Good morning, married folk out there. God bless your marriage. God is committed until your marriage becomes all it has the potential to become.
Your marriage can work out beautifully well. You can enjoy and have that dream marriage you always desire. Don’t for once ever feel it can never happen.
If you believe it can never happen, gosh, you just announced it won’t happen. Don’t give up, but be willing and obedient to do and give your marriage all it takes to make it work.
You know married couples should begin to have this attitude of ‘my marriage is personal and I got to make it work’.
You know while growing up, my dad will always say this proverb, ‘ as you lay your bed, so you will lie on it’. Then, I would wonder, why is he worried about how I lay my bed?
I don’t care about how my bed is, once I hit the bed, I don’t have enough time to notice how it is, I just sleep.
Later, I realized it’s not just about my physical bed, but it’s about life generally. Talking about our physical bed, it’s very good to learn to make our beds well and train our kids to do so too.
Someone said, laying your bed before leaving the house every morning gives you a sense of achievement. It may look small, but somewhere in your sub-conscious you feel good, you have at least a good, well laid bed…lol
For us married, the bed is also very important.
Heb 13:4 Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
My husband will jokingly say, the bed is the most important furniture to the couple. I want to agree with that.
The bed is the legalized furniture for love making. Of course not the only furniture, several others have joined in the quest for ‘orgasmic’ love making.
Now, talking about focusing on your marriage, you have to decide what you want your marriage to look like. No doubt there are a lot of factors that may want to stand against this but you have to stand your ground. Stand your ground to live a worthy legacy for your children and generation yet unborn.
Focus on your marriage to make it work at all cost and against all odds. Lay the bed on your marriage well, so you can enjoy all the beauty in your own marriage. Lean all the principles you need to learn, drop all bad habits you need to drop. Break all pride, cockiness, selfishness, deception and let your own marriage work.
If you are separated, decide what you want, walk with God and let him show you what next to do. Whichever way, God loves you and still wants the very best for you.
How to focus on your own marriage
1. Focus on yourself You are a vital part of that marriage. Discover yourself. Who are you? What are your desires, what makes you come alive, what makes you enjoy living? Love yourself. Be a happy you.
2. Focus on your spouse As a married person, the most important human being on earth is your spouse. Begin to treat him /her as such. Let nothing absolutely come in between that. Let the whole world know, your spouse is so important to you.
Some people treat their wives like ‘one kobo’ and expect her to treat them like ‘ a million dollar’, it ain’t gonna work that way.
Seize every opportunity to let everyone know this one human being is number one on your list.
3. Focus on God Now, it will be very foolish to want to focus on yourself and spouse and leave God out. It can not work. God is the center that holds the pieces all together. God is the vital force that crowns all our efforts with success.
4. Focus on your strength You have strengths. Whether it’s your beauty, your home making skills, your intellect, your being jovial, whatever it is, focus on it. It’s your selling point in your marriage. Don’t let go of your strong points.it is what will make your spouse keep coming back to you.
5. Focus on minimizing your weaknesses Don’t ever make the mistake of pretending your weaknesses don’t exit. Don’t ignore them. Your weaknesses have the potential of destroying the marriage you are building, so destroy your weaknesses before they ever destroy your marriage.
6. Focus on satisfying yourselves Why should you spend your energy, time, money on trying to please or satisfy another man’s wife? That’s called wastage.
Don’t go into an unprofitable venture. Ask yourself, if I satisfy her, how does it add to me or make my own marriage better?
Tend your own garden. When it’s harvest time, you won’t go and harvest on another man’s farm. It is not your own, so focus and build your own marriage.
Pro 12:11 He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding.
God bless you and bless your marriage
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY My marriage is blessed
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, teach me to embrace your love
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Isa 49:16 (GW) I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are always in my presence.
