Tuesday 26 November 2019

When Obedience Doesn't Make Sense


And so, we move on in our study of marriages in the Bible and in particular the study of Abraham's marriage. There are so many lessons to learn from the marriage of Abraham and Sarah.
Genesis 12:10-20 tells us about how Abraham continued with his journey of the call of God in his life. It was in Genesis 12:1-3 that God called Abraham to embark on a journey leaving his father’s household behind, but still within that same chapter, we read something interesting that Abraham did.
In Genesis 12:10-20 we read that there was famine in the land and Abraham went down to Egypt, but just before entering into Egypt, he called his wife and told her not to say she was not his wife but his sister. The first thing that got me wondering is that if Abraham whom we read of in later books of the Bible that he was a friend of God and he believed in God and it was created to him as righteousness could not trust God to protect him from the hands of the Egyptians without putting his wife in harms way then there is a need for men to be very careful. Even those who are considered men of God. I respect Abraham so well as a man of faith, but as a husband, I believe he didn’t do so well.  
But that said, the lesson in this passage is for the wives reading this blog. I am trying to imagine what was going through the mind of Sarah when her husband made that proposal to her. Was she so in love with Abraham to have obeyed him so blindly or was she more of a woman of faith than her husband to obey her husband as the Lord had asked her to do even in the face of danger?
Going by the report of her in 1 Peter 3:5-6 and the way God defended her all through her years of marriage, I want to believe that she was more of a woman of faith in God than a woman in love. I do not believe that Sarah agreed to lie about her status as Abraham’s wife just to show her love to her husband, it would have been a situation of trusting God to protect her as she obeys her husband as He (God) had asked her to do.
Ephesians 5:22-24, Colossians 3:18, and 1 Peter 3:1-6 all says the same thing; “wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord,” and what we see Sarah display in Genesis 12:10-20 is the height of what God is calling the wives into in their marriages, and God will surely defend our obedience to His word for our lives.
When I first had the divine revelation of Sarah’s obedience in marriage, it felt like an impossible thing to do for us in our generation today. It’s almost just impossible for a woman to put herself in harm’s way like Sarah did just in the bid to submit to her husband in fulfillment of God’s instruction. To us it cannot be God telling us to obey His words to that extent; God can’t be so cruel. More so, when adultery is a sin, and then we run through the many what-ifs in our minds and tell ourselves God will understand if we disobey just this one time.
But for Sarah, she never doubted God. For her, there were no what-ifs, her husband said it and she did it anyway. And God in His usual faithful manner came through for her just at the right time when she needed Him to. I have also trusted God for this kind of submission in my marriage. My husband has never asked me to deny my identity as his wife but I have learned to obey him on so many occasions where we have extremely different and conflicting views about situations and instructions he has given. I have learned to obey him even when it wasn’t in any way or form convenient for me to obey. And not once have I had to regret such acts of obedience since I have allowed God to take the wheel of my marriage. And above all, I have earned my husband’s respect and trust simply because I obey God in obeying him.  


Saturday 23 November 2019

First Lesson from Abraham's Marriage

I guess the next marriage to learn from would be the marriage of Abraham. Though Noah’s life came before that of Abraham, little was said about his marriage. So, we can as well just move on to Abraham. The first thing that came to my mind in the marriage story of Abraham is found in Genesis 12:4-5. When God called Abraham and he obeyed, he didn’t set out alone, he set out in the company of his wife Sarah. I understand that he also took Lot his nephew with him but we will notice that by the time we get to chapter 13 of Genesis, he had to drop Lot off. But the journey of his life, his obedience to the calling of God over his life was done with Sarah his wife right by his side.
Bearing in mind that Abraham and Sarah were no longer two but one, we will appreciate why Sarah could not be dropped off. In the same manner, the Abrahams of today, husbands of today need to understand fully that there is no calling on their lives, there should be no pursuit in their lives that warrants the husband leaving his wife behind.
In thoughts, actions, plans, and purpose of a man, he needs to carry his wife along with him as he journeys on, in order to attain good success in his life’s journey. Ecclesiastes 4:9 says “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work,” this is just as simple as it is, planning for two and planning with the other in mind and engaging the other in mind as thought is more rewarding than planning alone. Even Jesus says in Matthew 18:19 that if two agree as concerning anything they ask for; it will be done for them by our Father in heaven.

The fact that Abraham journeyed on in obedience to the call of God for his life and carried his wife along is one big lesson I want to start the gleanings from Abraham’s marriage with. Marriage is not a competition between two intelligent individuals. It is not a superiority contest between a man and his wife. But rather it is a man on a journey to a Promised Land in the company of his suitable helper, his destiny helper, the embodiment of God’s favor for his life whom he is assigned to love with his life, cherish, hold in high esteem and respect well so that nothing will hinder his prayers.


