Communicate But Not Rebuke

I really appreciate the responses I got from my last post and one of those responses prompted my post today. And so I will share the response I got and then give a comment on it. I hope to bless someone with this in Jesus name.

Ummmmmm! I don’t know, I have some trepidation about this article. Surely, a woman hath to be able to correct her husband, upon seeing his decision is incorrect. Now the manner in which the correction is made, that is a whole different matter. I don’t think that being submissive to one’s husband exclude correction if there is correction to be made. After all she is his helpmate. Being helpmate involves more than taking care of the children, household chores, waiting on one’s husband hands and feet. One hath to be able to have an input in the decisions that are made, but the husband, the last say. Now if after you have addressed the mistake that he has made or about to make, whether purposely or not, and he makes no attempt to adjust, that is when the helpmate goes to the Lord. In case of Michal, pride was her downfall and we know that pride comes with baggages, one being jealousy! Just my view. God bless you always.

My Comment

I appreciate constructive responses such as this, because just like this one, it’s give us more reason to discuss and something meaningful to have a discussion on.

The first thing I want us to understand as Christian wives is that God did not place you in the life of your husband as a zombie or a robot; you have a functioning brain so that it might be used constructively. And your assignment in the life of your husband and your marriage is to add value to the life of that man who is your husband in order that he might be a better person than he was before the Lord placed you in his life.

With that said, you should understand that you have ideas and opinions for a reason. Abigail the Bible said was an intelligent wife (1 Samuel 25:3) and that was for a reason; your intelligence as a wife serves a purpose. The fact that you cannot correct your husband does not mean you cannot communicate with him, but there is a big difference between communication and rebuking or correcting your husband. Proverbs 16:24 says, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones,” when you apply this in your marriage you are communicating with your husband. When you apply the method of pleasant words that are like honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones, you can be sure that your opinions will count and communication will take place effectively.

But the dictionary defines rebuke as “to express sharp, stern disapproval of; reprove; reprimand,” and the dictionary also defines correction as "punishment intended to reform, improve, or rehabilitate; chastisement; reproof." With these definitions of correction and rebuke, which of them do you think falls within the role of a wife to her husband? As a matter of fact it is not proper for a wife to speak rudely to her husband. So with this, you will agree with me that communication and correction are two different things all together and the wife can communicate with her husband; call his attention to an error in judgment he might be making (and doing so politely), but never rebuke or chastise her husband. That is way beyond her scope of assignment. If you correct your husband by politely pointing out his errors to him, that can be acceptable. But when this goes beyond politely pointing out errors to rebuking then you are stepping out of your boundary lines. It is not in your place as wife to lord anything over your husband and you cannot force your views on him. Pray and communicate and let God handle the rest. 

Another misconception we have as women is that we have reframed the phrase help meet to help mate. A help meet is a suitable or a fitting help; so to say that it is a help that meets the purpose for which it is required. While a help mate is that both of you are on equal standing helping each other; so to say that you are mates and you are helping each other.

I have searched the KJV, NIV, NKJV, NLT versions of the Bible and I have not come across a place where God says He will make a help mate for the man. What I have seen in Genesis 2:18 is God saying He will make a help meet, a suitable helper, a helper who is just right, a complementary helper for the man. So a wife is a helper who meets the needs in the life of her husband. But the wife and her husband are not equal or mates in marriage. Ephesians 5:23 says the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church and 1 Corinthians 11:3 reads, “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man and the head of Christ is God". So we need to know that the head of the wife/woman is her husband/man, so it is out of place for a woman to attempt to rebuke or chastise her head.

And lastly, I believe it is safer to pray about an issue before taking action. When you pray, the Lord directs you on what to do and then prepares the situation to respond favorably to whatever action you will take. But when you act first and things get out of hand before praying it will be like one taking medication after death. I agree that there is no situation that God can’t handle; He can bring back to life from the grave, but you would have tasted a grave which could have been avoided if you had prayed before acting.

I decided to share this response because I am positive that it makes a good line of discussion and a lot of lessons are available to learn from it. And I pray that lives have been blessed to the glory of God. Amen    

Are Wives Allowed to Correct their Husbands?

Hello beautiful people, I trust we are all doing great to the glory of God. I feel blessed to be alive today and more importantly to be alive to serve the living God. I pray that in Jesus name, the Lord will use me to make an impact in the life and marriage of someone today to the glory and praise of His name alone.

As I was praying and trusting God on what to share today, this question came to mind and this I believe is what the Lord will want us to address in today post. The question is: “Are wives allowed to rebuke their husbands when such a husband is obviously doing something wrong?” This has been a major issue in marriage when wives think they can correct their husbands if and when necessary; and so we will be doing some Bible digging to see if that is allowed in marriage.

