of sexual tensions, especially during mid-life crises.

5). If your man is just having sex with some sweet sexy teen or babe, DO NOT WORRY. It's part of the game.

6). Before you choose your man, ensure he believes in AIDs, STDs and protected sex. That way, chances are that he will not bring HIV and other STDs into your life.

7). Most chronic wife beaters are faithful husbands, they hardly have extra marital affairs.

😎. Most 'extra' loving husbands have concubines, these concubines keep the man abreast on new ways of making women happy.

9). Your man's mistress or concubine is most times not interested in you or your home. She has already seen your pictures and those of your kids via your hubby's phone. She and your hubby just have a sexual understanding or partnership which helps both deal with peculiar individual issues.

10). As a woman, if you go all out in a bid to catch your husband red-handed cheating, you WILL succeed. Then what next? If you listen hard to your domestic servants in their private discussions, you will certainly hear them insult you, so why listen?

11). Judge your man by his responsibilities towards you and the kids, and NOT by who he's giving 'Sexual style' to outside

12) A man who will cheat will cheat irrespective of what you do! Stop checking his phone, don't go through his mailbox! Stay away from it.

Enjoy a most rewarding week, Friends!!!!!

What you are reading above was not written by me, I just stumbled on it and I think it makes a very interesting discussion point. As a matter of fact these are the kind of posts that are widely circulated for young women to base their marriages on and invariably be miserable for the rest of their lives.

These are the kind of post that you read and it makes you feel like a slave in marriage and then you are advised to resign to fate and endure the marriage far above enjoying it. Now the age of the writer of this post and her number of years in marriage tells us a lot on the fact that it’s not how long you’ve been married or how old you are in age that tells how best you will be able to handle your marriage issues.

A woman who has been told that her husband was made and designed by God to cheat on her and there is nothing she can do but live with it is ultimately told that God hates her so to say. The Bible tells us that our God is a jealous God, and the Bible also tells us that we are made in the image and likeness of God so what that tells me as a person is that it is not a sin to be jealous. In fact we find in the book of Songs of song 8:6-7 that deep love and jealousy are closely related. So if you tell a woman not to be jealous over her husband then you are invariably telling her to kill her love for her husband, if that happens permit me to say that that marriage is dead. If you are a man and your wife stops to be jealous when you do some certain things that ordinarily should arouse her jealousy, then you can as well conclude in your heart that you wife is no longer in love with you. Her heart no longer belongs to you.

I can remember days when I used to have issues with my husband over his late nights, we quarreled over that one too many times and I realized nothing I did made any difference. So I made up my mind not to fight with my mouth but on my knees in prayer. You know there is absolutely nothing too small to pray about. And the Lord gave me peace and told me He would handle it for me, so I stopped fighting my husband on that issue. Then one day he went out and I was so busy writing blog posts that I didn’t even check the time to realize it was already very late into the night. So he called me at about midnight and sounded quite upset that I didn’t bother to call him to come home as he didn’t realize it was already midnight. He told me it must mean that I didn’t love him anymore since I had stopped caring how long he stayed out. I couldn't help but laugh and I just simply told him in a very funny tone that if he loved me, he would not wait for me to call him to come home. And that ended the issue.

That said I will chip it in that as a wife, what you do with your emotions of jealousy is very important. You have control over all your emotions so I will advise that you handle them right. When you suspect your husband is not been faithful to you, physical fight will not make him change, abuses (whether verbal or otherwise) will not make him change, so we will look at how to keep your husband faithful to you and you alone.

I have shared my findings on this topic many times on this blog and I am going to share it again that trusting your husband will not fetch you the peace and confidence you seek in marriage, yet trust is so very vital for a marriage to attain success. The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 17:5-10 that cursed is one who puts his trust in flesh, and this is because flesh will fail. But God never fails and God has the ability to watch over that which you have entrusted to Him and God has the ability to direct the steps of any man to do His will (He literally had to force Jonah to do His bidding, so making your husband do His bidding is not a task for Him) . So if we know all these to be true about God then commit your husband into the hands of God, tell the Lord to help you cause your husband to be faithful to you, then trust God to do for you what you have prayed for and sit rest assured that God will help you keep your husband so occupied that he wouldn’t have the time or resources to be unfaithful to you. And with God you can watch your marriage grow in love, peace, wealth and harmony.

