It's Different with Humans

Hello great and beautiful people, I trust we are all fine. May the joy of the Lord be our strength always in Jesus name.

Like I promised in my last post, we will continue with lessons from that Bible scripture where God originated the marriage institution. I have learned a lot from it and I am sure it will bless you greatly too if God gives you a divine revelation of this scripture.  

Genesis 2:18-25

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’ for she was taken out of man.”

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.  

In the record in Genesis 1 where God created all the living creatures; the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and the beast of the ground, He created them in twos, male and female God created them all. And so, we can appreciate why a male dog can mate with any female dog that comes its way. There is no marriage in the animal kingdom, God didn’t make it so at the beginning.

But when it came to the human species it was different. God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep and took a piece of bone from the man with which He made a woman. And so, the man is not like animals that can pick any woman on the street to reproduce with. And this is one of the reasons why God hates divorce. Marriage is not about pick and drop, only animals are created to do that. For every man God created, there is a woman God has also made for him with the bone He took out of that particular man. And so, there is a woman for every man no matter how we look at it and there is no imbalance with the agenda of God no matter how we try to look at the statistics. And your wife is the only one that fits, no matter what your marriage looks like at the moment and no matter your perception of the situation you find yourself in. 

A married man and a man intending to marry should understand and appreciate that your wife is not a separate entity from you. She was taken out of you, she is a piece of you in another body form and when you see her, it is important that you see yourself in her. This revelation goes in line with God’s instruction for the husbands which says, “A man should love his wife as Christ Loves the Church,” and then says "he who loves his wife loves himself." When God gave this instruction through Paul in Ephesians 5:25-31 and Colossians 3:19, it was because God who made the man and the woman, knew that He made the woman out of the man and so it is important that a man should care for his wife as himself because truly and surely, she is a fraction of the man in another body form.

The animals have male and female that are totally different entities and independent of each other. But with humans, it is not so. What God does in marriage is to bring the woman He created to the man He created her from and unite the two as one. A lot of times we assume we made a mistake in marriage just because the union isn’t going the way we expected. But if only we can return to the source and seek help from God on how to run the union to succeed. What is missing in the husband is what the wife is carrying in her. The deep revelation of this truth gives marriage a whole new meaning and your approach to marriage after this divine understanding should change. The purpose of the marriage union is to build each other up to perfection.  This requires great understanding and wisdom.

The flawed perception we have had about marriage is that we are in the marriage to receive from whoever we are married to, but in as much as this is correct, we are in that marriage union to give more than to receive. What we invest in our marriage is what we will harvest from it. And the quality and quantity of our seed greatly determine the quality and quantity of our harvest.

A lot of women give so much love into their marriage to the point that it begins to become a problem. There is nothing wrong with a wife loving her husband, but have you thought of the fact that you might be sowing the wrong seed in your marriage? The seed that God requires that a woman sows into her marriage is the seed of submission, and submission means obedience. The love you have for your husband is supposed to drive you to sow the right seed in your marriage which is the seed of submission and prayers. Love from a wife to her husband that does not translate into submission and prayers for the success of your marriage might not yield the right harvest. When sowing your seed of submission then you need to water that seed with prayers. Your fertilizer to the labor is divine wisdom. All these put together will secure for you a beautiful marriage.

But for the man what will guarantee for you the beautiful marriage that you desire is nothing else but unconditional love and prayers. The seed that secures good harvest is the seed of unconditional, deep and intentional love. That which makes you put your wife above yourself in all that you do. Then you water that seed with prayer and cover it up with wisdom. With these done, you can't harvest anything less than peace, joy, faithfulness, loyalty, and love from your wife and marriage.

I once spoke to a man whose wife says he was always beating her. When I asked the man why he would even think of hitting his wife, he began a long story of how his wife had been unfaithful to him and the marriage, to the point that he followed her out one day in disguise and found her on the lap of another man. He then unveiled himself to her and the man she was with and the wife ran. After that incident, he had assumed she would stop being promiscuous and stop sleeping around randomly, but that was a tall dream. He complained that they will be home together sometimes and discussing as normal couples should be doing and the wife would just excuse herself and will not return home till way past midnight with no explanation of where she had been to. Sometimes she would go out as though she would be back in a couple of hours but would not return until days later. He said he used to beat her thinking she would change from her dirty habits.

I told him that his intentions might be good, but his approach was totally wrong. Rather than for the beatings to correct his wife, it will drive her farther away from him. You don’t discipline an adult in the way and manner you discipline a child. Husbands do wrong too, and we wives don’t even have the strength or power to flog sense into their brains and so husbands should not think that beating their wives will bring about the changes they desire in them.

