The Making of a Successful Marriage

Welcome to the last month of the year 2017. It’s a year that personally I can’t complain about. I have taken stock and I can say will all confidence that God has been very good to me. I have not gotten all that I want from God but I have gotten more than enough to be grateful for and if God has brought me this far, I know He can and will take me through the full length. So I am thanking God and I believe you are too.

One thing I always do with God is that I love to ask Him questions. You know our little children love to ask any and every question so much that they get on your nerves with continuous questions about the same thing over and over again? Well that is how I am with God; I just want to know why and when and how of everything that concerns me.

Just like everyone else I did think that God was being fair when He instructed the wives to submit to their husbands in everything as unto the Lord. I assumed that it was lesser task for the men to love their wives than for the wives to submit their husbands, more so when you have a husband who is so unloving and lacks regard for your person as a wife and as a woman. God said in Jeremiah 33:3 that we should call on Him and He will answer us and show us great and unsearchable things that we do not know, so I took God on His words and I began to ask questions to know why He would say that women should submit to their husbands knowing the mindset of the men He created and how badly some men treat their wives. And up till now God has not changed the rules or updated them considering the trend in the world today.

God being faithful and true to His words gave me the answers to my questions and now I have a better understanding of the instructions and laws of God in marriage. For a man to progress in life and enjoy the fullness of God for his life some key values are very essentially. First as a married man UNITY in his marriage is a prerequisite to success in all other areas of his life. Unity in his marriage leads to peace of mind which enables him/her to focus for success and pursue goals without distractions.

The all-knowing God who knows the end from the beginning made the laws of marriage such that it fosters unity and encourages the peace that the man and his wife needs to have all round success in every area of their lives. When you rebel against the laws of God in your marriage for whatever reason, you jeopardize the unity of your marriage and compromise the peace of your home and in turn forfeit the successful life that God has earmarked for you.

Going against the law of God for your marriage and encouraging people to do the same is like a sin of rebellion against God. But I know that a lot of women who have had to endure a lot under the heavy yoke of a bad marriage would wonder why and how submission in marriage would encourage unity when they don’t even have peace with all they have sacrificed for the marriage? To this category of women I will say that no challenge is a waste and know for sure that what you are going through when committed to God has an expiry date when you have learned from the hands of God what He has purposed for you to learn through that challenge.

When you submit to your husband as unto God as an act pleasing to God, the Lord is bound to turn the situation around in your favor. If He did it for me, He will do more for you because He is not a partial God. When you submit to your husband like God wants you to and you are a prayerful wife, God will turn your husband’s heart to love you like he should. And in the same manner when a man loves his wife in the way and manner God wants him to, it’s just a matter of time before God turns the heart of his wife to submit to him like she should such that the unity that brings success will reign in their lives. It’s important to know and understand that just one of the spouse in a marriage working it right and working it out with God is enough to turn a bad marriage into a good one. 

You might wonder what the connection between UNITY in marriage and SUCCESS in life is. Well I have shared it on this blog over and over again and I will share it again now. This secret is found in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, vs 9 says “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work.” This is just as straightforward as it is, they have a good return for their work. So when two work together they have better yield than if one is working alone. Then we also find in Genesis 11:6 which reads, “The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.’” This is the secret that the enemy of your destiny is mindful of and so he will stop at nothing to ensure that you and your spouse do not speak as one people with one language because he knows that if you do, nothing you plan to do will be impossible for you. And so in order to live above impossibility you need to ensure that you do all that you can with the help of God to ensure the unity of your marriage which is a key to your success in life. This is the time that we need to get smarter than the devil.

The UNITY that brings ultimate success is the unity between a husband and his wife because from the beginning of time God had made them one in flesh and spirit. There are no other two people that should be more united speaking as one people with the same language as the husband and his wife that God Himself joined together. The unity of these two with God watching over them breaks every barrier to success in their lives.

Now that we understand the role of unity in the success of our lives the next thing we need to really understand is relationship between love and unity and submission and unity. When you SUBMIT to your husband and not just merely respecting or esteeming him, you wake up the love in him for you. Your act of submission digs up the love of your husband for you. When you submit, it’s just natural that along with that submission is respect and obedience, and when you submit to your husband thereby obeying and respecting him you are invariably making him the king of your life. Your husband being a king confers on you the status of his queen. If you are the wife of a king then without any question or argument or analysis, you are a queen of his life. If there is no curse in place or external evil forces having a field day in your marriage, in a natural world a man tends to love a wife who submits to him, obeys him and respects him and is able to show some level of intelligence in the marriage. So as a wife who is praying, if you want your husband to love you then make him the king of your life, submit to him, obey him and respect him and see if you will not dig out the love in him for you.  

In the same way, when a man loves his wife unconditionally and sacrificially in the manner with which Christ loves the church he makes her his queen. I am a woman and I can say for a greater percentage of women that we will submit more to a husband who loves us and shows that he loves us than a husband who does not care about us. So the more a man shows unconditional love to his wife, the more he makes her submit to him. The more you make your wife a queen in your life, the more you become the king in her life. A man who loves his wife unconditionally earns the respect and obedience of his wife.

So putting this together, when a man loves his wife sacrificially and the wife submits to her husband in everything, they please each other. When they are pleasing each other, they are at peace with each other and when they are at peace with each other there is unity between them because they will agree on almost everything. When they cultivate that unity diligently, they are sowing seeds to their success. Don’t try to envy these category of people because they are not lucky like so many want to believe they are, they have worked hard to attain the level of comfort they are enjoying in their marital lives. They have identified some important keys to success and they are working hard to attain them.

But you and your spouse can enjoy what those that are assumed to be lucky are enjoying when you start to fight for the peace of your marriage by obeying the instructions of God for your marriage. After all the Bible says we should fight the good fight of faith. 