Friday 22 November 2019

When the Sons of God Marry the Daughter of Men

So, we continue in our gleanings of the word of God for marriages in the Bible that we can learn from. Between the time of Adam to Noah and then to Abraham nothing much was said about marriage other than the fact that the men were having children and we know that these children were conceived by their wives. But nothing definite was said concerning marriage. But just as I am about to jump to the marriage of Abraham, my attention is drawn to Genesis chapter 6.

Genesis 6:1-3
When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

You might wonder why the sons of God marrying the daughters of men became something of an issue to God for Him to declare that His Spirit will not contend with man forever. Before this chapter, we will notice that men were leaving for up to 900 years and more. As a matter of fact, if not for the fall of man at the garden of Eden probably man would never have had any business with death. God did not forbid Adam from eating from the tree of life, so to say, that God’s plan was actually for man to live forever. But now, man not was just having death to deal with, man’s life span was being cut short and you wonder why?
When I began to seek the face of God for a clearer understanding of this matter, the Lord dropped in my spirit that the sons of God should be seeking God for a wife and not choosing wives for themselves. Beyond the beauty of the daughters of men lies hidden virtues and vices that only God knows about. It is only God who owns the ability to choose the appropriate and fitting wife of the daughters of men for the sons of God. This act of inappropriate independence by the sons of God was enough to cause God to make the declaration that His Spirit will not contend with man forever. If man had begun to exhibit independence from God and choose wives for themselves then they are indirectly telling God they don’t need Him any longer.
The interesting thing is that we still have many sons of God in our generation who still see the daughters of men that they are beautiful and they marry any of them they choose to without first seeking the face of God. As we proceed in our study on marriages in the Bible, we will come across the making of a life partner. And I am sure it was discussed earlier in the study of the marriage of Adam and Eve.
When God was to make Eve, He made her to the specification fitting for Adam. He made Eve as a helper suitable (fitting, ideal, comparable) to Adam. So, she was not just any woman, she was made specifically for Adam. In the same way, God has painstakingly made a wife suitable to, fitting to, ideal for every son of God He created. Without God, the sons of God cannot identify the daughters of men that God has created for them as wives. So, in the cause of marrying as they chose, they were mismatching each other. So to say, that they were marrying wrongly and that alone was enough to make God declare that His Spirit cannot contend with man any longer.
I have spoken to men who after marriage have concluded that they married the wrong woman. Some men have even gone the path of getting a divorce. But I dare to say that two wrongs never make a right. If you didn’t seek the face of God before marrying your wife and things aren’t going right, divorce is not the way out. There is no point when you invite God into your marriage that He doesn’t step into it, to right all the wrongs in it. He made that woman you call wife, and He can remake her into the woman fitting for you when you let Him and yield to His intervention.
Marrying wrong is not a death sentence, and seeking a divorce is also not the remedy. At whatever point you call God into the situation and let Him turn around the situation for good, yielding to His leading and following every instruction He gives to you, then you are on the road path to a beautiful marital experience. 




Wednesday 20 November 2019

The Husband is Accountable to God


I am really so very sorry for the inconsistency of sharing with you on the marriage blog throughout this year. It’s a big shame on me considering the fact that I know quite a lot of people take the time to read what I write. I could have given the reason of work for this but in truth, that isn’t good enough so I would simply just apologize.
We had started a series of learning from the marriages in the Bible and we will just continue from there. What I shared last was about Eve staying within the confines of the leadership of her husband as the head of the home. The importance of submission in marriage cannot be overemphasized but the wife alone does not make a marriage, so we need to have a look at the second component of marriage which is the husband and the head of the marriage. We will be looking at the husband from the viewpoint of Adam.

Genesis 3:6
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her.

Before going on with our study, I needed to, first of all, check another translation of this passage to have a clear understanding of what it says. Remember that Adam is the husband, he is the leader of the union, and then he was the one to whom God gave the instruction not to eat of the fruit of the tree of good and evil. And then he was with Eve when she ate of the fruit of which God said they should not eat because the Bible says “she gave some to her husband who was also with her.”
When the serpent was speaking to Eve and he was with her why didn't he stand to her defense? Why didn't he rebuke that serpent and take the lead that he was assigned to take? Why didn’t he stop Eve from eating the fruit of the tree of which God said they should not eat most especially when he was the direct recipient of the instruction? These questions are what is coming up in my mind when it comes to the role of Adam in that marriage.  These for me are the failures of Adam. No matter how we try to blame Eve for her errors, I think Adam share a larger portion of the blame.