I told this man who had as a matter of fact given up on his wife and walked out of the marriage that love and loads of love were the only remedies to that problem his wife has. The love he has for her should then move him to pray for her. He should keep disturbing God on behalf of his wife till God remembers his tears and bring about the change in the life of his wife that he desires. There is no curse known to man that the Blood of Jesus is not potent enough to kill and destroy. And so, he should start to put to use the power in the Name and Blood of Jesus till he sees the change he seeks and desires in his wife.

To say that your marriage is a mistake is to say that God makes mistakes. But the Bible says let every man be a liar and let God be true. God never makes mistakes, you are the mistake in that marriage. When you change your perception and you use a different approach, you will get better results. Just seek the leading of the Holy Spirit, read the word of God and follow what it says, and you will succeed. Marriages are succeeding, let yours be one of them. 

The Game Changing Wife

It’s another beautiful day and a time to share something about marriage. This is one day that I totally feel blank on what to share, so I will just let God take over and I will just be His pencil. I pray that someone where is touched by today’s message for the better to the glory of God.

Genesis 2:18-25

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’ for she was taken out of man.”

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.  

There are so many important things to learn, understand and appreciate about the marriage union in this Bible scripture and I pray the Lord will open our understanding to see them all. The first thing that struck me in this Bible passage is that of all that God created, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea and the beasts of the field, none was found to be a suitable helper to Adam. Now we need to know and understand that marriage is not all about reproduction. God who never lacks ideas will come up with ways of replenishing the earth without the copulation of the man and woman if it was necessary to reproduce mankind outside of marriage. So, the first thing that came to the mind of God as a reason for the creation of a woman was not for reproduction but for her to be a suitable helper in the life of her husband.

If reproduction was the number one reason why God would create a woman, then He would have created her alongside Adam from the very start. So, your main purpose as a wife in the life of your husband isn’t to bear children but to be a suitable helper in his life in fulfilling all that God has called him to be.

I remember a true-life story that I was confronted with several years ago. A friend of mine who knew I was passionate about marriage issues tested me with this story.

A young Christian lady got married to a young Christian man and just after they got married, the wife discovered her husband was gay, and in two years of their marriage, not once had they made love with each other. I should not forget to add that the young lady prayed heard and was convinced she heard from God before marrying her husband.

The young lady who told me this story wanted to know my take on the matter. Her argument was that sometimes God was unfair when it comes to marriage issues. For a split second, I was confused, but I prayed in my spirit as I paused to find a response for my friend. Then the Lord dropped this scripture in my spirit and gave me a response. He said I have made her a suitable helper in the life of her husband. I didn’t give her a specific area of her husband’s life where she should come in to help him, so in every area of her husband’s life where help is needed, she is the suitable helper for him prepared and provided by God beforehand to come in and help.

And so, I told my friend with boldness, when the Lord made the woman, her purpose was to be a suitable helper in the life of her husband. God didn’t highlight for us as wives areas of concentration where we should come in and help our husbands. So to say that in every area of our husbands’ lives were helped is required and needed, God has provided us as a suitable helper to them. We are answered prayers to our husbands from God. So, in the case of this lady, the area where her husband needs help is in that evil habit of homosexuality, and that is her number one assignment in the life of her husband. To help me overcome the challenge of homosexuality and his desire for that evil sin of homosexuality that he was battling with.  

I was so sure that response was not coming from me, it was the first time I was having that revelation too. But I held on to it too dearly. It changed my total perception of marriage. It gave me a sense of duty in the life of my husband. I knew I was in his life for a purpose bigger than I thought I had. My husband had many challenges too, some of which hurt me so bad. But I began to understand that it was not about fighting him but fighting for him. It was not about demanding, but about giving. I then knew that for me to receive what I hoped for in my marriage, I needed to give more.

In those days we had trust issues between us, we had extramarital battles between us, we had the smoking habit that was irritating me to the core, my husband was temperamental (I called him a short-fused man), there was the emotional trauma between us, and I can go on and on. But then rather than condemn him like I had done earlier before that revelation came for me, I began to know that God put me in the life of my husband to be his suitable helper, to help him over the challenges he was struggling with. Those areas of his life that were his vices where the assignment I had to deal with in the life of my husband. So, I began to pray. One vice after another, I sought the Lord until I won. I stopped fighting him to change. I stopped complaining and above all, I stopped allowing those vices to build a wall between my husband and I. But I fought on my knees. I am the suitable helper in the life of my husband and God is my ever-present help in times of trouble.

And to the glory of God alone, I won all my battles over his life. All those things that I had mentioned earlier have vanished from my husband’s life. We no longer have trust issues, no extramarital concerns, abundant love between us, no smoking issues, no excessive alcohol issues, and interestingly no temper issues anymore.