The Husbands Need to Do the Right Things First

So again we continue in the topic of discussion that we started from two previous post. I pray and I hope that we have been blessed by what we have read and learned from this series so far.

In today’s post we will consider another abuse of submission that needs to be looked into, and this is when a man unduly demands submission from his wife. This is a situation when a husband has absolutely forgotten that he has more responsibilities to his wife to love her like himself and like Christ loves the church, love and care for her unconditionally, respect and hold her in esteem so that nothing will hinder his prayers.

I heard the case of this young couple in which the wife got an opportunity to go work and live in Canada and just because the husband was not the one presented with such an opportunity he insisted his wife could not go, all because he was exercising his authority as head over his wife. Now before you think there is nothing wrong with such, please read some of his excuses. 1). He felt he should be the one with such a privilege and not his wife; 2). He said such an opportunity accrued to the wife because she came from a family wealthier than his. In summary he should be earning more than his wife and so he doesn’t want her to take the offer so she doesn’t earn more than him and then lord over him.

This is not a case in isolation, we have so many men who have caged their wives and prevented them from reaching greater height owing to their own insecurity and unwarranted fears and all they hold on to is that the word of God says the wife should submit to her husband. What these men have totally forgotten is that the same word of God says the wife is the suitable helper to her husband, so how is this wife expected to help her husband when she has been robbed of the ability and opportunity to grow and develop herself and her God given talent such that she will be ready and available to help her husband when he needs such help all owing to the selfishness and insecurity of her husband?

The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 that two are better than one because if one falls the other can lift him up and these Bible passages applies more to the married couples than any other two on the face of the earth. But when you have not allowed your wife to develop her strength, how can she lift you up when you are down? Isn’t it huge disaster when the two are down at the same time and no one to lift both up? The one whom the Lord has assigned to help you when the need arise has been robbed of her ability to help owing to your insensitivity and insecurity. And then she would be blamed for your fall to which she knows nothing about. I sincerely pray and hope that the Lord will open our eyes of understanding to see beyond baseless traditions and norms that pulls down rather than build up.

Proverbs 31:11-12 says of a wife of noble character that her husband has full confidence in her and so he lacks nothing of value and that she brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life and we read on from verse 13 to 28 of the same proverbs 31 why her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. And what we read there is the entrepreneurial capabilities of this wife of noble character, her high grade moral values and her application of divine wisdom. Her strength in merchandise are chief of the qualities that endears her husband to her. And where in the Bible do we find a submissive wife being someone whose wings are clipped just so her husband can trample her underfoot in the name of submission? This I am still looking for and am yet to find.

We also have men who would insist that their wives work and then submit her salary into his bank account in the name of submission. Though the Bible says the wife should submit to her husband in everything and that does not exclude her money, but the truth of the matter is that only a greedy man would allow his wife work and deprive her of her wages. Even the Bible says a laborer is worthy of his wages. A man who works and earn income should be proud of the fruits of his labor and not grab and accrue to himself what he has not worked for. The Bible says a man should love his wife as himself, so I want to ask such man as this that if he worked and then is deprived of his income would he be pleased or happy? If he wouldn’t be, then why is he depriving his wife of her income and hiding under the guise of submission.

What God instructs the husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church; the love of Jesus for the church is a sacrificial love, the love that gives and not the love that takes what it has not earned. Christ as the head of the church provides for the church, that is why we pray in the name of Jesus and expect answers. A husband is to work and provide for his wife (1 Timothy 5:8) and not the wife working to provide for her husband. And so I hope a man who has good understanding of the word of God will also understand its application.

If a husband is financially down and genuinely needing his wife's financial assistance, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But a man should be able to live up to his responsibility as the head of the home by also being the head in providing for his family’s needs.

Going back to the story of these two young couples in which the wife was gifted with the opportunity of travelling to Canada to live and work; to the glory of God, a counselor was invited to counsel them on the issue. The young man was asked if he truly loved his wife to which he answered yes. He was also asked that if he was the one given the opportunity to travel to Canada to live and work while his wife remained in Nigeria would he take up the offer, he also answered to the affirmative and said yes. Then he was asked if he felt his wife would be unfaithful to him with this opportunity that she has been given and he said he was sure his wife wouldn’t be unfaithful to him and he knew she would not exhibit any form of pride over the fact that she was earning more than him in income. So he was then asked why he wanted to deprive her of the opportunity that she has been gifted with and he couldn’t say a word.

The woman of God who spoke to them then made him realize that this opportunity could be a once in a life time opportunity for the two of them as nothing was stopping the wife from going to Canada, getting a job and be able to save and fund his own relocation too in due course since she had schooled in Canada before coming to Nigeria to settle down and he also did a good course in the university with a bright future ahead of him.

With the help of the Holy Spirit she was able to persuade the husband to let his wife travel and to the glory of God the wife has settled down in Canada, gotten a good job and she is able to send enough money to her husband to help him build up his account for post graduate degree in Canada. He has in fact paid visits to his wife and child as the wife was pregnant before leaving Nigeria and they are now both happy and better off.

Pride destroys more than it should be allowed to destroy in our lives if we are not sensitive enough to know when to nip it in the bud. In capping up this three post series on submission I want to say this, the instruction to the husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church, God wants the husband to love his wife as himself, and likewise the wife is to submit to her husband as unto the Lord in everything. As a wife you don’t need your husband to love you first before submitting to him because when you get to the throne of judgment you can’t give God the excuse of your husband not loving you as a reason to fail. And in the same manner, as a husband, you don’t need your wife to submit to you first before you love her like God wants you to because at the judgment throne you cannot give lack of submission from your wife as a reason for disobeying God’s instruction on your life to love your wife like you should.

