In these days and these times, you fall in love deliberately and with your eyes open, not hopelessly and thoughtlessly!
You don’t fall in love or walk down the aisle in marriage without taking into considerations some pertinent questions in order to protect yourself and to be sure you know what you are doing!
Gone are those days when you should fall in love blindly and go into a marriage without your common sense!
Well, if you are still with the slogan that love is a blind, I have news for you, marriage is an eye opener. Reality settles in after marriage.
It is for this reason careless marriages end few months after! Trust me, I get calls every other day, of brides who are still supposed to be in the moon taking some honey, crying and weeping profusely and talking about regrets.
I get calls of ladies who are married for less than six months and they want to walk out of the marriage because they never knew ‘he was like this!’
There is a popular saying that God gave us brains that He may rest! It is true because after God finished the work of creation, the bible says God rested.
I believe God is resting because everything is completed, all we need for life and Godliness is already provided.
The same is true of our relationships, everything we ever need is already available, we only need to look within us and draw it out.
Part of drawing all we need, I believe, is asking ourselves certain questions.
Questions are very powerful, what they do is that they draw out wisdom from within us or from people around us who are graced with such wisdom.
To be continued…
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I possess wisdom, wisdom directs my actions. I am not blindly in love that I do not apply wisdom. I am patient to find out what I need to find out before saying ‘I do’.
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Lord, help me to do my part and follow your leading in my decisions especially in the area of my relationship.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY ‘Ask (questions), and the answer shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you’. –Matthew 7:7
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Take a pen and paper and write down all the questions you are going to ask the person you intend to marry, whether he/she is already around or not.
The son is playing football initially, but the moment he hears the dad’s car horn, he jumps into the living room, opens Modern Biology textbook and starts reading.
Dad comes in and sees son sweating like Christmas goat. He asks why he is sweating like that and the boy has no choice but to point to the Modern Biology textbook, ‘it’s the Amoeba sir!’
The wife hurries into the kitchen and puts food in the microwave oven, while dad clears his throat. The lion of the tribe of his house has come!
That is not an ideal home, something is defective! When those children have the slightest opportunity to be outside the home, they will misbehave.
There is something about having a home that radiates with God’s love. The husband and wife must work together to achieve this.
A husband comes home drunk. He comes home late. He beats his wife in front of his children. He scolds his wife in front of his children. He keeps malice with his wife and sometimes with his children. He does not provide for his family. He is involved in extra-marital affairs. He does not eat his wife’s food. The list is endless.
Those behaviours are not ‘house binding’ but ‘animal husbandry!’ The man is unwittingly sowing wrong seeds into his home and when the harvest comes? The scripture aptly says when you sow wind, you will reap whirlwind!
Dear husband, be good. You will enjoy yourself and your family that way. Don’t compromise. Don’t cheat on her. Be faithful!
When you are faithful to your wife, you will enjoy the fullness of God’s blessings, favour and approval. Learn the art of conflict resolution.
Be patient with her! I pray God bless and keep your home and marriage in Jesus name. Amen!
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am a great husband. I love my wife like Christ loves the church.
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Lord, grant me the grace to be a good husband to my wife and a great example to my children.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Bless your fresh-flowing fountain! Enjoy the wife you married as a young man! –Proverbs 5:18 (MSG)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Write out seven special things you can do daily in the coming week to rekindle your marriage and affirm your wife.
One of the meanings of ‘husband’ is ‘he that binds the house together’ He keeps the home, the wife, and children, and makes sure they are well taken care of.
Taking care of them is not just providing money for them, but being there for them, nurturing them, and connecting with them emotionally.
A father’s care is powerful. Most of the perverts and criminals we have in our society today are those that have been deprived of fatherly care.
Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church-a love marked by giving, not getting. – Ephesians 5:25 (MSG)
It is said that most husbands don’t understand the extent of grace and authority that God has bestowed on them as head of the house.
My Pastor once said jokingly but truthfully that the only husbandry we are taught in school is animal husbandry and that is why some husbands behave like animals at home.