When God spoke through Solomon in Proverbs 18:22 that “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord,” God knew what He was talking about. A wife who understands fully well her assignment in the life of her husband is a great asset from the Lord to the man. No wonder Solomon would say again in Proverbs 19:14 that “Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the Lord”.

So, I want to ask the wife reading this, do you really know why you are in the life of your husband? Do you understand why God made you his wife? Have you been able to highlight the shortfalls in your husband’s life? What are you doing about them? Do you know that you are God’s game-changing agent in the life of your husband? You are God’s favor to him in bodily form. Are you now performing your assignment in his life or you are waiting for him to change without any contribution from you?

To be God’s change agent in the life of your husband has nothing to do with you but everything to do with God. But you are there to be at the altar of prayer always on behalf of your husband. You are there to listen and receive from God before acting on behalf of your husband. You can’t succeed based on your own understanding or intellect, not even based on your ability. In this assignment, you will need to rely fully on God and act based on His leading alone. Then you will be a game changer in your husband’s life. You will be that one person that will bring good tidings to him always such that he will say to you “I am nothing without you.” I hear that all the time from my husband and it gladdens my hearts greatly. It’s like my scorecard that tells me by following God on the issues of my marriage I have done very well. 
Hearing that from my husband isn't about being the breadwinner of the family. What my husband has to his name is still a tall dream for me. So I am not receiving the praise because I dull out money to him. So don't think as a wife that spending your life's income on your husband is what will fetch you the praise and love you seek in your marriage. It's a little more than that. People who see your husband succeed in life will also score you high. It all comes with the package. "Behind every successful man is his wife" my own version. And don't think your husband will succeed alone, it's a total package. There is the exalted place for the president and just as exalted is the seat of the "First Lady." Just as the president is escorted by guards and protocols, so is the "First Lady" is accompanied by the crowd and huge protocol. Your labor in the life of your husband is worth it all.  

You need to hear your husband say to you "I am nothing without you" to understand the beauty of it been said to you. But you also need to work the work that brings the praise.

So, in my next post, we will look at more things to learn from that one scripture that I just shared. 

Your Marriage & Sex

Hello beautiful people, how are we all doing? I am positive that to the glory of God we are doing very great. In our lives and our deeds, may the name of the Lord be praised always in Jesus name.

So, we look at one very important aspect of marriage in today’s blog post, and that very important aspect of marriage is sex. I have written about sex in marriage several times on this blog, but sincerely its one of the issues I discovered is causing breakups in marriages and so we need to keep looking at it over and over again until we kill its negative effect in our marital lives.

It is quite interesting to find out that the issue of sex in marriage has a reference in the Bible, and so we will look at what God says about it.

1 Corinthians 7:1-5

Now for matters you wrote about: It is good for the man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Proverbs 5:15-20

Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well.

Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in public squares?

Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.

May your fountains be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.

A loving doe, a graceful deer – may her breast satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.

Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man’s wife?

It is quite interesting the deep things that can be found in the word of God, and I can tell you for free that these Bible passages above have helped save my marriage in no small measure. One truth that we should always know is that sex in marriage is very vital. It’s a catalyst that helps enhance the bonding of the man and his wife. It is very good if it is used within the confines of marriage that it is meant for.

As a married woman, I will say that sex in marriage has the capacity to break the unhealthy barriers of lack of communication, it helps bring about the closeness between the man and his wife. It relaxes unhealthy tension between married couples, it’s a very good way of settling arguments and quarrels between the man and his wife without having a winner or loser, as a matter of fact, without spoken words. It is the unspoken expression of what a man feels towards his wife and what the wife feels towards her husband. It is a very effective tool in the hands of God to bring about what He has said concerning the man and his wife (Genesis 2:24: “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh”).

Paul says it is a duty in marriage. And I will call a responsibility that the husband owes to the wife and the wife owes to her husband. Sex in marriage should not be an avenue by which a husband punishes his wife or a tool with which a wife punishes her husband. Doing that is against the will, plan and purpose of God for your marriage. Paul says the man and his wife should not deprive one another except for mutual consent and for a time. So if you deprive your spouse of sex and cause him or her to become an adulterer or adulteress, then you have committed a sin as much as the one who has committed the adultery because you have disobeyed the word of God which says “Do not deprive one another.”

But more importantly is how we speak the language of sex in marriage. Some women believe it's demeaning to be the one to initiate sex in marriage so as not to be seen as immoral or loss in values. In my time of reading the Bible, I have not read anything like that. I am yet to come across anywhere in the Bible where it reads that a wife should not seek sex from her own husband. Paul said, a wife’s body does not belong to her alone but to her husband and likewise the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. So, you have as much right over your husband’s body as he has over your body. Sexual desire is an inbuilt element that God placed inside of us. It is nature’s call, just like you sneeze, pass urine and pass feces. So there is no sin in expressing your desire for sex as long as it remains within the confines of marriage and expressed towards your God-ordained husband alone. Don't kill that desire for sex because you have been brainwashed to think you will look cheap to your husband if you do so. Express it and let it flow, it’s on an assignment to make your marriage better.

