Blueprint for a Successful Marriage

 

I will be shaking some tables in today’s blog. I do not intend to be judgmental, but I hope what I discuss in today’s blog will help someone. I have spent the last couple of minutes going through YouTube reels on my phone just as a form of resting, and the volume of marriage talks, workshops, and sermons I saw is quite interesting. One would think that blissful marriages would trend with so much being said about marriages. But honestly, that is not the case. So, we will discuss one of my perceived reasons why we still struggle in marriages.

I have observed that many marriages are now being modeled around the environment in which the couples reside, more than the Bible standard. In the regions and places where women are more privileged and favored, marriages are dominated and controlled by women. It is more like saying the woman becomes the head of the home. What they say is law. And in regions and places where the men are more privileged and favored, the men are the lord and master. The women there have no voice. They are subjected to the code of forced submission, and how they feel does not matter. If, by chance, the couple finds themselves changing regions, the call for vengeance is almost inevitable as the one favored by the new environment is quick to want to take back a pound of flesh.

One truth to bear in mind as you enter into marriage is that God, who instituted marriage, established the institution with standards and rules that are not subject to your environment or culture. I would always say that the biggest enemy of marriage is TRADITION. Any tradition or norm that runs contrary to Bible standards is a big enemy of your marriage, and you will do yourself a lot of good by throwing such tradition out of your life.

For any marriage to succeed, and when I say succeed, I don’t mean being miserable in your marriage and telling yourself you must stay there either out of shame, to avoid stigma, for your children, or whatever reason you give to throw your peace away; I mean enjoying and genuinely having a proper good marriage, you need to do it God’s way. You can only get a good marriage devoid of pretense or hidden hatred by following God’s blueprint for marriage.  

This blueprint is just as simple: husband, love your wife as Christ loves the church; love your wife as yourself (Ephesians 3:25-29, Colossians 3:19). This love does not change no matter the environment or region you find yourself in. It does not change even when your wife changes. It is a love modeled in the pattern in which Christ loves the church. The love is unconditionally giving. It is not restricted to you financially providing for your wife; it is not an economy-based love. It does not blame, it does not revenge; in fact, it is not punitive. It is a love that keeps loving. I pray that God will enable the husbands to know this is a huge issue. Marriage is not transactional. It is not a 50-50 relationship. It is a 100% forever business. We read in 1 Peter 3:7 and Malachi 2:13-15 the consequences of default.

However, the first spouse to receive an instruction from God when it comes to marriage is the wife (Ephesians 3:22-24, Colossians 3:18). The instruction says to submit to your husband as unto the Lord. So, the model for the wife is that just as she would submit to God, she is supposed to give the same level of submission to her husband. The submission spoken about in Ephesians and Colossians is not forced or demanded by the husband; it is God asking the wife to willingly yield herself to her husband's authority just as she will willingly yield herself to the authority of God. The submission is not conditional; otherwise, the Bible would have stated so. Although, as a woman myself, I understand this can be tough. Based on my experience, I can confidently say that submission can sometimes be demanding. Still, it is the one powerful tool a wife has at her disposal that, if well used, can take her very far in building a successful marriage.

These marriage rules are not territorial; they are not culturally based. They don’t change even when your environment changes, and nothing guarantees a beautiful marriage as much as when the married couple builds their marriage on these two foundational blueprints from the throne and God. When a man loves his wife in the model by which God asked him to, and the wife submits to her husband in the model given by God, no environment can influence this union. The bedrock of any successful marriage is God; you cannot claim to have God in your marriage if you do not obey His rules for marriage. 

Are You Ready for your Package

I will glean from a story in Luke 1, and today’s blog will be based on that. This story has greatly encouraged me, and I hope you will be encouraged by it, too. Zacharias and Elizabeth are a couple that the Bible calls righteous (Luke 1:6). However, their righteousness did not shield them from life's challenges; Elizabeth was well advanced in years, yet she had no child—she was barren. Then, we move on to verse 13, when the angel named Gabriel visited Zacharias and declared that “his prayer is heard.” From what I have read, I don’t know how long Zacharias has been praying, but if he and his wife had advanced in age, then it would mean they had been praying for a long time. But the lesson I have picked here is that despite the length of waiting for Zacharias and his wife, they never gave up their righteous walk with God. The comforting outcome of their righteous waiting was a great son before God who will be going before God in the spirit and power of Elijah, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children (Luke 1:17). It was indeed a well deserving answer to their righteous waiting.

