The Marriage Series (11)

Hello great and wonderful people, I am so positive that you are all doing great and your homes are receiving a touch from God and looking good too. I hope this marriage series isn’t coming late, but if it is, I am really sorry. Please accept my apology.

In today’s marriage series, I want to discuss what I call Marriage Investment. I pray that this blog post will touch many marriages and heal many homes and I particularly pray that those who are preparing for marriage will find this blog post helpful and encouraging.

One truth about life is that we make investments every day, in fact almost every moment of our lives we are making one form of investment or other and we expect to receive some form of returns on investment.

One thing we might not realize is that every action we take in life is a form of investment. Every passion we create is an investment, every time we spend on a thing is an investment, even the love we give is an investment. This explains why when you give your attention to something, you expect a level of satisfaction from that which you have investment your attention on. In the same manner, when you give your love to someone, you expect love in return. When you spend time on something, you expect value for that time that you have spent. And when you visit a friend, unconsciously you expect that friend to pay you a visit in return. Even when you show respect, it is a form of investment, because in truth you expect some form of respect in return. I guess that is why they say that “respect is earned and not forced or imposed.” So you will agree with me that almost everything in life is an investment; some prefer to refer to it as a seed sown. But the bottom line is that something has been given for which a form of returns on investment is expected.

In marriage it isn’t any different. In order to enjoy the ultimate benefit of a marriage some level of investment must have been made into it, and what yields for you as returns on investment is in direct proportion to what has been invested in the marriage. This is not for just a particular gender; it applies to all in marriage.

There are loads of investments that you need to make in your marriage that will ultimately yield for you the sweetness of marriage. And marriage investment is not a one-time investment; it is continuous, with each investment having different maturity date and pattern. I want us to consider this illustration: In order to enjoy a meal of pounded yam and vegetable soup (an African delicacy), the ingredients for this meal is not just one, but many. First you have the yam, the green leave vegetables, the tomatoes and pepper, the seasonings, onions, palm oil and then the meat or fish as one would want it to be.

For you to get the yam, it needs to be planted, and so are the green leave vegetables and the pepper, then the onions and tomatoes and the palm oil. The seasons for planting these crops are different and their growths to harvest time are also different. Yet all of these crops come together to produce for us the African delicacy of pounded yam and vegetable soup. And for people to continue to eat pounded yam and vegetable soup, then there is the need to continually cultivate the crops that will produce this African delicacy.

I want us to now apply the lessons of this illustration into our marriage. There is no magic or luck to a good marriage, the success of a marriage is determined by the type and volume of investment made into it. Marriage investment is not a one-time investment; it is continuous if we must continue to reap the return on investment of peace, love and harmony in our marriages. What you invest in the marriage and the quantity of that investment will determine what comes to you at the end of the day. Someone who bought ten thousand dollar shares in a company cannot expect to yield the same returns on investment as someone who bought one million dollar shares in that same company. The investment type is the same in that they both bought shares in the same company, but the volume of shares bought is different and as such the dividend will be different at the end of the accounting period.

Before I round up this post, I want us to look into the type of investment to make into a marriage for it to be successful. In this marriage series we have looked into the different roles for the husband and the wife in marriage which if followed through effectively are a type of investment in marriage that should yield returns for the investor. We have talked about God’s rule for the man to love his wife as himself which is an investment that would yield returns, and we have spoken of God’s rule for the wife to submit to her husband as unto the Lord which is also an investment that would yield returns. Then we have looked as the virtuous wife and all her domestic roles that when performed effectively are investments that would yield returns to her, and we looked at the husband who has been assigned to provide for his family and take care of them which if he also performs effectively would yield returns for him.

Another investment that is very necessary is that of prayers. When you have invested all of these good virtues, then you guard your investments jealously with prayers. Quite a numbers of times some spouses get tired of making investment into their marriage because they seem not to be seeing or enjoying the returns on their investment and this is where prayer becomes very essential. Like I said earlier, investment is like sowing a seed and marriage investment can also be likened to that. When you sow into a bad soil no matter how good the seed, it’s either that the yield on what is sown is low or you will absolutely have no yield at all owing to the fact that the soil is bad and cannot support the life of your seed. When you buy shares in a company that is not well managed you are bound to run into a loss. This also applies in marriage. So for those yet to marry you need to pray well before entering into that union.

But prayer does something else; prayer can change the composition of the soil and make a bad soil good. There is nothing God cannot do, so He can turn your loss and porous soil to humus soil fit for planting where your seed will germinate well and produce good for you. So guard your investment or seed jealously in prayers.

The best investment to make in marriage is the investment of wisdom and understanding. This is the bedrock of any and every successful marriage. And when I speak of wisdom and understanding, I mean God’s wisdom and understanding which is only obtained on the altar of prayers. Love is a very good investment to make in marriage, but I tell you that God’s wisdom and understanding far outweighs love when you are investing for a successful marriage. When you pray to God, ask Him to give you the necessary wisdom and understanding that you need to invest in your marriage to make it a success.

I finish this post by asking, “What are you investing in your marriage in order to make it a success that you desire?” What you invest determines what you get. Think about it.

It’s been a lengthy post and I pray it meets you well and timely and impacts your life and marriage positively. So please stay with me for the next episode on the Marriage Series. Till then stay tuned and remain blessed. 

The books Marriage: God's Rules of Engagement and Because the Lord Seeks Godly Offspring are available in paper back on Createspace eStore and on Konga.com for the Nigerian readers. Please get your copy and be blessed by them. Please find below the link address to these materials from the respective online stores for easy access to them.

Createspace eStore address link: https://www.createspace.com/4309313

Kindle Store address link : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HGHVPOU

Konga eStore address link: http://www.konga.com/rinmoe-books

Createspace eStore address link: https://www.createspace.com/4352171

Kindle Stores address link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DW8E3O6

Konga eStore address link: http://www.konga.com/rinmoe-books