In truth I know of a wife who had submitted all, even her income to her husband and she is better off today, and I say with all confidence that whatever you do in obedience to the word of God, you will never have any regrets doing it whether you are the wife or husband.    

That is not Submission

Hello people how are you doing, I trust you are doing great. I am doing fine too.

So we continue in our discussion on when submission goes wrong and today we will look at those who feel enslaved by submission; those who feel that they are not getting the yields of submission and rather than their husbands loving and respecting them in return for their sacrifice of submission, they feel enslaved in their own home by the one who is to make them feel loved and wanted.

The first thing I want us to understand is that there is a difference between submission and respect. Submission is when you yield yourself to the authority of your husband, it is obedience to your husband’s authority. It is sitting when your husband says sit and it is standing when your husband says stand.

But on the other hand respect means to hold your husband in high esteem, it is giving your husband good regard. So you can actually respect your husband without truly submitting to him. You can wash your husband’s cloths, cook his food, make his bed, and collect his briefcase from him when he returns from work, yet you are not submitting to him. If your husband tells you to go left and you go right and still do all that you do for him in respect, you are not submitting to your husband, therefore you are not fulfilling God’s instruction for your life as a wife.

From these analysis we now understand that you can respect your husband without submitting to him but in most cases, you cannot submit to your husband without respecting him. The mere fact that you submit to your husband is a sign of respect for him as the God ordained head over your life.

Now it is important to note that submission without prayers is so very wrong. It is when a woman who does not have a relationship with God submits to her husband of her own ability outside of God that the husband tends to treat her badly. When you submit to your husband, do so prayerfully, then your submission will carry with it the power that brings about good returns. Submission without God is like one who has the substance but lack the power. It is the power that makes the substance effective. 

It is important to understand that you cannot apply God’s word in your life without a relationship with God and hold God responsible when the returns are not coming like they should. The Bible tells us that flesh and blood cannot please God, you need a relationship with God in order to have God fight your course for you when you are obeying His word for your life. 

When I speak with people about marriage and I share my marital experience, a lot of people say that my faith is on another level and not everyone has the grace that I have. But in truth I don’t have any special grace other than the fact that I have cultivated and developed a deep relationship with Jesus and I am sure that as long as I remain in His word and in His will, He will fight my course for me, so I will remain in His will and do as His word tells me to do and expect nothing than a positive result for my obedience because more than me or my ability God remains faithful. So my marriage is working and I am submitting to my husband like I should not by my might or ability but by the spirit of God that dwells in me and when God is leading my actions the only result to expect is a positive one. 
God created my husband, He formed my husband in his mother's womb, God understands my husband in and out, He knows what to do to please my husband and what to do to anger him. He knows what I can say and do that will either make my husband happy, joyful, angry or irritated. So I have developed a relationship with God and He who knows my husband well is the one leading me then I can be confident that He (God) will lead me to do only things that will make my husband happy, joyful and pleased with me such that he (my husband) will love me more. And He (God) will also lead me to avoid those things that will trigger anger and irritation in my husband. Now tell me that with God's leading is it possible to have a bad marriage? This is not just achievable by me, but by every woman who has allowed God lead her life and her actions. 

If you will enjoy marriage and in fact enjoy every area of your life, a deep loving relationship with God is very vital and key. As for me Jesus is my life, and He is my everything; it is in Him that I live and move and have my being. God has the success of our marriages at heart and the success of our total well-being is so very important to God and if this be the case, you should understand that when God says a woman should submit to her husband in everything it is the ultimate success of your marriage that God has in focus; that is His goal of your marriage and when submission seems tough or you are not getting the desired result from your effort, then it's important to surrender that effort to God and let Him (God) lead you through it to success. Submission without God is a huge task. And we need to be able to know and understand the difference between submission and respect. Maybe that is where we are getting it all wrong.  

When you have a relationship with God, it is almost impossible to live a life of regret in any area of your life least of all submission to your husband as His word instructs. If you don’t have Jesus in your life, it’s important you accept Him now and experience a total turn around in your life and start to enjoy a good life and a good marriage life.

So adding what we learned in the last post with today’s post we understand submission to your husband does not amount to consenting to any wrong doing proposed to you by your husband. While you maintain your uprightness with God, you do so with high regard for your husband. Do not be confrontational with your husband, do not be argumentative with him about issues that contradict your stand in God. When submission is leading you away from God you need to pray and seek God’s intervention in the matter, the Lord who sees the heart will not make you fall, fail or falter. You also need to understand that there is a difference between submission and respect. What God asked of the wife to her husband is submission and not respect. Submission is obedience; check what you are giving in your marriage, is it mere respect or submission which is obedience. Because it is submission (obedience) the Lord asked you to give, it is submission the Lord will reward.

Before I sign out, I want to share a true life story just to encourage someone. A very submission and loving wife had a small misunderstanding with her husband which was beginning to grow into an argument. While the wife was trying to politely explain her reason for taking an action to her husband and was trying to correct his assumption on which he had made some wrong conclusions thereby accusing her wrongly, the husband threatened to slap her if she didn’t keep quiet.

The wife was very bruised emotionally and didn’t say a word, she just couldn't understand why her husband would threaten to beat her without even giving her a chance to an explanation, but still she put her emotions under check. She kept quiet and didn’t say a word to the husband again. But that didn’t stop her from getting her husband’s food ready for him and at least make sure she ran the errands she was meant to run for him. After all done, she got into bed covered herself up with her duvet and cried in her heart to her God. While praying she slept off.

By the next morning she woke up and went about her business doing her house chores. When her husband woke, he tried to make peace without apologizing and the wife just avoided him like a plague to drive home her anger yet without any confrontation and no spoken words. But when the husband’s conscience could not hold it any longer he called her and apologized to her for his wrong doing and begging for her forgiveness and then she forgave him that ended the issue.