Genesis 3:9
But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Let’s now see this from the eyes of God. When the Lord was going to seek an account for the wrong that has been done, He didn’t ask Eve, He called out to the man. This is simply because the responsibility of the union rests on the head of the man who is the head of the marriage union and home. He is the one answerable to God over the affairs of the home.
In today’s world there are still so many Adam husbands around. It is so important that the husband and wife work together in agreement but the responsibility of the marriage union rests on the husband. If a marriage fails the world might seek accountability from the wife, but God will seek accountability from the husband. And that is why we read in Malachi 2:16-19 that God warns the husband to be careful and not break faith with the wife of his youth.
The husband is assigned by God to lead his wife, protect his wife, care for her and love her as Christ loves the Church and died for her and he is answerable to God over her life. This is deeper than just as simple as it appears on this blog and I pray the Lord will enlighten the hearts of the husbands and give them a divine revelation of the matter.


Thursday 31 October 2019

Eve Should Have Stayed in Lane

By common knowledge, the first thing that comes to mind when we speak of helpers is that they support, they mostly are the backend support that makes things happen. When you speak of a helper you don't first think of such as a leader. But moving from common knowledge, by virtue of God's arrangement in marriage, the husband leads and the wives follow. But she just doesn't follow blindly, she supports and helps. 
Going back to common knowledge, a leader gives instructions and the followers obey the same. Based on God's principles in marriage, the husband leads, and the wives submit. The dictionary meaning of the word submission means to willingly yield yourself to the authority of another. So as a wife what God expects of you as found in Ephesians 5:22-24 is that you willing yield yourself to the authority of your husband just as in the manner in which you willingly yield yourself to the authority of God. A deviation from this pattern is a road path to chaos in marriage. 
That was what happened when Eve decided to leave the path of following the lead of her husband. But before you go negative on me, just follow me closely. I very well understand that the husband makes mistakes and some husbands seem unworthy to be followed. I am a wife and I am no angel so I feel like every other wife feels and I have experiences too that are not perfect or near perfect. And many years ago I thought just like you might now that my husband was unworthy to be followed. And I began to pray. I knew God's word wouldn't change and if I want peace in my marriage I must obey that word of God that says I must submit to my husband as unto the Lord. So I prayed that God will fill my husband up with Himself such that the words of my husband will come in the form of instructions and will be God's words and instructions for me. And with confidence that what I have prayed for God will answer, I learned to submit to my husband even in the silliest things and it has really paid off because it has fetched me peace of mind in my marriage and helped me build the bond of unity in my marriage. 
I will share a story of my personal experience on the issue of submission. About 20months ago I began a business and my husband got me a shop to sell lace fabrics. He renovated the shop and did it so tastefully. I had assumed that with much beauty built into the shop he will give me a good sum of money to stock up the shop. But to my disappointment, he gave me so little that it was about a fraction of what he used in renovating the shop that he gave me to buy goods in the shop to sell. In fact what I got from him then couldn't even fill a shelf. I was pained but I remembered that notwithstanding I was still supposed to submit to him as my husband. And submit I did. 
But rather than getting hurt, I began to think and pray on how to kick start the business and grow it with the very little I had. To the glory of God, ideas started pouring into my head and I began to implement them. Then I learned to use social media to boost my sales and the sales I made using social media far outweighed what I ever thought of selling in the shop. 
Now the lesson there for me was that if indeed I had gotten the big money I wanted from my husband and stocked the shop with so many goods, the poor sales would have frustrated my business and I would have been perceived as a failure. But because he didn't give me what I wanted and I submitted to him irrespective, I was able to challenge myself, think outside the box and pray and launched my business beyond what I would have been able to do given that I had all the money I wanted. God used my husband to teach me and I am happy I didn't resist the lesson. 
If Eve had just stayed within the limits of following her husband, the serpent would not have had a hold on her. When you feel your husband isn't making sense then turn to God in prayer but never leave the covering of God's commandment for your life, never move off the position of submission to your husband as the Lord has ordained and ordered you to as a wife. Prayer without deed is dead and so prayer without submission is dead and also submission without prayer is powerless.