If you ask me if its that simple, I will say yes. And if you ask me if it is doable, well in truth that is what I am practicing in my marriage and I have peace in my life and when I think my husband might be deviating I don’t bother to investigate if my suspicion is right or wrong, I simply return to God to whom I have entrusted my husband and marriage to and ask if indeed I have a reason to doubt. Believe me the devil will bring so many silly ideas into your head and will play with your mind in no small measure but when you know the God you serve you will stand your ground that your marriage is secured in the hands of God and if everything else fails, God never fails. 
If you have been blessed by this, and you have learned much from this eye opening marriage write up, you might want to check 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 for free.

www.thewordthatsuits.com

I Wish I Had Married My Ex-Boyfriend

Hello people I trust you are all doing great, we thank God for the grace to see another end of month and for this we are grateful to God. I want to use this opportunity to obey my pastor's instruction by inviting women within Lagos to the discovery for women program in my church coming up this Sunday 1st of October. It's promises to be a wonderful time in God's presence. Please see the flier below.
In today's post, I want us to learn from the story of a wife in a troubled marriage. I pray to God that this wife whose story I share will stumble on this post and learn and heal, and also that someone needing it will get to read it and heal too in Jesus name.

A young and gentle wife is married to a husband who has absolutely no regard for their marriage vows. His wife earns more than he does so he is she is the breadwinner of the family. She takes care of the bills in the house, and it has gotten so bad that even if the husband manages to pick up some of the bills and pay for stuff for the family, he finds a means of getting a refund from his wife. It is also on good record that he is having extra-marital affairs, so the money he can’t spend on his family he is spending it outside of his marriage. His wife has prayed and trusted God but this man just wouldn’t change. His wife is one of those gentle spirited beings who can’t seem to hurt a fly and it just seem this man is gladly taking her for a ride. She has tried to meet and satisfy his demands and at no point will he ask her for money and she would refuse him. She just gets to do it to avoid his trouble.

Accidentally the wife came across her ex-boyfriend that she dated while in the university who also seem to be having troubles with his marriage and he has become her source of comfort since they meet again. He is never too busy for her and always eager to help her with any trouble she may be having. She confides in him on everything that is happening to her and he always has the right words for her. This ex-boyfriend seem to be all that her husband is not and now there is the regret of why she didn’t get married to him in the first place. Or maybe his return to her life is just God answering her prayers more so that he is also in a troubled marriage as she is in now.

Response

I will start by saying that temptation is still not a sin. To be tempted is not the problem, falling into that temptation is where the problem is. God will not answer a prayer by making the person praying commit a sin. The first thing that I will advise this woman and any other woman in this kind of problem is first to run from anything that looks like sin. If your husband is looking for a way to do away you then you give him all the reasons in the world to achieve what he wants and if you say that ‘but he is also cheating,’ well that doesn’t translate to you cheating too. Two wrongs never make a right. The comfort you are getting from your ex-boyfriend while being married is false, it’s evil and will lead to trouble so run away from such ungodly comfort.

I have mentioned it in one of my post that when you pray about your marriage, you don’t just sit in and wait for a magic. Prayer without deed is dead. But when you pray about your marriage, ask the Lord to show you what to do that will bring about the desired change in the situation you are praying about. When you ask God to change your husband, understand that you are still the instrument with which God will make a change in his life. Peter said in 1 Peter 3:1-2 that even if you are married to an unbeliever, it is through the purity and reverence of your life that your husband will be won over to God. So you are God’s change agent in the life of your husband and so you need to seek God to know those changes you need to effect in your life that will bring about a change in the life of your husband and ask also to help you make those changes.

When you have prayed, then listen to the voice of God. Pay attention to what He tells you and backs up with His word in the Bible. God will not ask you to take an action that is contrary to His word found in the Bible. If what you hear in your spirit man is contrary to what you read in your Bible then it is not God speaking to you. And when you have crosschecked the instruction that God has laid upon your heart with what is written in the Bible and they are one and the same, then run with it. Obey that word and never get tired of obeying until you see the result that you seek for.