This to me is a better approach to problem solving between a husband and a wife. Sometimes being quiet and not responding carries more weight than the word you speak and this woman does not special grace or greater anointing to keep quiet in the face of trouble in her marriage, it's just self discipline and allowing the Lord lead her actions. I am sharing this story so we understand that these things are not so tough if only one of the two involved can just put their emotions in check and embrace God. Nothing works as effective as the intervention of God.   

When Submission Goes Wrong

Hello people, I trust you are doing very great. This year is rounding up and indeed we are grateful to be alive to praise the living God. I want to apologize that my next series of blog post will not be accompanied by its voice version owing to the fact that editing the voice version takes a lot of time and delays the blog post. But by the grace of God, I will resume the voice when there is less pressure.

Today’s post is what I want to title “When Submission Goes Wrong.” There are a lot of wives who say they have submitted and regretted doing so as they have lost all that they worked for to submission with absolutely no returns to them. They are worse off after submission than they were before submitting. To these ones submission is more of a curse than a blessing.

Some other category of wives say they have submitted to their husbands, and rather than the husband loving and respecting them in return, he has turned back to treat them like a glorified housemaid rather than a suitable helper that God has provided for him that should be loved and respected like God has instructed the man.

Then we have men who now take undue advantage of that God given instruction to the wives to manipulate their wives and force control over them. Men who would ask their wives to work and submit her salary in his account as her head all because God says the wife should submit to her husband. They have absolutely forgotten that God who gave the wife the instruction to submit also gave the husband the instruction to love and respect his wife as himself and as Christ loves the church. Like the word of one of my big sisters in the Lord, submission in marriage has been grossly bastardized.

So we will be looking at these issues and trust God to open our hearts and eyes of understanding that we might be able to differentiate between the true instructions of God in marriage and the lies of the devil. We will learn also from some true life issues that we will use to understand these things better. This discussion will take more than just a blog post, so I will encourage you to follow the series.

In today’s post we will discuss the issues of the wives who grossly regret submission in marriage owing to the fact that they submitted all and then lost all. The first thing we need to understand is that God’s law is perfect, and when you follow the law of the Lord through the help of the Holy Spirit you cannot and will not have any regret. The Bible says flesh and blood cannot please God so we need the Spirit of God in us to enable us do the will of God for our lives.

Submission in marriage is not slavery, and submission in marriage does not translate to the fact that the wife should lose her brain in the bid to submit to her husband. If a wife didn’t need a brain and she only needs to think and rationalize issues through the brain of her husband, then God would have created the woman brainless. But He didn’t create women brainless because our intelligent contribution in marriage is very vital to the success of that marriage.

One important thing that needs to be highlighted and emphasized in marriage is that there is a difference between reluctant obedience/compliance to the husband’s instruction and a willful consent to the husband’s instruction. God who sees the heart and mind judges all based on the heart and mind. We as humans are limited to seeing only actions, but God sees and understands the intent of the heart and the motive behind every action and so because He does not as we see, He doesn’t judge as we judge.

These analysis is what was behind God defending Sarah in her submission Genesis 12:10-17 and in Genesis 20, and then judging and killing Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11. There is a difference between agreeing with your husband on a course of action such that you buy into the idea and you think his idea is good for execution from when you don’t buy into the idea and not agreeing with what he wants you to do, but you pray and do it anyway because God says you should submit.    
Submission in marriage is not a ticket to sin. When your husband's instruction is a sin, then as a child of God who has developed a relationship with God, you need to run to God in prayer and seek his intervention in the matter before going ahead to join your husband in sin. If you don't hear from God go ahead and submit, but not without first letting God know that the action does not have your willful consent in it. This is the difference between Sarah and Sapphira. But when your husband instructs you to sin and you don't see the action as sin or he has been able to convince you to buying into the idea then it is no longer submission, it has become an agreement to sin, you and your husband have become partners in crime. If the consequences of those actions begin to manifest don't blame it on submission, own up to your sin and seek God for forgiveness. 
If your husband comes home to let you in on a fraudulent deal he did in his office and then you both rejoiced for the money that came and even thanked God for it, then you are both partners in crime. If he gives you part of that money and you took it and spent it that is not submission any more.   

Let me use a simple example to illustrate what I am trying to get across: A young couple are faced with a pregnancy they didn’t want or plan for. The economic situation at that time was very tough and they already had two children they were struggling to take care of and now the wife is pregnant again. In one case scenario, the husband was able to convince the wife that they should abort the pregnancy and they can properly plan for a baby when they are more economically buoyant and have enough for a new baby. So the wife thought it through and even though she was scared of the thought of having an abortion she still understood and agreed that they can’t afford to have the baby at that time. The husband succeeded in resting her fears that he would stand by her side all through the process and there was nothing to fear. He promised to take her to a very good hospital to get the abortion done and so she fully agreed and he drove her to the hospital and they went for the abortion. In this case there was full agreement between the husband and the wife for an abortion to take place and abortion eventually took place. This is not a case of a wife submitting to her husband, but a case of a wife being in agreement with her husband to do wrong. If God would judge this case, both the husband and wife are culpable and both are punishable. The wife cannot claim submission in this case before God, even if she claims submission before man. 

But in another scenario; the husband claimed he didn't want another baby and even though the wife understood her husband’s reluctance, she pleads with him that abortion is a sin before God and even though she didn't want a baby at that time also and she knew that economically they couldn't afford another baby in the family, she acknowledges that God was more powerful than their problems. But with all her pleading to her husband, he still insisted that she gets an abortion. Then she goes to God in prayers asking God to come into the situation and take control. She prays that God should soften her husband’s heart to accept the situation they are faced with while not fighting her husband or insisting on her own way, she prayed God will come through for her. 
If this woman eventually got the abortion in submission to her husband's instruction, the blood of that child would be on her husband’s head because God sees her heart and knows her intention and motive. 