Genesis 12:11-13

As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful women you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, “This is his wife. ‘Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.’”

Genesis 20:11-13

Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife. And when God caused me to wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”

1 Samuel 25:14-19

One of the servants told Nabal’s wife Abigail: “David sent messengers from the desert to give our master his greetings, but he hurled insults at them. Yet these men were very good to us. They did not ill-treat us, and the whole time we were out in the fields near them nothing was missing. Night and day they were a wall around us all the time we were herding our sheep near them. Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is hanging over our master and his whole household. He is such a wicked man that no-one can talk to him.”

Abigail lost no time. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grains, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys. Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead; I will follow you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

2 Samuel 6:20, 23

When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls and his servants as any vulgar fellow would.”

And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.

These are scriptures in the Bible where I find the answer to our question addressed or should I say reflecting. And from my own interpretation of these Bible passages what I can conclude is that it’s not in the place of a wife to correct her husband where he is wrong or right. This might not sound pleasant to a lot of people but it is the truth of the word of God. Ephesians 5:22 says wives should submit (obey) to their husbands as to the Lord. So what God is invariably saying is that the kind of reverence and obedience you give to Him as God, same you should give to your husband. So if you cannot correct God when you think His pattern is not what you think it should be, then in same manner, you cannot correct your husband when you think his pattern is not what you think it should be.

A lot of disagreements, violence, discords, chaos in marriage would be averted when you as a wife understand and appreciate that you cannot correct your husband when you think he is not doing it right. That is beyond your scope of engagement as his wife. It is beyond your God given assignment as his wife. It is a no go area for you. You cannot change your husband, so don’t bother trying. You are not God, so don’t try playing one in his life.

So if I have said that a wife cannot correct her husband when he is treading on a wrong path, what can she then do to put him back on the right path as his suitable helper? Well all you can do is to run back to His maker and your Maker and the God who placed you in his life as a suitable helper to report the situation to Him and let Him handle it. Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases.” That king includes your husband. Once you call God’s attention to the situation, He swings into action and makes amend where and when necessary in the life of your husband.

You can also do what intelligent Abigal, the wife of mean and surly Nabal did. When she heard of the blunder her husband had committed, she never even challenged him; she didn’t even talk to him about what she had heard. The Bible said she lost no time in correcting the gaffe herself without even letting her husband know. She swiftly right her husband’s wrong and that settled it. All these simple acts of wisdom never passes God, because that same Abigail became the wife of David after the death of her mean and surly husband Nabal.

Then Sarah the mother of all godly women simply obeyed her husband’s foolishness without a challenge. That to a lot of women is the height of foolish submission, but in truth that is godly wisdom put in display. Sarah understood that obedience to her husband meant obedience to God. And this foolish wisdom didn’t go unnoticed or unrewarded by God. Sarah remained a beautiful woman till her death and at the age of 90years, she had her covenant with God fulfilled.

You would want to ask me if it’s okay to see your husband do something wrong and just not say a word to dissuade him or try putting him in the right path. Well wisdom they say is profitable in all things; if your husband’s mistake is a genuine oversight on his part, there is no sin in pointing out his mistake to him or calling his attention to his error politely and with well chosen soothing words. Also when your husband is about to take a decision and he requests for your input or advice on the matter, there is no sin in giving him your candid opinion in a loving manner even when your own opinion contradicts his views. Proverbs 16:24 says, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones,” invest a lot of this in your marriage and you will reap the harvest of peace, love and joy.

But when you know the husband you have married not to be one who welcomes advice from you, then my word for you is to pray for him when you think he is taking a wrong step or you want a character trait in his life changed. Never try to play God in your husband’s life, just pray for him that the Lord will fill him up with His Spirit that will always lead your husband to act in accordance with the will of God for his life. You prayer goes a long way, far more than you can imagine.

Michal tried to correct her husband David based on her own judgment of what she thinks should be right for him. First her method of rebuke was very wrong and then her purpose of rebuke was also not called for. But can one really blame her; she rebuked based on what she thought should be, and that rebuke led to her being barren till she died. David her husband chastised her in words, and then God crowned her punishment with barrenness. So as a wife, never jump into conclusions on what you think should be right or wrong, you don’t have the monopoly of knowledge, we are all continuously learning. What is wrong is your own view might be permissible by God, so just pray and let God handle things in a manner He alone can.

May the Lord bless our homes. 

