Yesterday, westarted on the topic “How to tend your marriage” and we talked about one major way to make your marriage enjoyable. That is, to know the difference between a garden and a farm.
Our marriage should be viewed as a garden, not a farmland.
Below are few ways we can tend our marriage.
1. First discover the type of person your spouse is. Is your marriage a garden or a farm land?
2. This discovery has to be done by both of you discussing it.
3. Know what your partner requires you to make your marriage work.
4. Set out to learn about these requirements.
5. Never assume you know all it takes to make your marriage work.
6. Be focused on making it work.
7. Be ready and humble enough to learn.
8. Always take your spouse along and check with each other if you are making progress. For example, the proof you are on the right track is when you see the flowers in your garden blossom.
9. Don’t stop doing those things that produced the results.
10. Master the technique and do it over and over again, till it becomes part of you.
God bless your marriage.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY My marriage will blossom
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, grant me the wisdom I need to tend my marriage
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Son 4:16 Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.
Couples, Tend Your Marriage. I liketo view marriage as a garden. Your marriage needs time, attention, care, being sensitive and gentle, and above all skill and patience. No matter what is planted in your garden, whether vegetables or flowers, it requires your attention. If you are not ready to give your garden time and attention, don’t bother planting a garden.
You must enjoy and love being around your garden for it to blossom. You can not treat your garden like you do farmland where a lot of farming is allowed. A garden is a personal assignment. You give it the time and attention it requires.
Never use the same principle you use in working the farmland on your garden. It won’t work because they are totally different. Many couples are making this mistake. They love the beauty of flowers but want to apply the method they use in planting cassava.
For your cassava, just make a heap, cut your cassava stem, stick it into the soil and you can go to sleep for the next several weeks. Your cassava does not need any special attention or focus. But not so with your garden.
You know sometimes, I wonder why, some marriages don’t reach their full potential despite the good heart of the couples. Some of them might be anointed. I heard pastor Benny Hinn, a man of God I so much love and respect said the main reason for his divorce was that he didn’t give the marriage the needed attention. Thank Gracious God they are beautifully restored now and doing very well.
I can not but wonder why? how? I guess God is so much principled that He will honor His word. The principle you work is what will work for you. Sometimes we need to slow down and give the needed attention our marriage requires. There is no point wishing your spouse were a ‘cassava’, if your spouse is a ‘rose flower’.
You better change your techniques and tools. If your spouse is a ‘rose flower’, get your hand gloves, hand trowel, watering can and get to work. You may not sweat it out like in the farm but you will be required to gently tend your garden. Each requires different skill.
However, if you stubbornly stick to the farming method you prefer you will not get the best of it.
Tomorrow, I will show us how we can tend our marriages.
God bless our marriage.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY My marriage will blossom
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, grant me the wisdom I need to tend my marriage
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Son 4:16 Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.
We’ll continue from the devotional we started yesterday “Here is how to love your spouse”
3. Learn About how a man and a woman think
Apart from loving God, you need to discover how men and women think. This will help you in consciously following the pattern of their thought process. There is a way peculiar to how men think. Men are logical being, they process things and see things from the logical point of view.
Men also think in box-like patterns. That is why they love things that are box-like. They love television, football, mobile phones, cars, etc. A man cannot do too many things together, they can’t multitask, like women. An understanding of how men think will help you understand them.
Women are emotional beings. They see things from the emotional point of view. That’s why they cry mostly. A woman hurts deeper than a man.
They think in spaghetti-like patterns. That’s why a woman can have all her emotions juggling up and down. A woman can multitask and do so many things at the same time. This knowledge can solve some major issues in learning to love and understand your spouse.
4. Learn your spouses’ love language
We have dealt with love languages in depth in the past. Kindly refer to it for more about love languages. There will be a primary way your spouse feel loved. Find out that language and speak it. It is an amazing way to love your spouse when you speak their love language.
5. Be yourself, don’t pretend
In loving your spouse, you don’t have to pretend. We are all a work in progress. We are all getting better by the day. I can say I am getting better at loving my own husband now than before. The things that used to get me feeling bad are probably not a major concern to me anymore. I have become more matured.