This is where we differentiate submission from willful consent. No wife will get a gallon of acid and bath herself with it because her husband asked her to and she is following the Bible in submission. If you as a wife see that your husband is going wrong, the Bible isn’t saying you should join him in wrong doing just so that you submit. What God expects is that you bring such daring situation to Him in prayers without being confrontational with your husband and He (God) will do in that situation what you cannot do.

I have shared my story on this blog so many times and when I was going through my own experiences they seemed tough at that time, but today that I am made to speak life to marriages through this blog I understand better what the Lord had in mind when He made me go through the tough experiences of that time.

When I got married I was earning more than 10times what my husband earned then and he demanded control of my income which I didn’t like. I struggle with that kind of submission but I carried my case to God. The Lord re-enforced His word to me that I should submit which I didn’t have a choice but to obey. Today my husband earns more than 10times what I earned then, and I am a full-time housewife now earning no income. If I had not obeyed the word of God then, I would have had myself to blame if my husband treated me badly now that he earns more because he would be justified in himself for repaying me back in my own coin.

I appreciate that we can’t generalize marriage issues and it’s important to treat and handle each marriage issue in its own merit like my big sister in the Lord would always say. Unity in marriage is very vital, and you need to be in agreement with your husband for marriage to succeed and for you to enjoy the dividends of marriage, but don't agree on wrong doing; don't agree to sin and don't agree in doing evil before God; don't be a willful accomplice in sinning and then hold God and His law responsible for your sins. As a wife you are not designed by God to agree to your husband's sins and wrong doings in the name of submission, but you are his suitable helper to help him become better and become all that God has designed and destined him to be by the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus. 
When you don't agree with your husband on issues don't go confrontational with your him but just pray and when things don't go the way you think they should go, just let them be. God expects that you bring all the issues of your life to Him to solve for you, He understands that you can't handle them alone. When submission is tough, pray but don’t go confrontational. Ask the Lord for His intervention and leading. Don’t compromise your stand in God because you want to submit, yet don't be a nagging and quarrelsome wife because of your belief. Let the purity and reverence of your life be a tool in the hands of God in drawing your husband to Himself.  

In the second scenario of the story of the pregnant wife that I shared earlier, the wife who was reluctant to have the abortion but asked the Lord for His intervention had God's intervention because God came through for her. The Lord softened the heart of the husband and he agreed that his wife should have the child as their third and last child. On the day the wife was to have their baby, the husband got a call from the company he had applied to several months earlier, while at the labor ward with his wife expecting the arrival of their second son and third child, for him to come collect the appointment letter for a job he had applied for but didn’t believe they would take him. That job changed their financial status and they in fact had a fourth child and still grew in wealth.

Reluctant submission is very different willful agreement, do not let your husband talk you into disobeying the will of God for your life. The devil is crafty and can use anyone, even your husband to derail you, don’t fall for it. Let your light so shine that it draws your husband to Jesus. When your husband is leading you off from the will of God, don’t be confrontational, let it not lead to an argument, hold your peace and pray, God will show up. 

There are more life changing books on https://thewordthatsuits.com/. It is an online book store with books that will bless your life and make you into a better person like it has blessed the lives of many. These books are powered packed based on the revelation of the truth of the word of God and inspired by the Holy Spirit to help you through the challenges of this present age. I have had so many people come back to tell me how they have been blessed by these books, I await your testimony too in Jesus name. 

Being the Head is a Big Responsibility

To Listen to the voice version of this post, please click on the link below
https://soundcloud.com/aderinsola-obasa/being-the-head-is-a-huge-responsibility

Hello wonderful people, I trust you are doing great today. I am doing great too and I bless the Lord for your lives and mine.

We can’t exhaust learning, and learning on marriage issues is just so important. And so we will try to learn from a story that I will share in today’s post.

There is this beautiful young lady married to a wonderful husband. She happens to be the breadwinner of her family and she bears the financial burden of the family. She pays the children’s school fees, pays the house rent, pays the utility bills in the house and pays for the nanny that cares of the children; all thanks to her good paying job. Although the husband works and earns less in income compared to the wife, he contributes nothing to the upkeep of the home. And to now make it a little more interesting, the husband’s younger brother leaves with them with his live-in girlfriend and he lives large as a king in a home at the expense of his brother’s wife where neither he nor his brother who is the husband and head of the home contributes no money to the running of the home.

But something happened one day that eventually made this wife come to me. The wife bought a wi-fi modem to use in the house should in case she has some leftover office work to do in the house. And the husband demanded to use the wi-fi to download films and some applications on his phone to which she obliged him and on the second day he requested the wi-fi again at which point she refused and that issue turned from an argument to a fight and she was beaten black and blue by her husband. The husband who contributes nothing in the home destroyed a handful of their home appliances in rage.

I am sure a normal person would simply tell the wife to pack her things and depart from the one sided marriage but we will not look at this issue from a human perspective, we will go back to the word of God and see what God says in His word.  

Ephesians 5:22-25 says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as the Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

The other part of that passage Ephesians 5:25-29 reads, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no-one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and care for it, just as Christ does the church.”

Like I said earlier, it’s important that we don’t look at this issue from the human perspective but from the outlook of the word of God if we want the intervention of God in the situation and all other situations we might be going through.

The first instruction on marriage is to the wife and that instruction says a wife should submit to her husband as unto the Lord. Without adding or subtracting from this instruction what God expects from a wife is to submit totally and in everything to her husband. Again, the dictionary defines that word submit as “to give over or yield to the power or authority of another.” So if God says a wife should submit to her husband, what God is saying without adding or subtracting from that instruction is that a wife must yield herself to the authority of her husband. A word synonymous in meaning to the word submit is the word obey. So we can understand the instruction of God to be that a wife must obey her husband in everything.  