Where Did I Go Wrong

Hello beautiful people of God, I trust we had a very restful weekend, and I pray that we will have a prosperously blessed week to the glory of God alone in Jesus name.

Today’s blog will be another gist day, and I will be sharing a story again that I believe by the grace of God will bless your lives and marriages.

Issue

I had a fiancé who we had both agreed to marry. We loved each other so much that we appeared a perfect fit. We understood each other well and for me life could not be better. Then we began our wedding plans and problem started. His parents objected to our union on the grounds that my family were not on the same social class with them. They stated that they had arranged a wife for their son from among the daughters of their friends and nothing would change that.

My fiancé stood by me and stood his grounds against his parents but the pressure didn’t stop and soon there was a rift between him and his entire family because of me. After a while he came to plead with me to understand his position and allow him marry the girl his parents had picked for him, and marry me also as a second wife.

In the course of time I became pregnant and my fiancé rented an apartment for me and the unborn baby and took care of us very well. We lacked nothing at all. Not too long after that, my fiancé got married to the lady his parents picked out for him, but that didn’t change his feelings and attention for me and his unborn baby.

Months later I had a baby for him and still nothing changed, but I began to feel used. I began to feel like a second fiddle in his life. The thought that he would have to leave me to go home to be with another woman was a thought I couldn’t cope with and I began to think of calling it quite with the relationship.

My fiancé was beginning to start the wedding plans with me also when I decided to end the madness and end the relationship. I thought that was at least the most honorable thing to do, more so that I could not earn the approval of his family. I didn’t want to be seen and one who pulls family members apart. My fiancé felt I was being stupid and that after hanging on for so long, why I would want to quite just when we were about to seal our love. He begged me and pleaded with me, but that was not the happy ending I had wished for. When he could not talk me out of my decision to end the relationship, he let me have my way with a promise to ensure he pays the bills for his son and be responsible for his child's upkeep.

I eventually got married to another man and that was the beginning of my nightmare marriage. My husband is a far cry from my ex-fiancé. He is not caring and he is violent. I have become a punching bag to him and sincerely I don’t know what I have done to deserve a life like this one.

Response

In as much as I would say that you must have gone through a huge heartbreak, you never mentioned praying through these problems and asking for God’s intervention and direction. You have tried to solve your problems with your limited ability and that ability isn’t guaranteed to solve these problems. So first of all, I will encourage you to invite God into this situation. There is no time too late to invite God into any situation and have Him make the big and positive difference that only He can make.

On the issue of your former fiancé, I will say that what is past is past and its important to let it remain in the past. Any attempt to rejuvenate that affair amounts to a great sin before the Lord. Doing that means committing adultery and it is a sin.

The only godly option you have is to work with and on your marriage and make it work. I have always advised that what you sow in your marriage determines what you reap from it. In order for your marriage to yield positive fruits for you, then you need to sow positive values in it.

The fact that your ex-fiancé pampered you when you were with him does not translate to the fact that your husband now has to pamper you. As a matter of fact marriage is hard work that yields positive result and have loads of reward attached to it, but its never a bed of roses from the onset.

You can bring the best out of your husband by being prayerfully submissive to him. Pray for him always and obey him. If you desire any change in your husband then you can only pray that change to effect, but you cannot force it out. You can’t change your husband; only God can. And for you to have God work for you, you need to follow His instructions and obey His rules for your life and marriage.

A relationship with God is all you need to have a wonderful marital life. When you have Jesus in your life and His words reside in you then you can ask Him for anything and be confident that He will do it for you and that includes a wonderful marital life with your husband.

You should not hate your husband, and believe me; you don’t have any basis of comparing him with your former fiancé. This will just compound your problems and lead you to nowhere.  A divorce will also not solve your problem because there are better options for you that will yield better results.

I pray the Lord gives you rest on all sides in Jesus name.  

Some Evils in Marriage

Sometime ago I read one of this very many write-ups that circulates on social media and it was all about advertising the importance of DNA test for children born to parents; so to say confirming the paternity of the child. Obviously there is always very little argument about who the mother of the child is. And this advert as far as I was concerned injured in no small measure the trust and togetherness that otherwise should be promoted in marriage.

On the whatsapp platform that I belonged to where this post was circulated, I didn’t spare a minute in voicing my displeasure at the lengthy useless write-up that I had read noting that in order for someone to want to advertise his trade/business he needed to stoop low to discredit the marriage institution that my God established.

Quite a number of people responded to me that in as much as they understood my anger and outburst, the truth remains that quite a handful of men are fathering children that are not theirs biologically. They confronted me with stories of instances where it happened and said that I should speak for myself as I would be shocked at some evils that go on in marriage. And since that moment I made up my mind to make that a topic of discussion on this blog.