You can’t buy love, so live in the reality that no matter the amount of money you spend on your husband if he wouldn’t love you, he would not. He will keep collecting that money and still misbehave. So don’t depend on money to make it happen for you. Keep your focus on God. There are things you can do to attract his love, so prayerfully find out what those things are and start to do them. 

The Bible tells us to submit to our husbands in everything as wives (Ephesians 5:22-24), so if your husband demands for the money give him in obedience to the word of God and not as a means to lure him to love you more. Let God and His word be the focus of everything you do in your marriage. It’s an investment that would yield it returns in good season.

And gentleness is not a guarantee of a successful marriage. Even in marriage there is a time to speak and there is a time to be quiet. But just make sure that God is the focus of any action you take in your marriage. There will be a time the Spirit of God will lead you to speak and there will be a time the Spirit of God will instruct that you be quiet. Prayers and submission in marriage work miracles and I can testify to that in my personal life.

Your marriage will come alive again and your husband will be all that God has destined him to be, but you are going to play a very big role in making that change happen with God leading you in it. Don’t think you know what to do or you can make it happen by yourself. If you have not made it happen till now it’s because you can’t do it on your own and you need help. So seek God for that help and be willing and ready to do exactly as He instructs. If you are confused get your Bible and read. The word of God is alive and active and it brings about great and positive changes if you are willing and ready to do what it says. 
If you have been blessed by this, and you have learned much from this eye opening marriage write up, you might want to check 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 for free.

Even After Forty-Five Years God is Still Healing This Marriage

I welcome you to a new week and new grace and blessing from the Lord for us all this week in Jesus name. Today I want to share a very funny but true story. And each time I consider this story I just marvel at God awesomeness. I can tell you for free that the wisdom of God is matchless.

There are these couples where the husband is in his mid-seventies and the wife in her late sixties. They have been married for well over forty-five years and their marriage has been plagued with so many challenges and issues but despite it all, they are still managing to hold it together. And though neither of them is enjoying the dividend of a good marriage they are still managing to keep it together as married enemies. The husband has absolutely no regard for his wife, in fact I should say wives because he is married to two of them. But the one he is living with is his first and the God ordained wife for him.

The wife was a gentle spirited being as a young woman and wife and she tolerated and stomached all of her husband’s excesses. She wasn’t loved yet she managed to stay in the marriage any way. And because she was not loved, she was also not treated fairly among the two wives and still she remained. Soon she gave her life to Christ but it wasn’t easy just forgetting all that her husband had done to her more so that he was not repentant.

As she grew in age, so did the resentment she had for her husband grow. The one person she regarded as enemy in her life was her husband, and as much as she wanted to give it all up to God, she just can’t seem to get past all that her husband had done and is stilling doing to her. And for her, divorce was not an option. She would always say that she prays her husband would not be the reason for her to end up in hell after all her service to God. She was not going to harm him in anyway, but it was tough forgiving and letting go of the hatred more so that the husband had not changed his wicked ways. Each time she makes up her mind to let go, the husband would do something that will upset her again and bring back all the stored up anger. And let me not forget to say that her husband physical abuses her. He beats her up like a child. And so in that situation I am sure it’s easy to understand why this wife is bitter about her husband.

But because of God she began to pray. She asked God to help her through her hate for her husband as she didn’t want to carry the hatred to her grave and the more she made an effort at forgiving, the more the husband does something that upsets her.

Then one day the husband fell sick and was admitted in the hospital. The wife took it upon herself to take care of him as much as she could. And then one of the relatives who came to visit the husband on his sick bed confided in the wife that she had gone to check the family history and made ancestral findings in the husband’s family line and discovered that the husband’s family had the history of unnoticed mental disorder in their lineage and that explains the irrational behaviors experienced in the lives of some members of their family including the husband who was in his mid-seventies. She gave examples of members of the extended family who exhibited traits of mental disorder and sometimes acted weird and all these story sounded so true to this troubled wife in her late sixties as she noticed that traits and symptoms mentioned to her were things she had noticed in her husband in their forty-five years of marriage.

She began to think that in the over forty-five years she had been married to her husband he had mental disorder and she didn’t even suspect. To her, it explained a lot of her husband's unexplainable irrational behaviors and for the first time she had the load of hatred lifted off her. She took comfort in the fact that whenever her husband acted unloving or harsh towards her for no reason then it would be the times when he had bouts of his mental disorder triggers. So rather than get angry or upset, she would willingly forgive him thinking he doesn’t even know what he is doing. When he shouts at her, she doesn’t respond and nothing he does gets to her anymore.