Applying this instruction to the issue on ground, I advised the woman in this situation and would advise all other women similar situation that if her husband asked her for her wi-fi modem, in the spirit of obedience to the instruction of God to her as a wife she should give it to him. Not because he deserves it, but because she is obeying the word of God for her life.

If she does this, first she would have averted the violence that followed her refusal and she would have a ground to go to God in prayer seeking Him to fight her battles for her. If she can trust God to wake her up in the morning and sustain her through the day she can as well trust Him to right all the wrongs of her marriage.

One interesting thing that I believe God will make happen with her obedience is that the wi-fi data will not be exhausted until she is able to adequately complete the assignment for which she acquired the modem. That is why we are able to call God a miracle working God. God is the source of that modem, and God will be the sustaining factor of her supply. 

But I find a mistake this woman is making and which a lot of other women are making which eventually leads to frustration in marriage. Do not assume the role of the head in any capacity in your marriage, not even in financial matters when you are earning more than your husband. The Lord has made your husband the head of the home and everything he needs to be the head, God is making them available for him, if and when necessary according to the ability of the husband to tap into God’s provision and grace for his life. God will not give anyone an assignment to do for him without adequately equipping that person for the assignment. 

The assignment for the wife is to assist and not to lead even when she is earning more. Assist and build a reserve but do not lead in the spending for the home. In truth we find it in Proverbs 31:10-31 that a wife of noble character provide for her family and supports her husband. Even in her providing for the home which I encourage so well, her assignment is to support and assist but not lead.

God didn’t assign the wife to be the breadwinner for her family and to be paying house rent and children’s school fees. These are responsibilities for the leader to do, when the husband genuinely needs help the wife can come in and help. But when she makes it a habit of carrying the breadwinner role, she will give her husband room to sit lazy, it will not be long before frustration sets in because God has not called you to that role and responsibility in marriage. 
When the wife is spending for the home, initially the husband might still strive to be the head in financial matters of the home, but over time he wouldn't see the need for striving anymore because his wife would pay the bills anyway. Even when he has the money, he will not be compelled to take up the task because his wife is already doing it and there isn't any issue. And so we as wives need to be careful not to start what we know we will complain about much later. 

When your husband needs your financial assistance, there absolutely is nothing wrong in assisting him financially because that is what you are in life for and the Bible confirms in Ecclesiastes 4:9 that two are better than one because they have a good returns for their labor. But woe to him who labors alone. Neither you nor your husband would do well alone, but you two would have a better returns on effort when you both put in your effort, but in this equation the husband is to take the lead and the wife is to assist and not the other way round.

Another important area that a wife should help her husband is to pray for him. Seek the face of God to realize into his life all that he needs to succeed as the head of the home and not to just continue to pump money doing what you have not been assigned to do rather than praying. Your husband needs more of your prayers than your money, he just doesn’t know it. When you pray more for him, heaven will open for him and he will be able to fulfill his mandate in the marriage, but when you continue to spend your money he already has the respite and would not see the need to strive more. He would concluded within himself that his wife is capable of solving the problem so why should he bother. Which is the very wrong approach. Supporting your husband is good, but don’t take up his responsibility as your own. It will wear you out.

With due repeat to the men, it is a big act of irresponsibility for a man to leave his wife to carry the financial load of the family when he still alive and well. A man who does that has absolutely no moral justification to accrue to himself the right to be head of his family. He shouldn’t even attempt to claim that title whether or not God called him so, because the Living God who says the man is the head of his wife also says that a man who does not provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever (1 Timothy 5:8).

And then we find in Malachi 2:13 and 1 Peter 3:7 that God says he will not pay attention to the prayers of a man who has broken faith with his wife, who does not treat her with love and respect. What God expects of a husband to his wife is that he makes her a priority in all areas of their relationship together as husband and wife just like Christ has made the church His priority and not exploit her in the foolishness of playing smart. What such a man is doing in foolishness is that he is hindering answers to his own prayers and when God has stopped to pay attention to a man’s prayers how does such a man prosper?

Invariably what the man is doing to himself is placing himself under his wife rather than above her which is his rightful place and then he wants to force headship over his wife. Such is not done. Leadership is responsibility. The power that accrues to leadership also holds with it more responsibility. So beating your wife to submission does not get the job done, you are in fact heaping more curse on your life when you are violent with your wife because God says he hates a violent man (Malachi 2:16). Rather you love your wife to submission. A woman should not be the breadwinner of the family, its like a husband selling his right to be the head over his wife.

A man who lack the means to provide for his family should approach the throne of God and seek the face of God over his financial problems. Deuteronomy 15:4 says, “There should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving to you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you,” and so we see that the blessing of the Lord is richly available to those who seek it diligently. The Lord who has asked you to provide for your family does not expect you to accomplish that assignment without Him, Philippians 4:6 says with prayer and thanksgiving we should make our request known to God and then Philippians 4:19 tells us that God will provide all our needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus and not your wife. So look up to God to provide for you all that you need to be a befitting head over your wife in all things. 

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A Lineage Characterized By Broken Marriages

Hello wonderful people, I am positive that by the special grace of God, you are doing very well. So am I and mine too and so for all I give thanks to God. 
I so excited so announce that you can listen and download the voice version of today's blog just by clicking on this https://soundcloud.com/aderinsola-obasa/a-lineage-of-broken-marriages. Yes this is how passionate and burdened God has made me about your marital success. God is so very interested in making sure that your marriage succeed and you have it good in every other area of your life too.  