Still, on the language of sex in marriage, it is very true that sex should only be within the confines of marriage, and so it is expected that the man and his wife should be illiterates in this knowledge until after marriage. The way and manner couples handle sex with the first experience tell a lot about how sex is perceived after that first experience. As a woman, I know that the first experience comes with great pain, so it is important for the husband to know and appreciate and handle this experience with great care. The beauty of sex in marriage is that both couples should seek the pleasure of their spouse above themselves and when this is the case both will find fulfillment and pleasure in the act. Never make assumptions above sex in marriage and never use coded language with the thought that your spouse should be able to decode what you are trying to communicate because chances are there that he/she might not decode, and this may lead to frustration. Coded language will only work if you two have explained the terms and learned the codes and how to decode amongst yourself beforehand. The Bible says the husband and the wife were both naked and they felt no shame. So, there is no shame in marriage, and if there is no shame in marriage there should be little or no coded communication between a husband and his wife unless there is an external person present who they do not want to know what they are communicating among themselves.
Then another bothering issue about sex in marriage is some interesting mindset about positioning or should I say sex styles. First I will say that sex is reserved for marriage alone. And secondly, I will say that I have not come across anywhere in the Bible were a prescribed sex style between the married couple is stated. The important thing about sex is not the positioning or style, but the satisfaction and pleasure derived from it and the bonding it facilitates between married couples. 

And just before I close on this, I want to say a little about catalyst of sex in marriage, those things that we should do that can help promote sex in marriage. And the number one of these things is personal hygiene. Unless your spouse lacks the ability to smell, I will say that beautiful smell attracts, and foul smell repels. So, it’s important for the husband and wife to invest well in smelling good. Always make every effort to prevent offensive smell coming from you. Sex in marriage is not restricted to bedtimes only, so at all times, one should be ready. Remember that your body does not belong to you alone but also to your spouse. If you will not take care of your body for you, then take care of it for your spouse. Bad breath and sweaty smelly body should always be taken care of. Invest in mouthwash, sugarless minty chewing gums. Body spray and deodorants are essentials in marriage. The beauty of these is that other than helping boost your marital sex life, it gives you confidence and helps build your self-esteem.

Sex should not be the killer of your marriage, rather it should help build it up. Invest in it and enjoy the dividend that comes with the investment. If you still have issues about the sex life of your marriage, then pray about it and commit it to God. God is willing and able to handle that aspect of your life too, He handled it for me and so I know He can do it for you too.  

Communication In Marriage

Hello people, how are you doing? I believe by the grace of God we are all doing great. On behalf of everyone reading, I thank God for the grace to see another week. It’s not a right to be alive, it’s a privilege that we shouldn’t overlook.

And so, we continue on issues that I had to deal with in the course of my writing break and while having my one-on-one discussion with couples with troubled marriages. And the next prevalent trouble we have in marriages is communication. One of the major killers of marriage is communication; either total lack of communication or partial lack of communication and then interestingly the evil of assumption.

The husband assumes that his wife should know his dos and don’ts without first highlighting them to her and the wife also has her assumed set of qualities that a man should possess and then imposes her own expectations on her husband that he is not even aware of. If for any reason he doesn’t meet these expectations, she becomes gradually resentful.  

In this post, we will look at the effective communication that yields success in marriage and then take on a practical illustration to help us understand better.

For us to be able to communicate effectively in marriage and even in any environment we find ourselves, these three keys need to be constantly put into consideration. And they are: What you say, how you say it, and when to say it.

Often, we believe that we need to express ourselves in marriage and not bottle-up issues, and to this, I will say that those who hold this mindset are not totally wrong but then there is the need to use this approach with wisdom. Expressing yourself in marriage is not wrong if and only if you express yourself at the right time and in the right manner. Proverbs 16:24 says, “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb. Sweetness to the soul and health to the bones,” so if pleasant words can heal the soul and even the bones how much more will it heal the marriage. Whether for the husband or for the wife, it is important that you express yourself in a manner that brings healing to your marriage.

Proverbs 18:2, 6, 7
A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions. 

A fool's lips bring strife, and his mouth invites beatings.

A fool's mouth is his undoing, and his lips are a snare to his soul. 

Proverbs 17:28
Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue. 

Proverbs 21:23
He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity. 