This issue is not limited to women and that I pointed out in my argument on that day; as I have heard of several men who have had children outside of their marriage even while being married and the wife was never in the know. The husband dies and these unknown children appear to pay their last respect to their late father and the wife is not just burning her late husband, but morning the betrayal that had been visited on her by a man she must have trusted with her life. So you can imagine the hurt. So today we will trust God to help us address this evil in marriage.

First I will try to highlight some of the reasons why a husband or a wife would leave the comfort of the bosom of his/her spouse to share his/her body with another man or woman thereby desecrating his/her body to the point of having children outside of wedlock.

Before highlighting any fake or insincere reason for this ignoble act, I will say that it is born out of greed, lust, covetousness and lack of satisfaction for what God has blessed you with.

One of the foolish reasons that has caused a woman or man to go and have children outside of wedlock is the inability of the husband or wife to have children and my question to that is, was your marriage instituted and establish solely for bearing children? Then where is the praying spirit in you that would make you commit a sacrilege even against your own body; an act that you cannot boldly let the world into? As God told you for sure that He is unable to give you a child at whatever age?

And for the women, if you deemed it fit to unveil your body to a man who is not your husband and then get pregnant for him then why not let him finish up what he started and father the child till his death. Why bring such a child to your covenant husband whom you have condemned as unable to give you children. Sincerely I can get this, and if just as a human, I feel so as terribly pained as I feel, then I wonder what God is feeling in heaven. That those He created and loved enough to sacrifice for have thought so low of His love for them to the point of not just committing adultery, but crowning it up with deceit and lies. God must be so very patient I tell you.

And the fact that the wife will live in the same house as a wife and a helpmeet to a husband whom she has conveniently deceived so bad, tells a lot about how bad she has murdered her conscience.

But letting anger aside and chatting a way forward, I trust the Lord to help me touch the lives of many through this post and make a meaningful impact in their lives.

God is not a partial God and He is not in the business of blessing some while abandoning the others. The difference between the marriage you see and envy and the man or woman you are lusting after and what God has blessed you with in your marriage and spouse is the ability to maintain and keep diligent what you have. What you sow in your wife is what you harvest from her and the same goes for the women to their husbands.

You don’t have any business being in bed with another man or woman who is not your spouse because what you have is best for you if you keep it well. You will be amazed at how caring, respectful, submissive and humble your wife can be if only you learn to love and pray for her. And you will be amazed at how loving and protective of you your husband can be if only you learn to submit to him and obey him.

If your wife is one who cares little about how she looks and poor with personal hygiene, a gentle and loving rebuke or better still provide helping hands in teaching her and she will be just ideal for you. Every baby born was born with the same capabilities and attributes, but as they grow, they are formed into different characters and they develop different mindsets. That is what teaching does to humans. When you lovingly and prayerfully teach your wife, I assure you, she will exceed your expectations.

I agree you can't change your spouse, but I know who can and He is God. So when you seek a change in your spouse, run to God in prayer. With patience and faith in God you will see the effect of your prayers in the new and better person that God mold out of your spouse and present to you.

And as for procreation, “Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him” (Psalm 127:3) that is what I read in my Bible and not children a reward from adultery or sons a heritage from the man or woman you are desecrating your bodies with outside of your marriage. Children are from God and when you need them produced in your marriage then you run to the One who gives them and causes them to be a blessing to us and that One is God.

Isaac’s wife didn’t have children for 20years and when her husband prayed, God answered. Have you prayed to God yet? Also note that children are a reward from God; reward is something given or received in return or recompense for service, merit etc. So what service have you rendered toGod to deserve the reward of children? Have you done a soul searching to know if you merit the child that you are seeking for and then change your ways where necessary, rather than dishonoring your body with another man/woman thereby making an already bad situation even worse?  

Deuteronomy 7:14 says “You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor any of your livestock without young.” This is the heritage of those who belong to God and I have read my Bible well, I am yet to come across a name of any who served God well and went to his or her grave childless. So why have a child or children outside wedlock?

I am yet to hear of a man who lived forever, and with eternity in view it’s important to conduct ourselves in a manner that is commendable by God. Our actions and deeds are basis for our assessment by God when we are done here on earth. Let’s not live life as though there are no consequences. The temptations will come and temptation is no sin; but it’s when you give in to temptation that you sin. This is a wake-up call for us in marriage

It's Another Gist Day

It’s a beautiful day and to the glory of God we are rounding up the month of March. In no time we will be seeing the end of this year again and by the special grace of God none of us will be missing. I really appreciate those who have called and sent personal messages to me on noticing that I stopped dropping posts on the blog. I am so very grateful for your thoughtfulness. I just took off some days to compile all the previous posts into one space in form of a book as I have gotten several requests for this. I am still in the process of getting that accomplished but still on request I am resuming posting here. So I pray for grace to be able to combine both tasks and by the grace of God we will all finish well to the glory of God in Jesus name.

