What Do You Look Like 5 Years After Marriage?

So, in my last post, we discussed a bit on the issue of the insecurity feeling in marriage. I said then and I still maintain that in one's capacity you cannot stop a spouse who is bent on cheating from actually cheating but you can trust God to do in your marriage what you cannot do by yourself.

But today we will consider situations whereby a spouse originally didn’t intend on cheating but found himself/herself in such a mess owing to the negligence of his/her partner. In as much as I wouldn’t want to give an excuse for cheating, I will say that there are some things we do that might give our spouses reasons to be unfaithful to us.

Now there are some things that your spouse saw in you that made him/her prefer you as a choice of a life partner far above other possible contenders. I know that prayer plays a big role in choosing a life partner but there are some other additives that caused an attraction between you two in the first instance.

What happens in some marriages is that those indicators that caused the attraction are downplayed or totally eroded in some other marriages such that the husband or wife begins to look for what he/she saw in their spouse that made them say the word “I do” on that wedding day and totally can’t find a clew to those things and they begin to wonder why they agreed to the union in the first instance.

One of those big indicators that get lost in marriage is physical appearance. While some men experience unattractive physical appearance after marriage, a lot of women find themselves looking like a shadow of what they looked like before their marriages. For the women, one of the big reasons for this is childbirth, which is inevitable, but I am also on the learning that I shouldn’t lose myself to childbirth.

God has been gracious to us by giving us a body, it is our responsibility to take care of that body which God has given us to the best of our ability and even beyond. Rather than lose those indicators and catalyst of attraction that drew your spouse to you which resulted in marriage, you need to build on them. Growing old should not mean growing stale. Despite the pressure of marriage, the pressuring of parenting and many other pressures that might be distracting you, you need to take the time out for yourself to pay attention to you.

In addition to a wife being a good home-maker, a good cook, a good mother, a perfect wife, a reliable support, a prayer warrior, she also needs to be a beautiful woman, an attractive lady to her husband, a lady that constantly defies aging signs, an intelligent woman, a creative personality. It is when she is all these and more that she becomes a total woman, an indispensable wife and at no time at all will her husband wonder why he married her. Rather he is ever proud of himself that he made the right choice.

Though most wives don’t really worry over the looks of their husbands, yet some do. And husbands also ought not to lose that one thing that made them attractive to their wives. In the midst of the pressure of providing for the home, men should take the time out to deal with their growing waistlines and potbellies. Looking good also means staying healthy. So just as you are trying to maintain the good looks that contribute to your confidence as a husband, you are also taking precautionary steps in staying healthy and fit.

Never let the fire of your marriage die, there will be challenges along the way but they are always issues that you can overcome with God’s wisdom, with patience, tolerance, and understanding. And also, never let your marriage go stale, don’t get so consumed in the marriage that you forget to take care of you. You are a vital part of the marriage, without you there is no marriage, once you get stale your marriage gets stale also.

Let's Talk Insecurity in Marriage

One thing that gets a lot of wives agitated in marriage is that guts feeling that their husbands may be cheating on them and this is not limited to young couples. Even the older ones get to have that sense of insecurity sometimes.

Now, you might then want to ask if it’s wrong to feel insecure in marriage. The truth is, there is nothing wrong with you feeling insecure in marriage most especially when you can find one or two signs that have necessitated a sense of insecure feeling. But then, the feeling of insecurity can be extremely harmful to your marriage. When you begin to feel insecure, then trust is on the collapse. With trust gone, then unity in marriage makes its way out too. Suspicion then creeps in and brings with it loads of misunderstandings, arguments, quarrels, and even fights.

Before I carry on with this post I need to point to the fact that it’s not just that wives who are burdened with the feeling of insecurity in marriage, it’s a two-way thing and so we will look at this issue of insecurity in marriages from both the husband and wife’s point of view.

So, the main focus of this blog is knowing how to deal with insecurity in marriage. One bitter truth about dealing with this kind of issue is that the resolution to this issue all starts and ends with you. My number one solution to any problem is with God. That is, my ability to present the problem to God listen for instructions from Him and follow His leading on tackling the problem. So to say that you should not expect your spouse to stop whatever it is they are doing that is causing you to feel insecure, but to trust God to teach you what to do to deal with it.