The passages above clearly shows that there is a time to speak and there is a time to be quiet. Even though it's so good to express yourself in your marriage but that expression should not be at all times. They should be selective and well thought over before spilling them out in order to secure the peace and prosperity of your marriage. So it's not just important to know what to say and how to say it, it's also important to know and understand when to say what you want to say. 

It’s important to understand that it is dangerous to act in marriage under the influence of emotions. When you are angry or happy do not act hastily. Pause on your action and think it through properly, taking into consideration the consequences of your action before taking that action.

Another interesting communication flaw in marriage is on the issue of sex between the man and his wife. Several couples find it hard to communicate with each other when it comes to sex between them. The wife thinks it's shameful to express her sexual desires or preference to her husband and thus hold it in and in more than one occasion this has led to extra-marital affairs. And the same goes for the husband, some men are either insensitive to the sexual desires of their wives or find it hard to express their own sexual desires to their wives. They adopt coded languages in the hope that their spouse will decode and understand what they are communicating with signs rather than words and when that does not happen, frustration and extra-marital affairs sets in.

What beats me in some of these cases is that the husband or wife finds the nerve to express their sexual needs to an outsider who is not their spouse but find it hard to express same to the God-ordained husband or wife that they have. Your wife or husband should be the closest person to you, yet he/she is the one you seem farthest away from and that should not be. Genesis 2:26 says, “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

As a wife, you should know your husband more than any other living being, otherwise, you are not fulfilling your purpose in his life. And if you know your husband well enough you should be able to understand when and how to express your wants and desires to him that yields maximum result. Several times, some wives think they are in the lives of their husbands to correct them when they are wrong, unfortunately, it’s not so. Most men see such a wife as controlling and nagging and that results in resistance which is accompanied by fights.

In the same manner, the language of effective communication for a wife is love. Whatever a husband desires from his wife, he is sure to get it through the medium of unconditional love for his wife. Couples need to speak up what they want from their spouses in a manner that they are certain their spouses would understand and when to make the request and how to make the request determines how well they will have their request granted. There should be no shame in marriage and so coded language and assumptions should be reduced to the barest minimum or eliminated entirely.

I have written several times on the issue of sex in marriage, but I am trusting God to help me revisit the issue again. I look forward to sharing with you soon. 

Why Run When You Can Win

It’s another beautiful day, and another beautiful opportunity to share the truth of the word of God with you on marriage. I pray the seed of the word of God sown continually through this blog will germinate and produce fruits in your lives, to the glory of God alone.

During my break, I discovered one interesting vice in marriage, and that vice is that couples are always quick to separate. One too many arguments and both are quick to go their separate ways. Some of the not-well-thought-of assumptions that precede this separation is that the wife who oftentimes is the one who walks out of the marriage does so with the believe that her husband will miss her and come begging, or that her absence will make him have a rethink on the things he is doing wrong, and he can come back to his senses.

Unfortunately, in seven out of every ten cases such as this, what is expected does not happen. The husband who claims he didn’t send his wife packing never goes to beg. His ego wouldn’t let him and though he may be hurting, his pride will override what his wife had anticipated should happen when she left. So, what was meant to repair, eventually destroys completely. Over time, frustration sets in, divorce is filled, and the marriage is dead. Several blame games are played with no winner but all losers.

One of the excuses women give is that they anticipate violence from their husbands. You hear things like, “he slapped me once and before he kills me, I better leave to save my life.” I totally agree that quite a lot of death have occurred from violence in marriage, in fact, the number and reoccurrence of such are quite alarming. But what has caused this is as a result of lack of knowledge and divine wisdom that encourages a healthy and prosperous marriage. God said, “my people perish for lack of knowledge.”

Running away from a troubled marriage does not solve the problem, and if you truly are a child of God you will understand that running away from your marriage is doing what God who is your Father hates. Now, you might want to add that ‘is God not seeing how my husband or wife is treating me.’ Well God sees it all, and He wants to help you get it better if you would let Him. The problem you are having is that you don’t agree with God's way of fixing the situation and so you assume that God is unjust. So, in the long run, the problem is not with God, the problem is with you.

In Malachi 2:16, God says He hates divorce, also did He say He hates violence. In Matthew 19:4-6 Jesus reiterated what God had ordained from the beginning, that the man and his wife are no longer two but one, and what God has joined together, man should not separate. Again in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, God through Paul warned us married couples that a wife should not separate from her husband and if she does, she is only allowed to reconcile with the same husband and not marry someone else. And that I a man should not divorce his wife.

Some may argue that Jesus permitted divorce on the ground of infidelity and to this I accept. But the clause remains that whoever gets a divorce on the grounds of infidelity is to remain unmarried or be reconciled to the same husband or wife they left.

