Money and Marriage (2)

I thank God yet again for God’s grace to see another day and enjoy another divine goodness of God. It’s something to be grateful for always that we wake up early in the morning well and healthy everyday and our children, spouses and entire family are all well and okay. This is one gift from God that no amount money can buy. When your challenge in life is not that you are on the sick bed, please take a moment to thank God real good. It’s not because you are lucky, or that you are able to take care of yourself more than others, or that your money has bought you good health, it’s just because of the mercy and grace of God that you are as you are. I am thanking God and I hope and pray you are too.

In this post I am trusting God to teach us how we can combine the assignment of God on our lives and also the ability and the need to earn income and make wealth such that our primary assignment from God is not affected. The first thing that we need to place at the forefront of our minds is that at the beginning of time, God did not create us to struggle to eat and have the good things of life. Our assignment on earth is not that we might live to survive. All that we need to survive has been provided for by God even before He created man.

In the process of creation in Genesis 1, we will discover that God had created everything and set them in their places before He created man. God had planted the garden, provided the sunlight that the garden needs to grow well, He had provided the rivers to water the garden, and the rich soil with all its required nutrients had all been provided for before man was created. As a matter of fact God had created all the animals, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea had all been created and set in their places before God created the man. So what we need to understand is that God did not form man without adequately providing for the man He created even before man was created. So we see that of all that God assigned man to do, the pursuit of wealth and the struggle for survival was not part of it. When God created man, He asked the man and his wife to replenish the earth, to reproduce after their own kind, but God never left the man to go struggle for his own survival.

This knowledge is to help us understand how to prioritize our pursuit on earth. Some may argue that after Adam sinned, God cursed man and man would have to sweat and toil hard to eat. But another covenant came into existence after the sacrifice of Noah in Genesis 8, and from Genesis 9:1-3 when God gave man a fresh start He reestablished His initial order and God gave man everything as food. Toilsome labor vanished with the flood of Genesis 7.

This revelation is not designed for man to sit lazy and wish food on his table, but that as man gets busy on his assignment for God, God gets busy ensuring that such a man never lacks, and provisions of his needs are constantly and consistently made available to him. Men who truly pursue the things of God never lack. They may face obstacles and challenges along the way, but those are challenges they are bound to overcome because the word of God never fails. Jesus said we should seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness and all other things shall be added unto us. Moses said in Deuteronomy 8:18 that it is God who teaches our hands to make wealth, and King Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 2:26 that for a man who pleases God, He gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. Those are fundamental truth about life that we need to remind ourselves about.

With this revelation, we need to understand that in marriage money is just a means to an end; it is not the end focus and should not be the goal of any marriage. When you have money as the focus of your life, it’s like chasing after a wind. The more you pursue it, the more it runs from you. A marriage that has money as its main goal is most likely to be plagued with selfishness and frustration that ultimately leads to chaos. But when the focus of a marriage is to fulfill the God given assignment for the couples in the marriage, the means to accomplish that goal will be made available to them by God who assigned them the responsibility. So if the couples require wisdom to fulfill their goal which is to fulfill their God given assignment for their lives, then God will make sure that wisdom is made available to them in abundance. Also if the couple requires money to fulfill their goal which is to do what God has assignment them to, then God who gave them the assignment will ensure they have enough money to meet up with that which He has assigned them to do. God will not assign a responsibility to man without providing a means to meet up with the assignment.

God who has assigned the man to be the head of the home and to provide for his family will ensure that He provides for the man what he needs and requires to be the head of the home and to provide for his family be it money, wisdom, understanding and any other thing he needs. Also if God has assigned the wife to be a suitable helper to her husband, He will ensure that He provides her with all she needs to be a suitable helper to her husband and if money is required surely God will empower her with the required wealth.

When a man begins to struggle for survival, it’s likely because his focus and goal has shifted from God to survival. His eyes have probably shifted from God to money. When this happens, all that is required is for the man is to shift focus from money or survival back to God. When a man thinks he can survive outside of God, God does not intercept the man’s pursuit but waits patiently till the man realizes he can’t do it by himself and approaches God for help. Remember it is God who teaches our hands to make wealth.

With all that has been said, the question that comes to mind next is that; with all that we have learned of God’s provision, should a man then bother to work or should he sit and trust God for his provisions? Proverbs 18:9 says, “One who is slack in his work is a brother to one who destroys,” then Proverbs 12:24 says “Diligent hands rule, but laziness ends in slave labor.” “If a man will not work, he shall not eat” was the rule Paul gave in 2 Thessalonians 3:10. A man sitting idle and trusting God alone is a lazy man and poverty smiles at him if he does not wake up from his slumber and put his hands to work. It is what you put your hands to do that the Lord promised to bless in Deuteronomy 28:3-14 and not your laziness or idleness. If you long for the blessing of the Lord on your financial life then you need to present a work that you do for God to bless. And you also need to ensure that the work you do is in line with the ability and talent God gave you, and you are not pursuing after another man's success. Then if you honor God with your wealth and use your wealth in a manner that pleases God, you can be sure increase will not depart from your work. Growth and promotion will always be your portion as long as God and His will is your focus.   

The economy of this present day is very harsh and it is an understatement that it is beginning to affect many homes and marriages but this should not be. God did not design your marriage for struggles and survival. When others are complaining and groaning in the hardship of the present economy, you can live a life of abundance and your marriage enjoying a divine refreshment when you and your spouse have God at the center of your pursuit and you have His assignment for your lives as your goal. May the Lord bless our homes.