Now, whether this man and his family line truly does have history of mental disorder or not, nobody knows for sure. But that theory has given the wife a reason to truly forgive her husband and heal old wounds. It has also helped their relationship, because now the wife doesn’t react to her husband’s harshness anymore and because the wife has stopped reacting to her husband’s tantrums, the husband himself is downplaying on the frequency of his harshness towards his wife. Now when he talks harshly, he doesn’t get a response and so he is learning to talk politely to his wife. The wife's prayer and tender approach towards her harsh and mean husband is causing a positive reaction from the husband too. I sense these two will enjoy the best of their marriage is the very later stage of their lives.

So you see why I said the wisdom of God is matchless. See what God had to do to heal a marriage that has been plagued with lack of love and hatred for over forty-five years. I hope you have learnt something new and interesting from this.  

If you have been blessed by this, and you have learned much from this eye opening marriage write up, you might want to check 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 for free.

What Women Do to Invest in their Marriage

I am so sorry for the small break, needed to attend to urgent family concerns, but here I am live sending you this from the bottom of my heart.
In my last post we looked at some extraordinary husbands and how they invested in their marriages and they enjoyed peace and love in the marriage. In today’s post we will continue in that line and consider some extraordinary wives who have invested much in their marriages too and the yields that returned to them on their investment.

And the first wife I want us to consider is Sarah. It appears we can’t just learn enough from that woman called Sarah and I understand why the Bible would model her as a godly woman of old. It is no doubt that Sarah belongs to the league of extraordinary wives and the things she pulled through in her marriage appears matchless in today’s world.

The first lesson that endears me to Sarah was her issue of barrenness. Here is what the Bible says in Genesis 16.

Genesis 16:1-2

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.”

Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

The Bible tells us in Genesis 15 how Abraham had petitioned God over the issue of him not having a child and the Lord had promised him one. As women, we know what it feels like to know that your husband is sleeping with another woman, so we can appreciate Sarai’s courage in inviting her maidservant into her husband’s life to share her husband with her. But she did that for a reason. She must have taken that option just in the bid to satisfy her whining husband who was desperate for a child. And even though a lot of people will consider Sarai foolish for her suggestion and the outcome of that suggestion, I choose to consider her reason for the suggestion and how much she was willing to sacrifice for the peace of her husband and marriage. That was a huge investment in marriage to me.

Then we see in Genesis 12:10-20 and Genesis 20:1-18 where Abraham instructed his wife on two occasions to tell half-truth that she was his sister rather than his wife and Sarah obeyed. What a submission that was. What a huge investment in marriage that was. I have gone through Sarah’s submission more than once on this blog and each time I am convinced that she has earned the honor of being the mother of all godly women by her exemplary submissive life in marriage.

You might then want to ask what Sarah’s return on investment was after all she sacrificed as investment in her marriage. First Sarah became the mother of many nations as the Lord had promised. At age 90 she gave birth and the sigma of barrenness was removed from her life. Then she won back the love and respect of her husband. Abraham loved her again. And then she had a postmortem recognition as the mother of all righteous women. And so you see that Sarah investment paid off at the end of the day.

I wondered what would have become of Sarah if she didn’t obey her husband to the point of lying for him. Well probably she would have been out of his life and wouldn’t be a part-taker of God’s promise in Abraham’s life. And most assuredly we wouldn’t have heard anything again about Sarah again in the record of time. But she is there today because she invested much in her marriage and the gains of that investment accrued to her.

Then another woman that I love to respect as a wife is Abigail in the story found in 1 Samuel 25. What an outstanding extraordinary wife she was, for her to stand by a mean and surly husband like Nabal despite the fact that they both had two totally different characteristics and personalities, is something to emulate from Abigail.

Abigail knew that her husband was mean and surly, she knew her own worth as a beautiful and intelligent woman and yet she remain faithful to her marriage and she went ahead to plead the case of her mean and surly husband before David. She filled the deficit in Nabal’s character and she was all that he wasn’t. On account of her, her husband and his household were spared by David and she didn’t even let him know. She didn’t mention to her husband how she saved his life. It was a labor of love in secret and the returns of what she invested was obvious in the open. That is the kind of wife Abigail was. She was not one to blow her own trumpet.