Today I want to share a story with you that really got me thinking. This story is a wakeup call for all, and it shows the need to be very careful about the decisions we make in marriage, it’s not just about us, its about generations to come after us.

A few days ago I went to the salon to get my hair done and while there, one of the apprentice learning how to make hair was being scolded by the owner of the salon, my hairdresser who was making my hair at the time. Out of respect she asked me to join her in scolding the girl and her offense was that at age 17, she was already sleeping with men in their late twenties and early thirties. And on this day, the boss and hacked her phone and intercepted a call coming from one of her male friends who was trying to introduce her to another male friend who was on his way to see her in the salon. The boss had pretended to be this young girl and gotten all the information on the arranged meeting.

But I just didn’t want to scold this young girl, I wanted to know the root of her waywardness and so I began to question her. I asked her about her parents and grandparents and found that her mother is aged 35years which tells me she must have had this young at the age of 18years. Her parents are no longer together and her mother is currently living with another man. Her father used to beat her mum because she keeps late night partying and sometimes does not come home till the next day when she leaves for parties. Her mother built the house she currently lives in with her new lover which is the same house her children are living in with her and her lover. Her father is a driver and has no roof over his head. He sleeps in his commercial vehicle. His grandfather is late, but before he died he was already separated from his grandmother.

And when I asked what caused her parents separation, she told me that her dad was unable to give her mother money for her mother’s father’s burial (her grandfather’s burial) and so he didn’t help her mum for the burial party’s expenses and it was at that point that the father moved out of the house and the mother also moved into the house she built.

I don’t know how you feel reading this narration but I am heartbroken. Broken marriages and careless life style is becoming a thing that parents pass on to their children. I told the boss that I didn’t feel strong about scolding the girl because those to put her on the right path are actually the ones derailing her. She is practicing what she is learning from home. It has become a trend from grandparents to parents and invariably to the child if care is not taken and this is not a case in isolation. I have heard of cases similar to this one too many times.

Now what moral justification does this woman have to correct her child? How can she train her child to be all that God has destined her to be when she has not adequately trained herself? Can one give what one does not have? It’s so important that we understand that when we make marriage decisions, we need to put our children in consideration. Even Jesus says that its better to hang a milestone round your neck and drown than to cause the little ones who believe in Him to sin (Matthew 18:6) let alone your children that you gave birth to and are assigned to train and bring up in the way of the Lord.

Some wives would say they got a divorce and were still able to raise their children well. To those who remained unmarried and committed the rest of their lives to training their children I doff my hat for them in respect but there still remains one thing; if your daughter is married to a man like your husband and faced with similar problems in marriage as you were faced with, would you advise she does the same as you did, leave the marriage and remain single?

I do not subscribe to any wife managing or enduring her marriage because in truth I am not managing mine. I am having a time of my life with the man of my life and we have been married for close to 14years. But we didn’t get to this point of comfort by chance. It was hard work, it took a lot of sacrifice, I learnt obedience and I learnt submission. I sowed my seed in marriage and today I am reaping the fruits of my labor. And that is what the Lord has been using me to open the eyes of many to see and understand.
And I am totally against and condemn in strong terms that a man should beat his wife for any and every reason, but as a wife and a home maker, why would you provoke your husband to anger? Which well mannered wife will leave her husband and children at home and go to a party and not come back till the next day and expect her husband not to get angry. I don't have anything going to parties, but I have everything against being irresponsible about it.  

God has not called any into marriage to make them suffer, but we need to know that marriage is a threefold relationship between the man, his wife and God. The man has been instructed to love his wife unconditionally and as himself in the manner in which Christ loves the church. And the wife has been instructed to submit to her husband as unto the Lord (whether he is a believing husband or not) and God sits on the throne to judge the activities of the two who are united together.

We need to understand that marriage stops to become marriage when any of those in it default in their assignment in the union. The moment the wife stops to submit to her husband, then there is bound to be a problem and the moment the husband stops to love his wife there is a problem. The only constant in this threefold relationship is God. God never changes.

As a wife if you want your marriage to be sweet, please stay within the scope of your instruction. Submit to your husband as unto the Lord. Don’t try to be the judge of your husband’s character for his contribution to the union. Let God handle that, that is His assignment to perform. And as a husband, your assignment is to love your wife irrespective of her many shortfalls. Jesus loves you despite your many sins and He wants you to follow that same pattern in loving your wife. Don’t go beyond scope by judging her character, that assignment is for God, so let Him handle it.

What I have found to be most true is that when you keep at your assignment and you do so in prayers with God in focus, you will please God in the process and you will eventually motivate your spouse to action in performing their own instructions too.

And back to the story of the young girl, like I said earlier I couldn’t do much of scolding because this bad habit happens to be a family norm that needs dealing with from its root. But just that we may learn I will say to parents so that you might deposit good values in the lives of your children for your benefit in old age and for the good of the society at large, try to sow good seeds in your marriage and make it work. When you invest right in your marriage, you will get very good returns on your investment.      

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I Want To Keep My Husband From Cheating, What Do I Do?

I am really sorry for my break, my device had a problem and that stopped me from being able to circulate the post. But I thank God all has been fixed. 
So in my last post we started a topic on how to prevent our husbands from cheating on us and I shared with you my own approach that has given me peace and has helped me to trust my husband to be faithful to me. But there are a little more that needs to be done in this regard, so we will look more and find out more in today’s post.

One important thing we should realize is that all things being equal, without any external influence (one very prominent external influence being peer pressure and extended family influence), once you have secured your husband’s love, you will secure along with it his commitment to your marriage. When he is committed to the marriage, he will most likely be faithful to your marriage. I don’t subscribe to the fact that most chronic wife beaters are faithful husbands, that is so against common sense reasoning, and I have seen and heard of husbands who ill-treat their wives just because there is another woman somewhere who has so captured their love and attention that they begin to disdain their wives and she becomes an irritant to them.