If this is then the case, what happens to those who are under the yoke of terrible marriages, why are they not given the privilege to walk out of such the marriage with their lives intact? Well, its because God knows that their marriages are not the problem and it can actually be better if only they wait on Him, obey Him and follow His instructions in handling that marriage. And so, if your marriage is troubled, seek God, when you seek God listen to Him, He will show you what to do. When He shows you what to do, please do it and you will have a lasting joy in your marriage. This is just as practical as it is written. I am a living witness to what I write. I have counseled so many people to do this and their stories have changed for the better.

There is no such thing as a wrong marriage, neither is there anything like a mistake marriage. If there ever is such, then you are the wrong and the mistake in that marriage. What you sow in your marriage is what you reap from it. Change your seed and see the difference. If God does not make mistakes, and He didn’t go on leave when you were getting married and He says in Malachi 2:14 that He acts as witness between you and the wife of your youth, then your marriage is not a mistake, you only lack the wisdom and understanding of how to make it work.

It is wrong to go into marriage with a stereotype mindset about marriage. What works for couple A in most cases will not work for couple B and so you should not be lazy in discovering what will work for your marriage and run with it to success. Some wives are homely and easily convinced. If your wife is not so, that does not make her bad, it only requires you knowing how to bring the best out of her and applying same. And because your sister’s husband finds it easy to express love to his wife does not mean your husband should be the same, after all, they didn’t have the same foundational upbringing. Even brothers of the same father and mother act differently on the same issue. As a wife or husband, it is your responsibility to know what works for your marriage and run with it. And in knowing what works for your marriage, the simple wisdom is to seek God, listen to Him, obey His instructions for your marriage and succeed.

One important thing to highlight here is this, the Bible says we should test all spirit. In listening to God, you need to be objective and open-minded. First, understand that God will not say to you what does not agree with His word. If the voice you are hearing is saying you should take a step that is not agreeable with what is in the Bible, then that voice is not of God because God and His word are the same. God will never tell anyone to divorce his/her spouse because what the Bible tells us is that God hates divorce. Jesus let us know in Matthew 19:8 that Moses permitted divorce because the hearts of men were hard but that it was not so at the beginning.

But when you pray that God should heal your marriage and as a wife the voice you hear says you should go and submit to your husband (just like I heard in my own case), then that voice is from God because what you hear agrees with what you read in the Bible. In the same manner, if what you hear from God says to go love your wife unconditionally, then it is the voice of God because it agrees with the word of God that you have read in the Bible. Anything outside of this is not from God, it's just the dictates of your emotions that will not yield for you the desired result.

I pray some valuable lessons have been learned from today’s write-up and I pray that moving forward we will have a better understanding of how to handle difficult situations in our marriages. Challenges in life are there to build us up and make us stronger and your marital challenges are no exception. Those who run for battle cannot understand the joy of victory, only those who fight to win. Understand very clearly that your spouse is not your enemy and quit fighting the wrong battle. Until you hear from me again, remain very blessed.  

What Is The Content of Your Prayer

Hello beautiful people, I trust we are all doing great. Once again, it’s good to be back and I give all glory to God for you and me and all our loved ones.

In my last post, I started a discussion on one of the issues I have found prevalent in my time of discussing with women with troubled marriages. I have had to talk to a handful of men, but the issue of praying has mostly been the women’s approach of handling troubled marriages and even though it is the very best approach which has never proven to fail, it’s not an approach in isolation. With prayer comes a call to action. Prayers are meant to lead one to a set of actions that will propel your marriage to the desired destination.

What I will be sharing in my post today will be a continuation of what I started in my last post and though the last post seemed to focus more on wives, it’s a general concern for married couples. Whether your marriage is in trouble or not, it’s important to constantly be in the place of prayer to hear from God on how to effectively handle your marriage for success. And this is for the husbands as much as it is for the wives.

After knowing the importance of prayer in marriage just like in every other area of our lives, what exactly are the things we present before God in our prayers and what are our expectations from that prayer? I am so very sure that all our hearts troubles and how our husbands have been unfair to us and how our wives have been a thorn in our flesh are chief of what we will pray about. Well, it is very okay to lay them all before God in prayer, after all God said we should cast our cares upon Him because He cares for us. But what do we expect God to do in solving those huge problems we have placed before Him? Do we think He will put our spouses to sleep and do a surgery of heart on him or her and the next morning he/she becomes a brand-new person we have been longing for?

Well I know there is nothing God can’t do and in Him, there is no impossibility. But sincerely that hasn’t been God’s usual approach in recent times, and we need to be awake to that reality. And that is why I am continuing from where we stopped yesterday. What if God wants to use you to change your spouse? What if as you pray, God works in you and then presents you afresh to your spouse and you become the light that clears the darkness in your spouse's life? That is another way in which God works to give us what we want in our marriages. It has been His style of approach that I am more familiar with. No one has ever seen God and still lives, so if God will give us what we want and pray for, He uses people and sends them on assignment to accomplish His desires in our lives and answer our prayers. So why are you not that person that God will use to bring about the change in the life of your spouse and thus answer your prayers concerning him/her?