One more big lesson for me in this story is in Luke 1:36, when the same angel named Gabriel visited Mary to inform her of her good news. He said, “Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.” What this tells me is that Elizabeth had a stigma of barrenness to her person. Everyone who knew Elizabeth knew her to be that childless woman. It wasn’t a good identity. Some would have mocked her, spoken ill about her, and it would have appeared as though God was silent. But when it was time to send a great prophet to earth—the forerunner of Jesus Christ, righteous Elizabeth’s womb was perfectly ready and available to carry the seed.

I don’t know what kind of stigma your challenges have placed on your person, but nobody dares define you in a way that God has not because only God has the final say. It might not look or feel like it, but if you do not lose focus on God, the perfect time for that miracle is on its way. When the answer to Zacharias' miracle came, it was unbelievable for him. The kind of miracle that matches the definition of “too good to be true.” It was such a dumbfounding miracle that when people around Elizabeth heard of her childbirth, they rejoiced with her. Remember, these same neighbors had known and defined her as barren.

Isaiah 49:14-15 speaks of a profound truth. When you, like Zion, say the Lord has forsaken and forgotten you, the Lord responds with an affirmation, and He says: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely, they may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palm of My hands; your walls are continually before Me,” These words are a direct declaration from God, not spoken by Derin or your pastor.

When you feel overwhelmed, as we all do every now and then, understand one truth: Your situation does not define you, and your challenges are only for a moment. Your prayers are not in vain. Don’t lose focus on God, and don’t neglect your righteousness because when God is ready to dispatch your package, you must be ready to receive it. Elizabeth and Zacharias received their package, and it wasn’t small. Yours is coming too, and it won’t be small. 

Something to know about waiting

The Bible is filled with profound truths relatable to our world today. That is why the Bible is rightly referred to as a living manual for a successful life on earth. This manual doesn’t promise or depict a life without challenges but contains a cheat sheet for overcoming life’s hurdles and living a victorious life.

In today’s blog, let’s glean the life of one prominent man in the Bible named Joseph. His story can be found in the book of Genesis from chapter 37 to the end of Genesis. In Genesis 37 Joseph had a dream of a great future for himself. He dreamed that those older than him would eventually bow to him. Now the interesting thing that we always hold onto from this part of Joseph’s story is to keep our dreams to ourselves to avoid them being truncated even before they materialize.

While I agree with this line of thought I would like to make some additions to it. Having a dream is the beginning of a journey, running with the dream is the big assignment that follows. Many people have had dreams like Joseph's, they have kept these dreams to themselves to avoid them being truncated or polluted, yet these dreams never materialize. And then, I wonder—God who is all-knowing and sees all things even before they happen, knowing beforehand that Joseph would tell the dream prematurely, still chose to reveal to Joseph what would happen to him ahead. God, knowing Joseph would not keep the secret, and also knowing the hearts of his brothers were envious, and what would happen to Joseph if he told the secret, still showed Joseph his future.

The big problem wasn’t what anyone could or would do to truncate Joseph’s dream but what Joseph himself would do to materialize or truncate the dream. The question wasn’t about what others would do but what Joseph himself would or would not do. So, the major focus was “how determined was Joseph in ensuring that what he had dreamed, was his experience in reality.”

God is not a partial God; He doesn’t bless one and abandon the other. The door of opportunity opens to all of us at one time or another and if we dare to dream and run with it with the help of God, we will succeed. Joseph was sold as a slave, and he was imprisoned, about 20 years of wait was what he endured but that dream never left him. His circumstances, situation, and challenges were not big enough to kill the dream he had dreamed. His situation didn't look like his dream, but his dream prevailed over his situation.