Now you might ask what her returns on her marriage investment was? This same Abigail became the wife of King David after the death of her mean and surly husband. The Lord freed her of the burden of a husband who was unrepentantly mean and surly and gave her to a more deserving husband who was a king.

Then we see another extraordinary wife in Esther who got to the throne as queen by virtue of her simplicity and focus on God. When Esther was confronted with an issue that she needed to resolve with her husband king Xerxes in the book of Esther 4, the way and manner she presented her case to her husband tells a lot about her marriage investment. The reverence she accorded her husband is something worth emulating. And did she get the desired result? Well, we all know the way the story ended in the book of Esther. The man Haman who plotted the downfall of her uncle and race, was put down instead and the gallows he prepared for Mordecai, he was the one hung on it in his stead.

You might want to ask if Esther could have approached the matter from another point of view, well the answer to that is yes. And would she get the same result, well that I can’t tell. But one thing that is sure is that Esther’s approached worked for her and she received her desired return on her marriage investment. This is something worth emulating.

And just to cap this up, I want us to consider the story of Ruth, she was another extraordinary wife. These are women that I am not just learning from, but applying what I have learnt from them in my marriage and I am getting good returns on investment myself. Sincerely I can't blow my husband's trumpet loud enough. It was my birthday last Sunday and even though we didn't have any form of celebration, my husband didn't stop disturbing me to know what I would want as a gift for my birthday. If you think he should know and spring up a surprise, I will tell you that he has sprang too many pleasant surprises on me almost on a weekly basis that he is beginning to run out of ideas. That is what God is doing for me, that is my testimony, that is why I say with confidence that it's important to invest in your marriage and you do so prayerfully.   

We all know the story of Ruth in the book of Ruth and she was so extraordinary that a whole chapter of the Bible was dedicated to telling her story. Ruth was a wife who remained faithful to her marriage even after the death of her husband. Now who does that? More so when she was legitimately free to marry another husband before God and man.

But there was something more that attracted Ruth to her mother in-law after her husband's death that was beyond physical marriage. Ruth begged her mother-in-law not to let her return back to her people and her god.

Ruth 1:16

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.

This declaration was what distinguished Ruth from Orpah her mate. Ruth was willing to embrace the God of Naomi, she wanted to align with the God of Israel and that simply pushed her from the league of ordinary nice wives to an extraordinary wife. She put the God of Israel in the equation of her decision to stay married despite the death of her husband. And just like you can never involve God in an issue and loss out, Ruth got her full returns on her marriage investment. God honored her such that she found another good husband in Boaz and she was included in the lineage of our Lord Jesus Christ. So whenever you want to trace the lineage of Jesus you will come across the mention of Ruth and Boaz. But the ordinary nice Orpah frizzled out of the Bible the moment she decided to return to her own people and her own god.

What are you willing to invest in your marriage? When you make up your mind to make God your focus as your reason for investing in your marriage, then you can be rest assured that your yields in that marriage will gladden your heart. When you decide to submit to your husband not because he deserves it, but because you do it to please God, you can be sure that your marriage will be sweet and you will have peace, and the prosperity that accrues to obedient children of God will accrue to you. And just to make it sweet, your husband will grow to love you. These are the gains that yields to you when you invest in your 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 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 for free.

In my next blog post, I will try share a story with you that we can learn from as we invest right in our marriage. 

What Men Do to Invest in their Marriage

I promised in my last post that we will share a story on the gains of investment so that we can relate well with the topic more. But just before I do that, I want to take some examples from the Bible on men and women who actually made God the focus of some key decisions in their marriage and the returns on investment based on these decisions in their marriage paid off big time. They had good returns on the investments they made in their marriage.

The first man I want us to consider from the Bible is Isaac, we will find the story of his marriage in Genesis 24, and the first interesting thing to learn in that story is how Isaac got married to Rebekah. I wouldn't want us to focus on the whole detail of how the choice of wife for Isaac came about from the beginning but what I find as a learning point in relations to marriage investment is found in Genesis 24:62-67

Genesis 24:62-67

Now Isaac had come from Beer Lahai Roi, for he was living in the Negev. He went out to the field one evening to meditate and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel and asked the servant, “Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?”