There is something I do in my marriage that has helped me to handle to a great extent the issue of insecurity and that big thing is embedded in prayers. Consistently I pray for my husband that God will make him faithful to me and that whatever temptations he may face that will jeopardize the peace and unity of my marriage, that the Lord will prevent him from falling into such a temptation.

The issue is not that I trust or do not trust my husband not to cheat on me, the issue is that I trust God to hear and answer my prayers. I trust Him enough to know that He who is God is faithful to keep that which I have entrusted in His care. So, because of my confidence in God through Christ, I feel secure in my marriage.

You may feel that this approach is not concrete enough not to rely on, one truth that you will be confronted with as you try other methods outside of God to keep infidelity away from your marriage is that there is absolutely nothing you can do to make a cheating spouse stop cheating. Look as beautiful or handsome as you can, cook the best meals and spend your life out, if a spouse will cheat, he/she will do so. But we know that the hearts of kings and princes are in the hands of God and like the watercourse, He directs them as He pleases. So only God can cause your spouse to remain faithful to you. This is an assignment that only God is capable of handling for you. Don't spend yourself out trying to do what only God can make happen for you. Direct your energy in trusting God to keep and maintain the peace and love of your marriage after you have done all that is within you to do and you have obeyed God's instructions for your marriage. 

Being Yourself Might Just Not Be Good Enough

When I feel stressed and I want to just take a break and rest, I run through my social media handles to see what’s happening in the world around me. Because I am not so much of a social media person, I do a lot of scan reading and only inspiration stuff catches my attention. So, I search for those phrases, sentences, or captions that are motivational in nature and those are the stuff I press the like buttons for the most. One thing I have found to appear quite often in those motivational captions is the phrase “Be Yourself.” While I agree with this to an extent, I believe it doesn’t improve one in many ways.

Now, assuming being myself means me being judgmental, nagging all the time, being consumed in your convictions and not being opened to learning, always sourly, looking down on people and many negative vibes like that, then being myself would just mean being toxic to the environment around you and the people around you.

So, in marriage you need to know when being yourself isn’t working for you and when it is time to improve yourself. There are so many couples in marriage with an entitlement mentality who have crafted in their heads what and what they should be getting from the spouses based on faulty traditional norms and they are so consumed in those traditional shortfall ideologies that they fail to see its killing effect on their marriages.

The interesting thing is that they want a beautiful marital life where everything is rosy and sweet and they get all that they want without being ready to give anything just because the tradition gives them the right to make demands where they have sown nothing.

  A wife who has not been a significant part of her husband’s success story shouldn’t expect that he will be willing to give her all she wants and need simply because she is his wife. I have seen places in the Bible where God has asked the man to love his wife as himself and as Christ loves the church, but I have not seen anywhere in the Bible where it says the wife should depend on her husband for all that she needs and wants. But when a wife has been a strong pillar of support for her husband, encouraging him to be the best he can be and praying for him continually, when success eventually comes, she will not need to make demands before her needs and wants are taken care of by her husband. The grateful part of him will make him go overboard in caring for her because she has sown the right seeds in him that have produced a bountiful harvest for her.

In the same manner, a man who has not been loving and caring towards his wife should not expect that she will be excited to make him the best meals, or do his dirty laundries, or run his many errands for him just because the tradition demands that she cooks his food. It really doesn’t work that way. If you want the best, then you must give your best at all times.

So, I will conclude today’s post by saying, it’s good to be yourself when yourself is the best of you, producing positivity within your environment and for people around you. But when being yourself requires a lot of amendments, then you need to improve on you to get the best from people around you. And this is so important for your marriage. The beautiful marriage you long for can only happen from the beautiful input that you have invested in it.