Thursday 26 September 2019

There was None Found Comparable to Him

So will continue our marriage discussion by continuing our focus on the marriage of Adam and Eve. In the last post, we looked at one of the purposes of God for marriage judging from the first marriage, the marriage of Adam and Eve. We were able to conclude that based on God's design marriage was designed to help the couples in it to develop and grow from the position they were before marriage. 
There are many other lessons I have learned from the marriage of Adam and Eve and I will like to share them with you. So in the next couple of posts, we will be dealing with that marriage and learning from it.
The first interesting thing about the marriage of Adam and Eve is found in the latter part of Genesis 2:20 which says "But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him" (NKJV). The NIV version says "But for Adam no suitable helper was found." What I understand from this single sentence is that no matter how you view your marriage at this moment, for God to sit on His throne and watch your marriage ceremony take place without any disruption, then He knows for sure that you as a wife are the suitable helper that God has found or should I say made that is comparable and suitable for that man. Of all the living things God has made you are the one found comparable to that man who is your husband. 
Now, that does not translate to the fact that your husband is perfect and without fault, it doesn't mean that he is so sweet and husbandly and a dream come true husband, it only means that you are the one God has made to complete him. You are the one found suitable or should I say comparable to him to complete him and perfect him. God made you and place you in his life despite all the shortfalls in the life of your husband because He (God) knows you have what it takes to help him develop from who he was before God brought you into his life
What this tells me about you as a wife is that you are more than what you think you are. God thinks more highly of you than you think of yourself. God knows that you are more capable than you think you are. Your strength in God is beyond what you know. 
If you are in a challenging marriage situation, never think of yourself as the victim, because for God to watch you in that situation, it is because He knows that if you harness the potentials in you with His (God) support, strength and power in you, you are capable of turning the situation around for good and become victorious over that marriage challenge, being a change agent in the hands of God in bringing a glorious renewal in the life of your husband. Of all that God created that is living and moving around, there was none found comparable to him except YOU. Think about it. 

Tuesday 24 September 2019

What is Your Marriage Producing?

It's been two months since I last shared a post on the marriage blog and I sincerely feel ashamed of that. But I can either stop making an impact in the lives of people or cover my face and yet start all over again. If any explanation is required for my absence, I will stay I took time off in pursuit of an income-generating venture. But while at it, I shouldn't abandon God impacting venture too. In all, I apologize for my long absence. 
Before I took off we had done a lot of learning from the book of Esther and just like you, I learned a lot. So we will continue into the year learning things from the marriages of the Bible. We will glean from the marriage of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Issac and Rebecca, Jacob and his wives (Leah and Racheal), Lot and his wife, David and his wives, Job and his wife and many other marriages we can glean from and try to relate what we learn from them in to our everyday life. 
So we start from the very beginning, the very first marriage which is the marriage of Adam and Eve. It is common knowledge what the marriage of Adam and Eve was like but the one thing we need to look at and learn from is what the marriage of Adam and Eve should have been as intended by God. 
From what we can see in Genesis 2:18, one of the reasons God created the wife for the husband was for support, as a suitable helper. So we can rightly conclude that the marriage of Adam and Eve was designed for developmental purpose as the wife was placed in the life of her husband to help him succeed in what he has been assigned to do. Noting that this is the first marriage with marriages following after that, we can that say that wives are placed in the life of the husband as a support and a helper and so marriage is designed by God for developmental purpose. 
My question following this conclusion is: Is your marriage fulfilling the developmental purpose for wish God designed it? We learn from Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 that two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor, and then we read from Genesis 2:24 that "for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and will cleave to his wife and the two shall become one." If two are better than one, then we understand better God's reason for saying that it is not good for the man to be alone. And two who labor together will have a better reward for their labor than when one labors alone then we know for sure that the design of God in bringing a man and woman together in marriage is for developmental purpose. So the man and his wife coming together as one laboring together with the wife as a suitable helper and the husband mandated to love and care for his wife as himself then growth and development are bound to take place in their lives as a single unit and in their individual lives. 
So the question again is this: In your marriage, is growth and development taking place like it should? Is your marriage producing fruits of development in your life and that of your spouse like it should? If yes, I congratulate you and bless God for your life. If otherwise, then it is important that you begin to search out the reason for the shortfall and start to deal with it. 
For your marriage to bring about the development and growth we are learning about, there must be a true cleaving between the husband and the wife in soul and spirit such that it can truly be said that they are no longer two but one. Been married to the world yet separated in mind and spirit does not bring about the development that God designed for marriage. Seeing your spouse as a separate entity from yourself and treating him/her as such does not produce the kind of reward of labor that we read of in the passages we have highlighted in today's post. 
Your battles in marriage are not battles you should target against your spouse, but that you working with your spouse on a common goal in fighting the external enemy. When you see your spouse as your enemy, then you are no longer one but two separate entities and your achievements in that marriage will be limited. On the long run, you short-change yourself ignorantly. For you to enjoy the dividends of marriage, you must make a deliberate effort at keeping and maintaining the unity of your marriage. God's word never lie, your marriage is designed to make you better than you were before it began

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