So I know for sure that when you secure the love of your husband you give him less reason to be unfaithful to you. If you believe that to be true like I do, then securing your husband’s love for you is something to consider and work towards for the peace and health of your marriage. And when you add prayers to your effort, you are guaranteed of a perfect mix.

Though I am not a man and I have heard of men who say they truly love their wives and still cheat on them (still thinking on that though), but most issues of infidelity in cases like this happen due to peer pressure and the association of friends these husbands keep. They go overboard just to level up with their male friends and fit in to expectations among their friends. But when peer pressure is removed these men act right. In as much as you cannot determine the friends your husband keep, you can at least commit that aspect of his life to God and let God do in the life of your husband what you cannot do in his life (this also I have found to be very effective). If you can trust God with your ability to wake up everyday then you can as well trust Him with your marriage and the friends your husband keep. 

But when you remove external influence from a marriage situation, another reason a man can cheat on his wife is when he loses his love for her or probably is not getting the desired satisfaction from being married to her and there is another woman doing a better job for him than his wife. This is where the wife needs to up her game. Rather than throw blames and call her husband names and fight him thereby worsening the already bad situation why not find out how you can make him love you/more.

In doing this you don’t just do things based on assumption, don’t even attempt to think you know what to do or how to do it, because you will be surprised that the least thing that could come to your mind would be what tickles your husband’s fancy. You need God to teach you what to do to draw your husband’s attention and love. What turns Mr. A on in marriage might be very irrelevant to Mr. B. So what to do to draw your husband’s love and attention cannot be generalized and that is why we need God to show us what is peculiar to each husband’s likes that makes him want to love is wife. When you keep trying things out and you are not hitting the nail on the head, there is the tendency that you get frustrated and give up. So don't waste effort, rather pray that God will direct your effort and lead you to the secret that will dig out your husband's love for you and begin to act on it. 
Some men love stay home wives, some want their wives domesticated, some love their wives to have a career and some men love their wives fat, while some love them slim, so the likes wildly varies. But know for sure that money can’t buy love so don’t think spending your life’s savings on your husband will get the job done.

I once shared the story of a man who cheated on his wife just because she was always too busy when he felted like talking to her and needing someone to talk to. Each time he is burdened and wants to just pour his heart out to someone, his wife is never there. In as much as it appears as a trivial excuse to a lot of women and even some men, that was a big issue for this man and it should be looked into by his wife if she wants her husband to be faithful to her. And this is why I say again that in knowing what to do to keep fidelity and trust intact in your marriage and secure the love of your husband you need the leading of God. A woman who will be successful in every area of her life is a woman who has and is maintaining a strong relationship with God. No self-help can do the job right for you.  

But generally speaking, from what I read in the Bible, a wife is required by God to submit to her husband and from my personal life in following this instruction, I realized that submitting to my husband has helped build my marriage is no small measure. But understand that submitting alone might make you appear weak as we have seen in one of the posts I shared some time ago of a husband who felt his wife was too timid and does just what he says like a zombie. So when you submit to your husband, please do so prayerfully. 
Then let God be your focus of submission, submit to your husband as unto God. If God is not your focus of submission in marriage, I tell you one truth that submission can be a huge burden most especially when it appears initially that your husband isn’t reciprocating with love. And on your own you cannot please your husband no matter how hard you try. Humans are irrational beings, what he likes today mighty not be what he will like tomorrow. With time you will wear yourself out trying to please him. But when you let God be the focus of your submission and you are submitting to your husband to please God, know for sure that you cannot please God without your husband getting pleased. God created your husband, so causing him to love you is no issue for God to handle. And never shy away from the fact that you will be pushed to talk back sometimes, but never let that be all the time. Tame your emotions and keep a rein on your anger.

In marriage, you need to show some level of intelligence. Abigail in the book of 1 Samuel 25 was the intelligent of the two couples. When you act as if you lack any sense of direction outside of your husband, then you appear weak and unappealing. You are suppose to be your husband's suitable helper, you cannot fulfill that on an empty brain. Always ensure that you feed your brain and let your husband know that you are not an empty brain. Make intelligent suggestions to him, render intelligent help to him, wow your husband with the things that you know. In marriage your intelligent contribution is highly required. Your husband needs your intelligent help to be all that God has called him to be. You two should be able to have some intelligent discussions that would make you earn your husband’s respect. So make the most of every opportunity to show your husband how intelligent and a problem solver you can be. But never force your opinion on him, never insist on your way. If you show him what you know and he rejects it please don't argue, drop the issue and let God take up the matter from there. Resolve the rest on your knees in prayer. 

I am sure some would expect that I mention sex as one of the ways of keeping a man from cheating on his wife, well I will say that even though lack of sex in marriage can drive either of the couples into infidelity, excellent sex life in marriage does not guarantee faithfulness either. But that is not to say that excellent sex is not essential in marriage. Sex in marriage should not be overlooked, it is important and it should be given adequate priority.

Then other issues like being domesticated have also been forms of excuses for men to cheat on their wives but just like the case of sex, being a super cook or house manager does not translate to the husband or wife being faithful to each other, but this is also an essentials in marriage that cannot be swept under the carpet of irrelevance. It is important that a wife is able to manage her home well.

And lastly, lack of communication in marriage; this is another marriage killer that should not be allowed in any marriage. Husbands and wives do not have any business keeping malice with each other. And just like the two points above, even though perfect communication is not a guarantee of faithfulness in marriage, lack of it also destroys marriage and it does so fast. Never allow any bridge of communication in your marriage. Unity in your marriage is a must and so you need to do all that you can to keep it sacred.

So with this, I hope we are well informed on what to do in keeping our husbands faithful to us. 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.