So, if you are not there yet, don’t pretend you are there. You will soon discover you can’t fake it for long and then you will be back at square one. Go at your pace and don’t pretend. In fact, love never pretends, love is always transparent.
We will continue tomorrow with the concluding part of “how do I love my spouse?”
God bless your marriage.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I know how to love my spouse. I have God’s wisdom
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, help me to know and understand how to love my spouse.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY “Finally, all [ of you ] should be of one and the same mind (united in spirit), sympathizing [ with one another ], loving [ each other ] as brethren [ of one household ], compassionate and courteous (tenderhearted and humble).” (1Pe 3:8, AMP)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Start loving appropriately
How do you know how to love your spouse? This is an all-important question that we all try to answer ever since we got married. We all are still trying to answer it and we will still be answering it till death do us part. It is an awesome truth that only death is supposed to part husband and wife. Apart from that, no other thing is permitted to separate us.
Some of us need to learn and be taught how to love our spouses. No matter how complex they are, you have the capacity to love your spouse with the love of God. It is actually spiritual to love your husband/wife. There is nothing carnal in loving your spouse.
These are some ways
1. Love God first of all This is the very first step in loving your husband/wife, love God. A spouse that doesn’t love God cannot love his/her spouse. God is love and it takes a heart that knows God to love. You love God by loving His Word and doing His will.
When you love God this way, it becomes easier for you loving your spouse because you would have developed the capacity to love and put the flesh under. Human nature is generally selfish and does not want to love unconditionally.
God expects us to love our spouse unconditionally.
2. Know that you need God all the way Loving God is not something you do half half-heartedly or once and for all or once in a while. Because you cannot fully know God completely, you have to keep yearning for more of him. The more you discover about God, the more you want to love him. So in loving God, you become a God chaser.
I have seen in my own experience that, the more I chase after God the better I love my husband
To be continued…
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I know how to love my spouse. I have God’s wisdom
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, help me to know and understand how to love my spouse.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY “Finally, all [ of you ] should be of one and the same mind (united in spirit), sympathizing [ with one another ], loving [ each other ] as brethren [ of one household ], compassionate and courteous (tenderhearted and humble).” (1Pe 3:8, AMP)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Start loving appropriately
This is a question we need to ask ourselves from time to time. “Is God first in my marriage?” How do you deliberately keep God in that first place in your marriage?
Youdo that by making His word come first place in your relationship or marriage
How do you do that?
You read His word regularly.
You study His word regularly.
You obey His word all the way.
Let God be the first place.
When you have this covenant attitude, it will help you to resolve issues quickly in your marriage. You wouldn’t want to disobey God with strife and bitterness.
Listen to me, husbands, when you are angry with her, and you stay away from her and you refuse to talk with her, you are tampering with the blessings of God upon you as a family.
It is right there in the scripture:
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. (1 Peter 3:7 KJV)
Treating your wife roughly can run prayer aground!
Wives, when you stay hurt over trivial issues and refuse all apologies or you refuse to apologise, you are actually playing with fire in the spiritual realm.
I jokingly said in an interview I had that my wife doesn’t say sorry to me. I say all the “sorry!”
But you see, in the first few years of our marriage, I didn’t use to say sorry! She said all the “sorry!”
So I guess she had exhausted her quota of “sorry” because she said it so many times! Now she doesn’t say it again, so I had to take over! It doesn’t diminish me a bit; the important thing is that somebody says “sorry!” That’s the goal.
All issues should be quickly resolved. It is not about who is wrong or who is right, it is just that you don’t want to get cut off from God’s blessings because of some feelings or ego!
It is a covenant understanding that you must imbibe which will make you go far in your marriage and in the things of God.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am wise. I put God first place in my life and marriage
PRAYER FOR THE DAY
Lord, teach me to be a wise son/daughter by placing a value on your word.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: (1 Peter 3:8 KJV)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Go ahead and end all quarrels
READ THROUGH THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR Genesis 43 – 45