Consistency Plays A Role In It

One of the important lessons I have learned in the past few months is the lesson on consistency. I have learned a little about it in time past, but not as much as I have learned in the recent past. I realized that to succeed in business you have to be intentional and consistent about your goal in order to get there. In order to lose weight and shed the tummy fat, you need to be consistent in the effort to achieve as little as just a visible difference from where you are coming from and where you are going. I have heard so much about not giving up, but putting it into practice has been the big learning for me than just hearing it.

And sincerely this same pattern applies to your marriage. The main rules of a successful marriage based on the truth of the Bible remains that the husband should love his wife as Christ loves the church and the wife should submit to her husband just as she would submit to the Lord (Ephesians 5:22-31, 1 Peter 3:1-7, Colossians 3:18-19).

The above instruction doesn’t just keep your marriage at peace and secure joy for you within it, it also helps to mend your messy marriage. There is no messy marriage that this instruction direct from the throne of God does not heal and restore. And like I always say in my previous blog messages, don’t wait for your spouse to do the right thing for you to do what is right. Never base your actions on the negativity of your spouse, you might be the right thing that God will use to right all the wrongs in his/her life.

Now, doing the right thing once or twice will not give you the yields of a peaceful and loving marriage that you dream about. But doing the light things consistently at all times indefinitely will eventually produce for you the lasting beauty of a loving and peaceful marriage that you would have worked for.

From my own experience, I realized that putting up an advert once or just twice about your business will not give you the dream sales that you anticipated. And in the same way, doing a diet of just one day or two days or three days will not give you the beautiful body shape that you want. It will take consistent effort over a long period of time against many odds to achieve your set goal.

So, this is where we will begin again from. I know your spouse can be a pain in the neck. You two probably never reason alike and are never on the same page on almost all issues that you have to deliberate or agree on. You are not alone in that situation, a lot of couples have the same struggle as you do. But at some point, you will need to drop your convictions in order to embrace your peace. You will put your emotions on hold in order to obey the instructions of God for your marriage. You will need to be wrong and let God be right concerning how you will carry on in pursuit of your marital success. When you practice this long enough it’s then no longer a difficult thing to do, it becomes a lifestyle. Positive lifestyle yields positive outcomes.

When you see beautiful marriages out there, it's because they have put in much effort to make it so, and it’s not about a one-time effort, it's always a lifetime effort.

A Choosing of a Life Partner

With a grateful heart to the living God, I welcome us all to the new year. I do not take for granted the grace to be alive and be able to share interesting and impactful stuff with you on this blog. I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year. I pray that we will all experience the goodness and grace of God like we have never done before in our lives. In Jesus name our best years lie ahead of us. 

I welcome us all from the holidays as we launch back into God's grace for our marriages. We finished our study on the marital life of Abraham and Sarah last year and we are beginning the new year looking at the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah. The story of how Abraham got a bride for Isaac is found in Genesis 24 and I believe that is a very good place to start our study from. 

The first thing I want us to look at is found in Genesis 24:7, Abraham had walked well with God enough to trust Him to pick a fitting and suitable wife for his son. He had no criteria, he had no preferences, and no adjective or clause of his personal opinion did he state as he sent his chief servant to go in search of a wife for his son other than what God chose and had in mind for him. 

Genesis 24:7 

The Lord God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my family, and who spoke to me and swore to me, saying, "To your descendants I give this land,' He will send His angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there."

Abraham's singular concern was that he wanted a wife for his son from among his own people, he understood God enough not to want Isaac to be equally yoked with people who didn't know God. Other than this, he let God decide for his son. He left that task that belonged to God for God to handle by Himself. 

Many parents have landed their children in messy and challenging marriages simply because they tried to do in the lives of their children what God alone should be doing. The assignment of selecting a life partner for our children belongs to God alone. We read in Genesis 2:18-30 how God came about the idea of a suitable helper for Adam. It wasn't Adam's choice to have a wife, it was God's idea. And upon God realizing that Adam needed a suitable helper, He formed Eve from the rib He had taken from Adam and brought her to him to be his wife. 