Another interesting thing I noticed was that all through Joseph’s ordeal; from his father’s care to being a slave, a convict who was falsely imprisoned, what the Bible tells us is that God was with Joseph. In his pain and suffering, God was with him and he was a successful man (Genesis 39: 2-3). He was a successful slave and a successful prisoner. I am sure you will wonder why it happened that way. God would have taken him through an easier route to success. Joseph didn’t have to be a slave, and then a prisoner to become a prime minister. If your thoughts are in this direction, they are valid. However, God knew the enormity of His planned greatness for Joseph and He also knew He needed to train him first to be mature enough to handle the capacity of what God was doing in his life. The issue was not about Joseph telling the secret. It was about God putting Joseph through a divine preparation course for the magnitude of the greatness coming.

In God's training hands Joseph learned loyalty, hard work, trustworthiness, overcoming temptation, and learned to focus. He also learned leadership. In Genesis 39:23, Joseph was already an authority over all the prisoners. By the time he was heading to the palace to take on the elevated position, he was ready for the opportunity.

Quite a handful of people have dreams like that of Joseph that don’t look like they will ever come to pass. Days are counting into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years, and still, it doesn’t seem as if this dream will ever be real. The big takeaway from this story of Joseph is: “What is God teaching me in the process?” God will not entrust big stuff into small minds. If it has to be you, then you need to be trained. No matter how many people you tell your dreams to when you are ready for the breakthrough, it will not delay. But if being able to hold your mouth and keep secrets is the lesson God desires for you to learn,  you will have to learn it before you show yourself ready for the big break.

So, I finish with this: delay they say is not denial. Your waiting time is not a wasted time, rather, it is a prepping time. It is God teaching you and revalidating the values of greatness in you before your portion of greatness comes. It is a time of learning and so embrace it with grace.

 

 

How Do You Pray?

I have often written about prayer in my blog. For me, it’s one singular action you can never get wrong because things happen when we pray. In my post of the 6^th of November, you will find a discussion about God saying in Exodus 3:7-9 that He had heard the cry of His children (Israel) and had come down to save them. The cries go up to heaven if we dare to cry to God in prayer. As a matter of fact, we find in Revelations 8:4 that the smoke of the incense, together with our prayers, goes up to God. So, the efficacy of prayer cannot be overemphasized.

I strongly believe in the power of communal prayers. Jesus said, “When two or more gather in His name, there He will be in their midst.” So, when we come together to pray with oneness of heart, it becomes a powerful force. Solomon said, “One will chase a thousand, but two can put tens of thousands to flight.” There is power in praying together.

However, an exchange happens when you spend quiet time alone with your Maker. The kind of prayer I love the most is the dialogue prayer, where I get to speak to God and take the lead from Him, and I pour my heart out to God as though I can literally see him and feel the warmth of His comfort. This, for me, is a kind of Jeremiah 33:3. Going to God in this prayer pattern is not just about going to talk; it is more about going to receive.

Interestingly, God spoke to us through an intermediary in the days of Moses, Aaron, Samuel, Nathan, and all other prophets of old. But by the perfect finished work of Jesus, God speaks to us not with a mouthpiece but directly, and if you have trained your ears to listen to His voice and adhere to His instructions, then you can't go wrong.

You will wonder where Derin is going with this prayer talk in today’s blog. It’s all about offering a word in season. Many of us take a good time to join prayer meetings, which is a good habit as God is still in the business of doing miracles. But some breakthroughs and miracles come from a place where God tells you or leads you to do something; this comes as a specific instruction to you for a specific situation in your life. Now, this is not as a group instruction but as a Father to His child. You will miss the opportunity or struggle if you have not trained yourself to listen to His voice.

