I
appreciate God for another gracious day and another beautiful opportunity to
share the truth of God’s word with you. I hope and pray that your marriages are
being impacted positively by the truth of the word of God shared on this blog
and I really bless the Lord for your lives.
A
couple of days ago I read a question on one of my social media timelines that
has inspired me to just drop a few lines for us to really think about. And the
question says, “Which is most important for a marriage to succeed? A). Love,
B). Trust, C). Time, D). Sex. In the next couples of days, we will go through these
elements of marriage one after the other and search the Bible to find out what the
word of God says about each and then each of us will be able to answer this
question in a more personal way.
So
we will start with the first option which is love. Quite a number of people
have the mindset that before a relationship can kick off, love must exist. For a
lot of people love is the igniting force of a relationship and before you go into
marriage, the first question that is asked is “Do you love him or her enough to
marry him/her?” But I will be saying that this approach is so very wrong, the
application of this approach has birth a lot of divorce in marriages as we see
today.
Songs
of Songs 2:7, 3:8 and 8:4
Daughters
of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not
arouse or awaken love until it so desires.
Daughters
of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not
arouse or awaken love until it so desires.
Daughters
of Jerusalem, I charge you: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.
What
I am learning from these three Bible passages above is that for a relationship that is
destined or desired to lead to marriage love does not come first. I have come
to see love as an emotion like all other emotions such as crying, feeling happy, a sad feeling, feeling gloomy or grouchy and so on, and all these
emotion can be controlled because we have the power to control them.
For
a relationship to be ignited there must be some form of attraction, but before
we fan the flame of love or before we allow this attraction to give birth to
what we call love, there is the need to pray and seek the face of God on what
you are about to get yourselves into. It is only advisable to fall in love
after you must have consulted properly with God and are sure you are doing the
right thing or taking the right step. If Solomon being the wisest man to ever
live in the Bible times will repeat a warning three times on inappropriate release of love, you can be sure that it’s a warning worth heeding to.
If
you ask me if love is important for the existence of marriage, my answer will be
a very BIG YES. If it was not so, the Lord will not instruct the man over and
over again to love his wife as himself. From my observation we women don’t find
it hard to love at all; we release and awaken love so very easily that God had
to warn us three times through Solomon to exercise caution in the way and
manner we release love. But for the men, it appears the other way round has God
has to remind them over and over again to love their wives as themselves
(Ephesians 5:25-29, Colossians 3:19, 1 Peter 3:7).
If
you then ask me if a marriage can be sustained solely on love, I will answer a
BIG NO; and this is my reason. I have come to understand and appreciate love as
catalyst in marriage. It’s like bringing two objects together to form one piece
and then using an adhesive to hold them firmly together so they don’t fall
apart. Love is that adhesive that holds the man and his wife together to make
them just one entity rather than two.
Just
like in natural objects, the stronger the adhesive used in holding the two
objects together, the longer those two objects will remain together. So if the
quality of the adhesive is good, the objects hold together for longer and if
the quality of the adhesive is poor, in no time at all the two objects will
fall apart. In the same manner, the quality of love in your marriage is very
important. What motivated the love that is keeping you and your spouse
together? Is it the God motivated love or the money motivated love or the
beauty motivated love?
If
it’s the God motivated love, whereby you prayed to God, sought His consent
before releasing your love to that woman or man, then your love is a good
quality love that will stand the test of time. If it’s the money motivated
love, then God help you that money never finishes, because if it does, it takes
away the love with it and you can smile your union good bye or begin again
with God. And if it’s the beauty motivated love, it another no assurance kind
of love, because beauty fades and also with it fades the love. And these issues are
some of the reasons we have failed marriages today.
The
beautiful thing about the God originated love in marriage is that the love
never ends. Because you have made God the foundation of your marriage, He will
watch over it and ensure that the adhesive of love never runs out. At the
slightest hint of trouble, He reapplies the love and He ensures everything is
going fine. When you need to learn some lessons and He needs to purge some
negativity out of your union, He does it meticulously such that lessons will be
learned, negativity will be removed and the love will still remain. With the
God’s originated love also comes prosperity and beauty and all the other things
you would have wished for in the marriage; because you have made God the
foundation of your marriage, the success of that marriage is as much His
business as it is yours if not more.
With
this revelation, I want you to answer for yourself, is love the most important
element in marriage? If you are not sure what your answer will be, then maybe
we should wait until all other elements are looked into and you can answer what
yours will be. I already know what my answer is anyway.
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