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Focus on your marriage BIBLE READING FOR THE DAY Matthew 4; Luke 4 – 5
We will be looking at communication during love making. By communication, I mean both verbal and non-verbal communication. During love making, should there be talking? Or it should be as silent as a graveyard?
Another question is, should the room or any where you choose be dark, poorly lighted or fully lighted? That another question we will be looking at today.
All these questions are what you may be asking or is on your mind and we will together throw more light on them.
Well, your comments will be highly appreciated and welcome. Let’s know what happens in the ‘other room’. This can help another couple out there.
In my opinion what happens in ‘the other room’ is as the couples want it. However, being rigid to a particular mould is what may not be too good for the marriage. In my own marriage, we do more of non verbal communication to verbal.
Because our foreplay is usually very long (I strongly recommend this for couples except for quickies). We delight ourselves in each other during foreplay, where we get to explore our bodies. This time, we are free to talk, play and tease ourselves. But during intercourse, we don’t talk much, but a lot of moans! And then we also talk after.
My husband feels (and I agree with him because it works for us,) that talking breaks his flow and concentration. We like to savour every moment. It helps us enjoy each other more. That may be entirely different with you! Talking may just be your trigger!
Some people believe all kinds of dirty talks are allowed and that it is those dirty talks that make them reach orgasm. Let’s have your view.
For the second question, do you like it pitch dark, partially or fully lighted?
I remember when we were newly married, I used to like it when the lights are off. That was when I was shy. But I am no longer particular after I have been married for twenty-two years.
My husband has always liked it when the light are on. And his explanation was simple, “Don’t you know that men are moved by sight?”
As I said earlier, variety is the spice of marriage. We have the lights on now and sometimes, partially lighted.
Let’s hear your opinion. What is going on in your own marriage?
I am waiting for your responses.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY My marriage is blessed.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, help me to love my spouse unconditionally
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Prov 5:19 (ESV) As a loving hind and a pleasant doe, let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Discuss with your spouse based on the topic of today
Married couples, your marriage vows are very sacred and needs to be kept as such. Extramarital affairs should be avoided at all costs. Marriage should be held in high esteem and the bed must remain undefiled.
We should always make sure we fulfill our roles as married couples. Marriage is for companionship, where both parties stay and stick with each other no matter what.
The chief culprit in developing extra-marital affairs is when either of the party is not a real companion. Real companionship is not just about pictures all over social media.
Issues in marriage don’t have to be left unaddressed. These issues start like ordinary and minor issues. The devil does not attack us at full force all at once. He introduces his attacks in subtle ways.
Every married couple needs a marriage counselor or a mentor, where these issues are addressed.
Extramarital affairs start when we try to meet marital needs outside of the sanctity of marriage. You should never be close to any opposite sex other than your wife or husband.
An attempt to do that is looking for trouble. Don’t ever put yourself into a tight corner. The devil usually set up certain atmosphere for adultery.
I know there are different situations. I have heard of rape cases or situations where the lady was drugged. That’s why it’s good to pray and commit our ways into God’s hands and be led by the Holy Spirit.
The truth is that extramarital relationships are not worth it. The Bible says that stolen waters is sweet but in the end, it’s like gravel in the mouth. Work on your own marriage no matter what.
I know that there are some extreme cases where the husband or wife is so impossible and there’s just a yearning for love and companionship. Just hold on, pray, seek help and trust God will sort it out rather than seek pleasures outside. You will yet smile again.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I will not have extramarital affairs
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Father help me to stand faithful
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Psa 86:11 (KJV) Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Avoid all forms of extramarital affairs
READ THROUGH THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR 2 Samuel 16 – 18
Well, we have finally come to the end of our series on handling stress in marriage.
In our final series, I will be talking about
Ungratefulness
The whole bible is from the old testament to the new testament has several instances where gratitude, Thanksgiving, the gratefulness of heart is encouraged and even commanded.
The human heart has the capacity to be ungrateful and to forget where we were and where we were coming from. Once we get relieved, we are quick to forget the hands that held us up.