By the time we walk through the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, we will notice the loads of benefits that Isaac enjoyed simply by the wonderful choice of a wife that God made for him. The first thing we will find out is that Rebekah was a very beautiful woman. She was a supportive wife and she was a wife that Isaac loved dearly. It was easy for Abraham to rest in death with full assurance that all was well with Isaac his son. God can never give you anything less than the best when you trust Him totally with this vital choice of a spouse either for yourself or for your children and wards. No criteria or preference you have can be better than God's choice for you and/or your children. 

It is time that we understand that whether as a parent to a child of marriageable age or you are one that feels convinced that you are ready for a life partner, that the first thing is to go to God in prayer having faith, confidence, and conviction that God alone that find for you a fitting and suitable spouse. Let Him take the responsibility of choosing for you. He will do an excellent job of that responsibility. He will provide for you a spouse that will give you peace. And when the storms and challenges of life raise its head, God will be there to protect you and fight for you. 

It's interesting to note that even after Adam and Eve sinned and God made pronouncements on them, He still took the time to make tunics of skin and clothed them (Genesis 3:21). He never stopped showing them love and protection. He will do the same always for your marriage. 

In Conclusion

In the midst of too many things to do, I have been struggling with keeping pace with the marriage blog. But just two days ago I discovered tons of comments on the blog that was awaiting moderation. And to the glory of God and to my heart’s delight I read so many of them and praise God that people are been blessed by the content of this blog. I will try to add the checking comments for moderation as part of my routine, may God help me to be consistent in it.

In the past couple of posts, we have been looking at the marriage of Abraham and Sarah and personally, I have learned a lot from Abraham’s wife Sarah. And so, we will move to the next couple of interest which is Isaac and Rebekah, but before we do that, we will try to summarize all that we have learned from the marriage of Abraham and Sarah.

The first thing to understand about that couple is that Sarah single-handedly built her marriage without the support of her husband. Marriage is not a 50-50 contribution quota. It is a 100-100 contribution quota; by simple arithmetic, when you add 50 to 50, you arrive and a 100, but when you add a 100 to another 100 you arrive at 200 which is twice as much as what you get when you only give half of you into the process. Irrespective of Abraham’s shortfall, Sarah didn’t allow that prevent her from giving her all into her marriage and as such God will not allow her to go into her grave without reaping of the harvest of all that she had sown into the marriage. Because God is faithful, if you are not yet reaping the desired harvest from your marriage whether you are the husband or wife, its important that you check the quality of your seed.

Another lesson that I learned from that marriage is that Abraham being a friend of God didn’t translate to Abraham being a good husband. His desire for an heir totally blinded him from his responsibilities as a good husband. And so that man being a pastor and being passionate about the things of God does not automatically make him a good husband. As a wife to a pastor or non-pastor, you need to always be in the place of prayer for the leading of God on how to manage your marriage well. Relying alone on the fact that your husband is a man of God who truly fears God and as such would be an excellent husband is dancing on self-deceit. Always trust God to perfect all that concerns your marriage.

Another lesson that I took away from this is the fact that just because your spouse is failing in his/her responsibility to you as a wife or a husband doesn’t mean you should fail in your responsibilities as a wife or a husband also. Two wrongs never make a right. We will all give an account to God and you can’t tell God that because your husband or wife failed then you failed also.

I very understand the fact that its really a good feeling when you show love and respect to your spouse and you get love and respect back in return. Its not just a really good feeling, but it’s a booster to your will to commit yourself more into the marriage. It encourages one to give more as you know that you are a priority to your spouse. But the work of building a successful marriage is not hinged on emotions alone. The bedrock of a successful marriage lies in divine wisdom, the wisdom that comes from God alone.     

When you give so much in your marriage and it seems there is nothing to show for it, that is not the time to stop giving your best, understand that seeds take time to grow. And the seed that is not well nurtured will die a seed and never germinate. So, you keep sowing and keep praying.

Sarah laughed last, and that husband Abraham must have loved and respected his wife dearly after God finished vindicating her. The Bible said he wept and mourned Sarah for days after her death and then bought a special burial place for her. The seed of Sarah, Isaac, was the only child God reckoned as Abraham’s son.