And so, we go back to the prayer thing, when we pray for God’s intervention in our marriages, one important thing that we need to sincerely include in that prayer is that God should teach us what to do to make our marriages better, and He should open our eyes to what we should be doing to make the life of our spouses better. When you pray this prayer sincerely and are expectant, you will first notice some changes in your own life. You will start to experience is a shift in values about marriage, the wrong mindset about your rights in marriage will begin to give way to God’s values and norm for marriage. In no time you will be a light in the darkness of your marriage. So as your light shines brighter, it drives away the darkness in your spouse. With weeks going into months and months into years you will start to notice changes in your spouse that please you and gives you peace.

Though this may be painstaking at the beginning, it gets easy with time, if you are determined and you don’t give up. With consistency, it becomes part of you and you find yourself giving your best to your marriage effortlessly.

When I prayed for a change and for God’s intervention in my troubled marriage many years ago, God told me to go and submit to my husband. Initially, it was tough because I never thought I should be the one sacrificing again since I was the one unloved. But I knew God hated divorce and so walking out of the marriage was not an option for me as a child of God. I had to go and check the dictionary meaning of the word submit to understand what was expected of me. Then I realized that before then I respected my husband but didn’t submit to him.

It was painstaking to literarily do exactly as my husband says, whether I think he is wrong or right. But the beautiful thing is that God stood by me through it all. I will always have that nudge in my spirit whenever I want to do something my husband says I shouldn’t do. When God tells you to do something, He stands by you to help you through it. But today, submission is me and I am submission. I submit to my husband effortlessly now. I think not to submit is now what I require effort to do. And believe me when I say I have a beautiful marriage and a loving husband. The same man, and the same marriage.

To put all these in a nutshell, I want to say that it is very good to pray for your marriage, but what is the content of your prayer? I have always said that marriage is not a 50-50 arrangement. If you give your marriage only 50% of you, where is the remaining 50% invested? If you give your marriage 100% of yourself, God will multiply that for you. You will have a good marriage such that you will have peace in your mind and are productive in other aspects of your life.

Marriage is not a place to be served. Never go into marriage with an entitlement mindset. Go into marriage with a purpose in mind and that purpose should be to make the life of your spouse better than you met it. If that is all that you can do for humanity and God, you have done well. When both husband and wife have the same purpose of making effort to better each other, they are both better off in the long run. And peradventure you (whether husband or wife) are the first to come into a better understanding of what marriage should be, then rather than complain and compare your spouse to other spouses, be the light that drives out the darkness in your spouse. Let your light so shine that he/she get a bigger and better picture of what marriage should be through you.

So in my next post, we will be discussing more of the things I discovered in the course of my break and on my one-on-one discussions with couples. 

Prayer Is Not Enough

Hello people how are you doing? I believe you have missed reading from me, I have also missed writing too. But I need to put a little effort into business issues too. But be rest assured that no matter for how long I take a break, I will always be back to share the hope of a successful marriage to those who dearly need it.

While on this break, I have had to do a handful of one-on-one counseling for couples with failed marriages. And in this blog post, I will be sharing some of the prevalent issues that I discovered. Please permit me to inform you that if I am unable to discuss all the issues on this post, then we will continue in the next post by the grace of God.

One common thing that I found with wives in these troubled marriages is that they always claim to be praying. If I ask them what they have been doing to improve their marriages and effect the positive changes that they seek in the lives of their husbands and marriage, the common thing that I hear them say is that they have put it all in prayers. All the efforts are in praying. In as much as I believe so much in prayers and God has blessed me and my marriage in no small measure through my prayers, I will still say at this point that for a troubled marriage to heal, prayer is not enough. You cannot sit idle and remain as you are and keep praying without doing anything and expect a magic performed on your husband by God such that he will just be a changed man possessing all the qualities you seek in him overnight. If that is your expectation when you pray then I am informing you now that you will tarry longer on that prayer altar than you bargained for without getting the result you seek.

When a person prays for God’s blessing financially, he/she does not sleep lazily at home doing nothing and expect a billion Naira credit alert from his bank. The ideal thing is that there must be some form of work he is doing for which he seeks God’s blessings and then he prays God's blessings on his effort and God answers and then blesses the works of his hands.