When you have not developed the habit of cultivating the presence of God and dialoguing with Him in prayer rather than just talking without receiving, you leave your life to chance and the possibility of frustration. We remember the story of Peter and the catch of fish in Luke 5; in verses 4-5, when Jesus told Peter to launch into the deep for a catch, he replied by saying He had toiled all night and caught nothing but at the word of Jesus, he will let down his net. Now, consider you as Peter, struggling to put it all together without learning to hear the voice of God on which direction you should go. I am sure you probably would conclude that God is a lie because you have prayed so hard and worked so hard with nothing to show for it. But what you are missing is your ability to hear His voice and discern His leading. He would have been creating opportunities and leading you in advance, but you simply have not been yielding because you don't recognize His voice. Just fix that little problem, and everything else falls into place.

Sometime in 2022, I landed a six-figure job without applying or using any connection or referral, simply by being able to discern the voice of God and doing what the voice told me to do. Before this exciting morning, I had been taking some online courses. I finished one of the modules and just heard a voice within me to update my resume on LinkedIn. The voice was clear, and it was like a pressure on me. Like a robot, I opened my laptop and updated my LinkedIn profile. I had totally forgotten about it until about six weeks later when I got a message on LinkedIn asking if I was available to take on a role in the field where I had completed the online courses. Initially, I thought it was a scam; I had told myself I would not leave my house in the name of any job interview. And just to know it was God doing His thing, I did my interview online on a Zoom call. My offer letter was sent to my email box, and I worked from home for the 3 months of being on that job. The contract ended 2 days after I left my home country.

Just imagine what I would have missed if I had not learned to pay attention to the voice of God. God speaks, and we should learn to listen to His voice. But be mindful and careful not to mix the voice of God with your desires and personal objectives. Be sure that you have heard from God and not your inner longings. Be objective enough to differentiate between what you want and what God tells you to do. When God speaks, He backs it up with evidence. You will always have your receipt to show for it. 

Harnessing your wins for more wins and more victories

One of the many exciting stories in the Bible is the story of David and Goliath, which is found in the book of 1 Samuel 17. This story is very familiar, and I am convinced that it is not a story that will be strange to you as you read this blog. However, the lesson in it for me, which I believe should be of interest to you, is the basis of David’s confidence. I dare to say that the army of Israel on the battleground at the time of the confrontation knew God somehow, but they didn’t know God in the way David knew Him. This is because David knew how to harness his wins.

What do I mean when I say David knew how to harness his wins?  David never let a win slip by; he would hold his win dear to him, which became his basis for trusting God to win another time. In 1 Samuel 17:36, David said, He has killed a lion and a bear. So, let’s analyze this situation. At some point, David had killed a lion (I am not sure which one he killed first; we assume a lion); that win gave him the confidence to take on the bear, and he won. The second win, in turn, gave him a basis to take on Goliath, and he won. And there were many more great wins for David in his lifetime.

So, what have you done with your little wins? Have you assumed that your little achievements have been by your ability or intellect or the grace of God that puts you at an advantage, which you should be grateful for? Have you learned to create a portfolio of wins you reference – like David – when facing challenges? As simple as your ability to wake up in the morning is a win that should be archived in the portfolio of your wins and form a basis for you to trust God for something a little bigger than that.

I will use my experience to illustrate what I mean when discussing harnessing your wins. My family had the rare opportunity to move to a new location sometime back. This opportunity came with its fair share of scares. It was going to be us starting life all over again, and because we were not doing too badly where we were moving from, it would be a hard call to make. We didn't want to lose the opportunity and were still scared of the uncertainty ahead. It was a time of sleepless nights for my husband and I. But guess what? It was my portfolio of wins that pulled me through that season. I always remembered the many challenges that God had overcome for us, which was one of my faith's strong bases. I was confident that if God had done so much for us, He will do much more. What was fear for us became a song of rejoicing at the end of it all. 

Psalm 37:4 teaches us to delight ourselves in the Lord, and He will grant us the desires of our hearts. To delight yourself in God, you first need to recognize His grace and goodness in your life. In other words, you will need to reflect on your portfolio of little wins and understand that your strength, talent, and ability didn’t get you thus far, but the grace of God. This deep thought puts you in a mood of gratitude; gratitude to God brings about a delight in Him, and then David said as you delight in Him, He continues to grant you your heart’s desires. A place of gratitude is a place of increase.