Sometimes it can be tough to be caught in the position in which Sarah was and still maintain one's cool and trust in God, 

having faith in the marriage. But there is always grace available in God if we try and not give up. The God who stood by Sarah is ready, willing, and available to stand by you and with you as you sow your seeds in your marriage.

The Seeds of Sarah

This is my first post for the month and before we discuss the marriage issue, I will want to appreciate my God, the giver of life and the giver of His word for the abundant grace we have to see the last month of the year 2019. God has really been good to us despite all the challenges of the year. Through the times are tough, but we are tougher. We give all our praises to God.

So, we continue in our discussion on the marriage of Abraham and Sarah. It is interesting that when Sarah asked Abraham to take her maidservant as wife and have a child by her, he agreed without hesitation, but what got my attention again in this story is that when Sarah told Abraham to send the bondwoman and her child away, he became reluctant.

But before we discuss that, we will notice something interesting about the husband Abraham in Genesis 17. It was in Genesis 16 that Hagar and Ishmael came into the picture of things, and the first thing God was going to say to Abraham in Genesis 17:1 was, “I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless.” Between the time of God's visitation in Genesis 17 and the birth of Ishmael in Genesis 16 was about 13years. If God ever spoke to Abraham in the 13years that he fathered Ishmael, we don’t know but there was no record of such speaking until Genesis 17.

From my observation, the purpose of God’s visitation in Genesis 17 was to reinstate His covenant of making Abraham a father of many nations and at this time God demanded circumcision from Abraham and his entire household as a constant reminder of that covenant. He also changed Abraham's name from Abram to Abraham, all in the bid to instilled in Abraham's consciousness the covenant between them. It appears to me that Abraham probably didn’t understand God’s mission and so he kept whining about wanting a son till he got himself into sin.

But the interesting part of all the communication between Abraham and God is the position of God with regards to Sarah. Yes, there was a covenant that Abraham needed to be constantly reminded of, and a covenant can only be fulfilled through a covenant partner. As far as God was concerned the promised child can only come from Sarah the covenant wife. In God's faithfulness, Sarah could not have made all those sacrifices for nothing. What profit could her obedience to God and her husband yield to her if she went into her grave childless? God would never allow His children to trust Him in vain and He brings the harvest when it is sweetest the most.

In Genesis 17:15-19 we read about the discussion between God and Abraham on the issue of the covenant child, and in Genesis 17:17 Abraham fell facedown and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” and then he went on to beg God to pour the blessings on Ishmael instead saying, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”

That for me was a selfish way to think by Abraham. He had fathered a child and that was just okay, but as Sarah mothered a child? Did that bother Abraham at all? Did he care if Sarah went to her grave barren? If he believed God when God promised him a child in Genesis 15 and it was credited to him as righteousness, then why could he not believe God on behalf of Sarah in Genesis 17. Was it all over and okay now that Ishmael has been born? These are my reasons for respecting Abraham so much as a friend of God and as a man of faith but not as a husband.

After all of this analysis, what is the lesson to hold onto in this part of the story of Abraham and Sarah’s marriage? Again, I will focus on the wives. To be a wife like Sarah takes a lot of effort but to reap the same reward as Sarah did is a very sweet experience. Against all the odds that we see coming from Abraham who happens to be her husband who should love and protect her and also is a friend of God without changing status, yet Sarah stayed by his side as his wife, obeying God and obeying her husband and when the time came for God to bless her came, He found her at the right place. She was still situated within the covenant of God in Abraham’s life.

So many times, as wives we seek the validation of our husbands, and in truth, we are not wrong, doing so. But when we don’t get the validation we need what do we do? When their love is not coming forth or their cooperation is lacking, do we just pick our bags and move. There is are blessings that your sacrifices have accrued to you but those blessings need to meet us at the right place.

The situation in your marriage will not always be pleasant but the sacrifices of obedience, submission, patience, positivity, perseverance and long-suffering that you have sown into it, will yield a bountiful harvest of joy and laughter, peace and love for you as long as you always keep God as your focus.