“He is my master,” the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself.

Then the servant told Isaac all he had done. Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her, and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

The story above is the last detail of the marriage between Isaac and Rebekah. What makes me have so much respect for Isaac and count him among the league of extraordinary men was his willingness to marry and love Rebekah without any preconditions. All Isaac knew and was satisfied with was the fact that Rebekah was a wife God chose for him and he knew and understood that God would give him nothing but His best. He didn’t bother if she was well brought up, he didn’t worry about her family background, her ability to make a good wife was not pre-tested by him; he didn’t even bother to find out if she would be submissive and obedient or not. All he knew and was enough for him was the story told to him by his father’s chief servant. It appears Isaac didn’t even know that Abraham had sent his servant on a mission to get a wife for him, yet he took Rebekah to his mother’s tent and there he married her and loved her and was comforted. There was absolutely no precondition for him to love his wife. Yet he loved her and had one of the best of marriages in Bible times.

We would even notice that Rebekah’s barrenness in Genesis 25:21 didn’t stop Isaac from loving her. But rather than tag her barren and ill-treat her, he loved her enough to pray to God on her behalf and she conceived. This is the kind of unconditional love of a husband to his wife that yields positive returns on investment.

Another man that I love to respect in the league of extraordinary husbands is Joseph the earthly father figure of our Lord Jesus Christ. For a man to agree to take for himself a wife carrying a child who is not naturally or biologically his and father such a child and still love his wife knowing she was carrying a child that is not his, is a very commendable trait and that makes me respect Joseph so much. And we see that his marriage to marry was without troubles as no record of such was found in the Bible.

And another man I love to respect a lot as a husband in the Bible is Job. Job was a man of many good qualities; he was a wealthy great man yet he was a man who feared God and shunned evil. But he was a great husband too if you ask me, and my reason for coming to this conclusion is this: We read in Job 2:9-10 that in the heat of Job’s trial all the advice that could come from his wife who should be a support and a helper to him was to curse God and die.

Now a wife who should be a shoulder to lean on in times of trouble is literarily the one asking you to curse God and die. A normal man would make enquiries to know if his wife was not the cause of her woes for her to be wishing him dead or only have the wrong advice for him when he needed her encouragement and positivity the most. But even though Job rebuked his wife for her foolish advice, he didn’t cast her away. And when all things were restored to Job and he became wealthier than he was before his troubles began, we didn’t read in the Bible that Job took another wife. Job remained married to his wife and even had other children with her. This is just what can be done by an extraordinary man.

One thing that these three extraordinary men had in common was that God was their focus. They did what they did not because their wives deserved such treatment from them, but because they trusted in God and made Him the reason why they did what they did. And did it pay off at the end? We all know it did and they all had good returns on their investment. Job never stopped to be a wealthy man and his record was not tarnished before God on account of divorce, and Joseph had his name included in history and in the lineage of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who would have heard of Joseph or reckoned with his person if he had walked away from Mary on account of infidelity? But he listened to the voice of God and he enjoyed that accolade of a hero. And that wonderful husband named Isaac became the father of many nations like his father, he also had a good record before God and he was a blessed man till death; in the midst of severe famine, Isaac was growing rich until he became exceedingly rich that kings began to fear him on account of his wealth.

These are worthy men to emulate and when a man makes God his focus even in marriage, he would invest right in it and have a very good returns on his investment.  

If you have been blessed by this, and you have learned much from this eye opening marriage write up, you might want to check 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 for free.

So before I go into the story telling, I would want us to search out the Bible for extraordinary wives too. This will give us a balanced view of the matter, and so in my next post we will look at a few extraordinary wives in the Bible that we can learn from and probably enjoy good yields on our marriage investment as they did. Until then, please remain very blessed.   

The Returns on Marriage Investment

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.

The Father Should Do the Training

I thank God for another opportunity to share a word with you on this blog. I know it’s been a while that you have read from me and I apologize again for the break. It’s been a year of sowing seeds for me, I am either working on a book or setting up other platforms. I appreciate your patient, your concern and I pray the Lord bless you real good.