A person who seeks to have the floodgates of heaven opened over his life and situation needs to develop an attitude of gratitude, which begins with harnessing his wins. Never forget or take for granted the goodness of God in your life. Your little wins may look like nothing, but I beg you to use a magnifying glass to look at it to give you a reason to thank God for it and trust Him for bigger things. The more you praise God, the more you have reasons to praise God. Find a reason to thank God today, no matter how insignificant that may be. It is still a seed of gratitude that, when sown, will produce a harvest of more wins and more reasons to be grateful. A life of victory starts with gratitude.

 

Knowing the Secret of Staying Strong

 

It is common knowledge that life is a big challenge now. The world's economy is not smiling, and many people are forced to make lifestyle changes. One important thing to also see in this situation is that it is driving a wedge in many homes, and marriages are breaking left, right, and center.

As a couple, if you are not very watchful and prayerful, it is just a matter of time before you fall under the burden of the wave of hardship the world is experiencing. So, I say a big well done to the millions of marriages still standing despite it all. May the Lord continue to uphold your marriage and pour fresh oil of love on your union. 

But guess what? At this point, some marriages are getting more robust, and the love is building like these couples are newlyweds. How come when quite a handful of marriages are crumbling, and some are struggling, these ones are thriving? What are they doing differently? Do they not feel this economic crunch?

I will share some of what I know in today's blog post. The first piece of information to share is prayer. And the first response to that is, "We all pray, so why is it different?" Well, what kind of a prayer person are you? Are you a grumbling prayer person or a thankful prayer person?

I noticed that whenever my daughter wants something from my husband, they will first have to play and joke, and she gets her father in a playful and gentle mood and then chips in her demand along the way. Often, the first response is always a no. But guess what? She gets what she asks for.

In the same way, if we want a fast and sure answer, we will do what Paul teaches us in Philippians 4:6-7, "with prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving, we should make our request known to God." Hold fast to that keyword thanksgiving because God dwells in the praises of His children.

The second piece of information I want to share is the need to make every effort to keep the bond tight. The power of agreement can never be over-emphasized, and that agreement will not come cheap; it comes with the cost of compromise. One party must learn to trust the other party's judgment into God's hands. Often, this is done by the wives. The wife aligns with her husband in agreement. She commits her husband's decisions to God's hand, who alone can turn an unbelievably lousy situation around for good.

 A virtuous wife is not the fool who gives up herself all the time for her spouse and family; she is the one who stoops to conquer. Arguing and fighting are what we are avoiding here. Conflict is what we are running away from. Sometimes, those decisions are terribly wrong, and our husbands are unbelievably adamant. So, your view as a wife may contradict your husband's decisions or conclusions or the direction in which he leads the family. Still, rather than becoming assertive, we pray. We must keep the bond strong, maintain agreement, and stoop to conquer. The only way to get through him or lessen the impact of his decision-making is by praying. And before I jump to the next paragraph, I want to highlight that it runs both ways. Some wives are a hard nut to crack. 😉

There is power in agreement; even God said it in Genesis 11:6, so wanting to be right continually erodes the power of agreement in your marriage and makes your union vulnerable to the attack of impossibility. In Matthew 18:19, "Jesus said if two agree on earth concerning anything they ask, it will be done for them by Our Father in heaven." So, we should ask in agreement, and we should ask thankfully and in faith. You know that faith is the currency of heaven. 

God will not come to do the agreement aspect for us; that is for us to do. Will we always agree? The true answer is NO. However, the work is for one party to align their will with the will of the other party, and then an agreement is achieved. Doing this over time makes it less complicated.

But see what God said in Genesis 2:8: "It is not good for man to be alone, so He makes a helper for him as his wife." The two will not be strong in the same area of life, with the same strength, and even at the same time. The idea is where and when one is weak, the other is strong. That is the design from the Creator. So, acknowledging your weakness and the strength of your spouse and allowing them to be strong when you are weak is the birth of agreement that brings power.