In the same manner, when you seek God’s intervention on your marriage, then you must be ready to get your hands to work. When you pray for God’s intervention in your marriage situation, you don’t just pray and stand up and go. Prayer is a communication between the person who is praying and the God he /she is praying to. So, you tell God what you want, and He tells you how to get it. Sometimes, God may send someone to hand over to you what you have prayed for, and sometimes He leads you to the source of what you have prayed for and teach you how to get it. But in marriage when you pray for God’s intervention, He teaches you what to do to attain the point of comfort in your marriage that you seek. The Bible says “Prayer without Deed is dead.

One thing I know that God tells every wife to do in marriage is to submit to her husband as unto the Lord. We find this in Ephesians 5:22-24, 1 Peter 3:1-6, and even in Colossians 3:18. We should understand that if God will repeat the same time thrice through two different vessels of His, then He means what He says. From 1 Peter 3:1-2 we can conclude that as a wife when you pray and do not submit to your husband as unto the Lord, all your effort amounts to a waste of breath and energy, and I repeat that you will tarry long on the altar of prayer without result. Because it is through the purity and reverence of your life which springs from your submission to your husband that he will be won over to God thereby becoming the man you desire him to be. 

Quite a number of wives complain that they have endured so much from their husbands. One of the very common conclusions that I have heard from wives is that the husband does not care for them, provide for them and outrightly neglects them and so they pack their bags and walk out of the marriage. And yet they complain that the husband still does not provide allowances for his children that they took away from him. And then I think; if you were living with your husband and as far as you are concerned he didn’t take care of you and didn’t provide for the family upkeep, how then do you expect him to start to care for you when you are not there in his face.

One very foolish mindset that we have as women is that we believe that when we walk out of the so-called terrible marriage and away from the wicked husband, he will come to his senses and do the needful. But in almost all the cases I have seen and dealt with, separation never solves the problem, rather it makes it worse. And a simple separation that you had hoped will improve the bad situation eventually leads to a divorce. So, what was supposed to be temporary separation eventually turns to a permanent separation.

1 Peter 3:1-2

Wives, in the same way, be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.

One truth that has never changed is that the word of God never fails. Like I mentioned earlier, the solution to a troubled marriage is not in walking out of the marriage; and divorce is also not a beautiful solution to a bad marriage. But we read in the Bible passage above that if a woman is married to an unbeliever (For me, I want to define the word unbeliever as not just someone who does not believe in Jesus Christ, but as someone who does not exhibit the traits of godliness. A husband whom his wife has characterized as wicked), it is not by words that such a man is won over to God, but by the submissive behavior of the wife through the purity and reverence of her life.

I have said earlier that prayer is good and important to heal a broken marriage, but it is not enough. When you pray that God heals your marriage, you also need to wait on God to speak to you on your action line in that marriage for it to heal. What 1 Peter 3:1-2 is telling us is that no matter how bad that marriage situation is, it is through your submission that God will bring about the desired change that you seek in that marriage. Your prayer performs two functions; first, you go to God to make a complain/request and then you wait on Him to tell you what to do and when you do it you will get the change that you seek.

Your submission to your husband is a seed that you sow into your marriage. It is the investment to make in your marriage for which you expect returns. And then your prayers act secondly as a form of watering on the seed of submission that you have sown. So, when you submit to your husband and then you pray, what God does is to use you and your godly behavior as a reference in drawing your husband to Himself. You will be winning your husband to God not by words but by your actions.

And then just before I finish up this write-up, I would want us to understand that there is a big difference between submission and respect. Quite a number of women always say that they have submitted to their husbands, yet he treats them badly, but what I have come to discover is that we misunderstand respect for submission. What we give to our husbands is good respect, but that is far below what God commands us to do.

The dictionary meaning of the word submit is “to yield yourself to the authority of another,” and one very prominent synonym word for the word "submit" is “obey.” So what God is saying to us as wives is to submit ourselves to the authority of our husbands, and when we take is further for better clarity, we are asked to obey our husbands. So, if your husband says to do a thing, what God is telling you is that you should do exactly as he says. Do not add to it or take away from it. Just do as your husband says.

This is a universal law of marriage for all women without any exception and without any clause. You will find this same instruction over and over again in the passages of the Bible (Ephesian 5:22-24, Colossian 3:18, 1 Peter 3:1-6). And one important thing is that the Bible did not add any qualifying adjective to the word husband, so to say that God did not define for us the kind of husband to submit to and the one not to submit to. So, whether your husband is good, bad, ugly, kind, or harsh, as long as he is your husband, you are to submit to him and obey him.

For some, this might sound like hard teaching, but it’s the most effective way to a gloriously beautiful marriage. It worked for me, and it has worked for so many others and it will surely work for you if you apply it undilutedly. Please note that this is an instruction of God for His children alone. This is not a teaching for everyone. But if you want God's intervention in your situation, then you need to apply God's approach in that situation.