Now, I would like to write today about gratitude to God and gratitude to those who were there for us and how it helps in handling stress in marriage.
If we don’t learn to show appreciation and train ourselves to be thoughtful enough to show gratitude, we will stress our partners.
No matter how difficult your spouse is, we can still choose to be grateful to God for them. Someone said, don’t complain you have an headache, thank God that you even have a head.
How true this is. On matter our condition, the place of praise and thanksgiving will still remain intact. We may however, choose not to see it or cease the opportunity to be grateful.
Let check out few places in the bible we were admonished to live a thankful life.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. Psalms 100:4 NLT
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Philippians 4:6 NLT
And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20 NLT
And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. Colossians 3:15 NLT
We are encouraged in scriptures to show gratitude to God in everything and at all times.
If you think, you will be able to thank. If you think that you didn’t create yourself, you can’t sustain yourself, the breadth that you breadth you didn’t provide it for yourself, the hair on your head, you didn’t put it there, that you go to work and come back meeting everything intact is because God is a merciful God.
So when you think of all the goodness of the Lord you should return gratitude to Him.
If you are grateful for the many things God has done for you, it will also flow also in gratitude to others. It is the same heart it takes to be grateful to God that it takes to be grateful to others.
A spouse who is always complaining and has an entitlement mentality is a pain in the neck.
When a couple learn to appreciate each other in little things and show gratitude for efforts and every little attempt to improve, there will be bliss.
It takes a heart of understanding to give thanks. Someone said when you are thankful your tank will be full. This is the one of the best things to do when handling stress.
Everything dries up in an atmosphere of complaint.
Don’t put the strain on your marriage rather put the strain off your marriage.
I hope we have learnt one or two things from our series.
Your marriage is a living entity, and as such you don’t want to do things that will quench the fire of passion.
I pray if any marriage is being besiege by stress or its effect, God will cause peace to reign in Jesus name
I will continue from where I stopped yesterday. We have been looking at different types of stressors and how we can avoid them. How these stressors cause stress and strain in our relationship with our spouse.
We looked yesterday at how unforgiveness can be a sources of unhappiness in marriage. It can cause a lot of tension between couples.
Today, we are moving on to
8. Not being open and transparent.
Marriage is translated H.O.T, honest, open and transparent. Husband and wife should be naked and not ashamed.
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Genesis 2:25 KJV There should be no shame whatsoever between husband and wife. If both understand their position in covenant and how God sees them.
There should be zero inhibitions. We should be 100%/vulnerable to each other
It is very stressful when as husband and wife you censor what you have to say, walk as though on an egg shelf, hide, be secretive, tell packaged truth, sometimes tell little lies, structured lies, and all manner and shades of lies.
It is frustrating to have a spouse who is always suspecting you.
I want us to know that the devil is at the root of every kind of suspicion. If this is happening in our marriage, God will grant us victory and every storm will cease in Jesus name.
The devil hates marriage and unity between husbands and wives. This kind of stress can cause strain on the marital union. It could be handled by both husband and wife working together correcting their wrongs and trusting God for the covenant of oneness to be appropriated in their lives and marriage.
9. Unrealistic expectations.
These are the things we expect from our spouse which cut across as being over the board or giving the present situation may be difficult to meet.
Our spouse should try and they are under obligations to meet our needs. But there are some needs that are not humanly possible.
This usually happens when either of the spouses is selfish and inconsiderate. If for example the husband or the wife already has a particular mould he/she wants for his spouse and then try to force the spouse into that mould. That will be an unrealistic expectation.
This is capable of causing frustration. I will stop here today and continue tomorrow on these stressors by God’s grace.
May God grant us the spirit of forgiveness to all that has offended us in Jesus name.
God bless your marriage.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am a wise spouse. I know how to relate with people.
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Lord, give me wisdom
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY 1 Peter 3:7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