So, we see why some marriages wax strong in the world's meltdown, and others are melting with the meltdown. I pray for wisdom today and the grace of God to stand strong and firm when everything else is falling apart. Not just for my marriage but for yours, too, in Jesus' name. 

Winning is Inevitable

 

In my newly launched website, the first paragraph promises that the website will provide adequate encouragement and some inspiring words to boost hope. That is just what I hope to do in today’s blog.

We all have our ups and high joyful and happy moments, and because life's journey is characterized by its ups and downs, we also get to have our down times.  These downtimes come with varying degrees of intensity. Sometimes, they genuinely feel like the "valley of shadow of death" that David spoke about in Psalm 23:4. I have experienced this enough times in my life to know just what it feels like to be desperately in need of help, someone to talk to, or at least for that phase or situation to just go away.

Some of us have faith enough to pray and wait on God, but fear and doubt begin to set in when the wait seems endless. Sometimes, we second-guess ourselves, sometimes, we blame God, and sometimes, we blame ourselves and even allow others to guilt trip us. But in all these, the Lord still sits on His throne in heaven watching.

I was reading the book of Exodus some days ago and found something profound in Exodus 3:7-9. I will summarise it like this: God tells Moses that He had heard the cry of His people in Egypt and had come down to deliver them. At the time God came down for the deliverance of Israel, they didn’t even know it; they didn’t see it coming, nor did they understand it. As a matter of fact, if we continue reading, they grumbled and quarreled with Moses, saying that he brought more trouble to them. But in truth, what they called trouble was God working behind the scenes for them. He didn’t want to just bring them out of Egypt; He wanted them to be rewarded abundantly for all their labor in Egypt. He would make Eygpt so vulnerable that Israel could take valuables from them effortlessly and leave with abundant treasure in gold, silver, money, and clothing. They could not have left empty-handed just like that. So, more than Israel gaining their freedom, God would ensure they got duly paid for all the years of their labor in Egypt.

Israel didn’t see this; they only saw increased pain and added burden, and they grumbled, doubted God, and insulted His vessel – Moses. And this story feels so like us right now. The pain, the suffering, and the challenges all add up to give us reasons to fear and doubt. But I find hope in Romans 8:18, in which Paul says, “He considers that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us.”  This was the situation of the children of Israel when they were in Egypt. They probably would have rejoiced instead of grumbling if they knew what was coming.

Some of our challenges may not bring the desired outcome in the short term. But in the long term, there is glory that awaits. I say this because I have been there before. Consider this illustration: You probably had been praying that your landlord would not send you packing. You trusted God and got people to wait on God with you; you prayed and exercised deep faith, but guess what? The landlord ended up sending you packing. It was a painful experience. You felt God failed on this one. He didn’t show up when you needed Him. He watched and did nothing when the landlord threatened and eventually evicted you. It was a gruesome experience that almost shattered your faith and trust in God. Then, 12 months down the line, 12 months of uncertainty, 12 months of shame and reproach, 12 months of having faith when there is nothing tangible to tie the faith to, 12 months down the line, you find yourself comfortable in your own home. Your property, where you never have to fear the horrors of a landlord – the pain, the horrors, the reproach, all gone. Something in you now thanks God that the landlord evicted you because you probably would not be in this better place if he didn't. This is why Paul would say that our sufferings of the present time are not worthy compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us.

One assurance I have always had, which has never failed, is that God will always come through. He may not come through at my timing or in my presumed pattern, but He comes big when He wants to come and does so at the perfect time. After experiencing this repeatedly, I have understood one time: He surely comes through. My only prayer is: “What will you have me do while I wait.” The waiting time is the toughest of them all. Numerous temptations exist, and the battle is fierce during the waiting period. But if you have a grateful heart, never forgetting your past wins, you will resolve within yourself that if God won the war for you before, He would win the battle now, so you hinge your faith on that and trust Him.

I hope you have been encouraged today. In another two days, you can pop in again. There will be some encouragement waiting for you.