There is no course in school titled ‘Marriage 101.’ Your school of marriage begins after collecting the certificate! Marriage is the only institution where you collect the certificate before the learning begins.
The Daddy comes home, and all the children plus the wife dive into different corners looking pious…
To be continued…
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am a great husband. I love my wife like Christ loves the church.
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Lord, grant me the grace to be a good husband to my wife and a great example to my children.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Pro 5:18 MSG Bless your fresh-flowing fountain! Enjoy the wife you married as a young man!
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Write out seven special things you can do daily in the coming week to rekindle your marriage and affirm your wife.
3. Never Underrate The Enemy’s Attack On The Home And The Effectiveness Of Prayer.
Assumption is the lowest form of knowledge. Be a praying woman and don’t explain away all the issues, quarrels, strife, and other things that drive you apart from your husband.
Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.-2Corintians 2:11 (KJV)
After all, we don’t want to unwittingly give Satan an opening for yet more mischief-we’re not oblivious to his sly ways! -2Corintians 2:11 (MSG)
A great woman must learn how to pray. Learn to take everything to God. You can birth things in prayer and that is why you have a womb. I am not in any way exonerating men who are supposed to take the lead in prayers at home but don’t wait for him, especially where morning devotions are concerned. It has been discovered that wives usually push for morning prayers at home in families before the husbands take over.
4. Never Allow Emotional And Actual Affairs
This is one area that is guaranteed to ruin any family when dabbled into. Don’t be pressured in any way to cheat on your husband! I have counseled a few husbands who feel so cheated and bitter because their wives compromised, and it took God’s intervention to keep the family going.
The sin of adultery is not a once and for all sin, it unlocks several other demonic doors and brings with it serious heartaches. Be loyal to your husband. If you are under intense pressure, find someone you really trust to talk with because sin is perpetuated in the atmosphere of secrecy. The power of iniquity is broken when exposed!
I pray over your home that God’s peace will reign in Jesus name! I say to every storm raging over your family and home, ‘be still, in Jesus name! Over your home, God’s counsel will stand!
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am a wise woman. I love my spouse appropriately
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Pray that God will give you the wisdom to be a helpmeet indeed
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. Proverbs 14:1
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Pray for your husband and children now.
This morning, I want to write about four principles that should never be flouted by any lady, flouting these principles is a sure way a woman can destroy her family.
1. Never Compare Your Home Or Family With Another.
A lot of women are caught up in comparison traps, spending the money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need in order to impress people that are not even taking note!
You need to understand that some people use 90% of their income to pose and show forth, so it is foolhardy to compare yourself with them.
For we dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. -2Corintians 10:12 (KJV)
See how another translation puts it;
We’re not, understand, putting ourselves in a league with those who boast that they’re our superiors. We wouldn’t dare do that. But in all this comparing and grading and competing, they quite miss the point. -2Corintians 10:12 (MSG)
When you fall into a comparison trap, you can put yourself, your husband, and your family in unnecessary pressure. Continual comparison can sentence one into a perpetual state of ungratefulness to God which can eventually culminate in depression.
2. Never Become The Head Of Your Family.
That is not the order that God has instituted. The moment you try to do this, you have violated the principles of God and confusion will surely set in.
This is often expressed when you refuse to accept corrections from your husband.
But I want you to understand that Christ is supreme over every man, the husband is supreme over his wife, and God is supreme over Christ. -1Corintians 11:3 (GNB)
I am not in any way suggesting you violate God’s principles in order to ‘submit’ to your husband. But in a general sense, a wife is supposed to submit to her own husband. Some women submit to their Pastors but not to their husbands.
That bothers on hypocrisy because you are submitting to another man’s husband in effect. Your submission to your Pastor becomes genuine when you really submit to your own husband.
To be continued…
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am a wise woman. I love my spouse appropriately
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Pray that God will give you the wisdom to be a helpmeet indeed
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. Proverbs 14:1
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Pray for your husband and children now.