I have been thinking on the next line of marriage discussions that we can learn from on this blog, and it came to mind that there are other aspects of our marital life that we need to look into. One of such areas is the relationship between our marriage and our assignment as parents? Well I guess if there was no relationship between marriage and parenting, God will not order our lives such that we have to get married before having children. And then we noticed in Malachi 2:13-14 that God said He made the man and his wife one in flesh and spirit because He was seeking godly offspring from their marriage union.

One of the many fruits that is expected of our marriage is the godly children we have been able to produce for God from the union. The likelihood that a godly marriage will produce godly children is high, even though there are few exceptions, mostly owing to the fact that the parents have neglected their parenting assignment for other concerns. But it is a lot easier to train up children produced in an ideal marriage unit of husband and wife than to have to train your children as a single parent.  

I don’t mean to say that single parents can’t make successful parents, but whatever work we get to do, the task is much easier when two share the responsibility than when one person has to bear the burden alone. With that said, we will take a look at who owns what responsibility as parents raising up godly offspring that the Lord seeks.

Genesis 18:19

For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised.

Ephesians 6:4

Fathers, do not exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

It is always assumed that the training of a child is the responsibility of the mother. It is assumed that she spends more time with them and so she should be saddled with the task of training and bringing them up. And even though this tradition feels quite convenient to run with more so that the men are assumed to spend more time outside of the home working hard to make a living and cater for the financial needs of the family, but this is not the order with God. In my search of the Bible, I have not come across any portion of the Bible where God penalized or punished a mother for the sins of her children and this for me is a wake-up call for the fathers/husbands.

So while we read in Proverbs 31:15 of a wife of noble character waking up early to provide food for her family and portions for her maid servants and we also read in Proverbs 31:21 that a wife of noble character is not afraid for her household when it snows because they are all clothed in scarlet, we read in Job 1:5 of a wealthy man called Job who feared God and shunned evil and who would wait for his children’s feasting period to be over and would call them together and purify them and sacrifice to God on their behalf thinking perhaps they may have sinned against the Lord while feasting. This sounds like training to me. So from these passages we read of a wife/mother taking care of the well-being of her household and we also read of a father purifying his children and so to say training them and sacrificing to God on their behalf. 

So we understand that a wife/mother has been formed by God to have a heart of compassion and love so that with her inherent love for her children she can take good care of them and ensure that they are well taken care of on all fronts. But from the way a man is formed, he holds the authority in the home and with that authority comes the assignment to train and instruct his household in the way of the Lord. No wonder it was Prophet Eli who was punished by God over the sins of his sons and not Eli’s wife in 1 Samuel 2-3.

Job understood the importance of having his children in right standing before the Lord and so he didn't allow his pursuit of wealth or his busy schedule as a great and wealthy man to prevent him from purifying his children always and sacrificing to God on their behalf after each feasting period. And so Job had such a good record before God that God had to make a boast about him before satan.

One of the criteria to meet to be eligible to be an overseer of the church is for the man to manage his family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect (1 Timothy 3:4-5). This sounds like training your children well to me. One of your primary assignment as a man is to train your children well and when you have proved yourself faithful in this assignment, you show God your readiness to take up bigger task for Him.

But like I mentioned earlier, the task of training a child is a lot easier when both parents are involved, Ecclesiastes 4:9 says “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work.” When a husband/father is carrying out the training of the children and the wife/mother is lending her support and enforcing instructions given by the father (her husband), then they get better results for their labor over the lives of their children, and so they grow to see their children become like arrows in the hands of warriors to them.

I pray that this little piece blesses homes and marriages and set records straight for many couples and they now understand that when it comes to parenting, the father holds more of the responsibility than the mother. Just as in other assignments that the man carries out in marriage, he owns the responsibility to train the children and the wife owns the responsibility to support her husband on this task. Don’t try to contradict each other in training your children. As a wife, if you feel the pattern of training is too firm or not firm enough, pray to God first and discuss your concerns in private with your husband. Never go against him publicly as it doesn’t have good effects on the training you are trying to instill in your children. And remember, a house that is divided in itself cannot stand.

If you have enjoyed reading this and have been blessed by it, you might want to consider visiting My Book Store here for life changing books inspired by the Holy Spirit and written by me. 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 for free.

In my next post, we will consider some of the yields that accrue to your marriage investment and if possible get a story to learn from. Until then, remain blessed.