On reading and vetting all the posts on this blog for over three years, I am amazed at the depth of what the Lord has opened our hearts to know and understand in marriage. If I am to be truthful, I will say that I have learned a great deal from things shared on this blog and I have a wonderful marriage to show for it.

In today’s post I want to share a rather funny marriage story. Although this story might appear kind of funny, but it is causing break-ups of many marriages. Its kind of strange what excuse the devil holds on to, to destroy many homes.

There is this married lady whose marriage is in serious trouble owing to the fact that she discontinued her birth control plan without her husband’s consent and then got pregnant for her husband. The husband is threatening to either send her out of the house or move out of the house for her just because she disobeyed him. He feels betrayed and the new incoming addition into the family is seen as an unwanted disruption of the man’s plan rather than a blessing.

This story is not a case in isolation as there are many marriages experiencing hiccups at the moment owing to a new baby in the family that is considered unwanted or unplanned for. As a matter of fact I know a lady who had a baby about 6months ago and the husband is yet to come to terms with the new princess in their home. So we will trust God to teach us on how to go about this kind of situation and how to resolve such issues.

Submission/Obedience, love, wisdom, communication and trust are very important ingredient for a successful marriage. Every other additive such as understanding, sex, money and so on, are spices to marriage but they are not the core ingredient to a successful marriage. But above all is your relationship with God, because that is where you obtain all the core values you need for a good marriage and even the additive spices too and then the power to have all the values work perfectly well for your good.

With that said I want to address the woman who discontinued her birth control plan outside of the knowledge and consent of her husband. I will say she called the wrath of her husband upon herself. If you and your husband were in agreement to control childbirth, then both of you should be in the know if the plans are changing. If and when you want to have more children, pray to God about it and ask the Lord to prepare the heart of your husband to accept you request with favor. The Lord will do for you beyond what you have asked for and you will find out that even before you present the matter to him, your husband is already giving the issue a thought on his own.

What you have done is deceitful and the consequence of what you have done is what you are faced with at the moment. But going forward you will return to the throne of God and pray for forgiveness. Then you go and beg your husband and plead with him to forgive you and have a mind never to do such again. Not just with having babies, but when you have agreed on a thing with your husband, let it stay sacrosanct. The success of your marriage is keyed on your ability to keep an agreement.

But for those who have not intentionally bridged any agreement to stop child bearing but just by the will of God an unplanned baby is gifted to you by God and your spouse isn’t too excited about this addition, you shouldn’t lose any sleep or get anxious. Just pray and lay the situation at the feet of Jesus. He will handle it and that child will eventually be a diamond in the heart of your husband.

I was once in that shoes; my last child who will be 3years in about 9days time was one child we didn’t plan for. We had three children prior to him and that was enough quiver full for us. I was on a birth control plan that was not working well with my system and I had to discontinue on doctor’s advice. I discussed with my husband and he agreed that I discontinue with that option. So I opted for another birth control plan and my husband instructed that I discontinue that one too because he was afraid of its side-effect. So I tried a third option which had almost zero accuracy. And then I got pregnant. But the interesting thing is that about 4days before I discovered I was pregnant, my husband and I had listened to a message on the spiritual dangers of abortion. As a born-again Christian having an abortion would never be an option for me, but that message helped my husband make up his mind about the coming baby. Today that child holds the key to my husband’s heart.

I really do pray that we have learned a valuable lesson from this and pray that such as excuse as this will not break up marriages again. May the Lord bless our marriages. 

Who is Your Adviser on Marriage Issues?

I can’t tell if it’s just a coincidence, or probably the Lord is opening up our hearts to the decay in our world and the grieve He feels as our God. Even as Christians who claim to know and profess God, we are not acting differently from those who don’t claim to be born-again Christians. I belong to a handful of women groups on Facebook, say about 4 of them and I always take kin interest not just in the issues posted on these groups but also on the comments shared by the countless commentators on the issue.

One major topic that surfaces most on almost all of these social media groups is abuse in marriage. For every one post shared on a successful marital experience, there will be almost 8-10 shared on abuse in marriage. The ratio between successful and unsuccessful marriage is almost 1:10 based on my own observation; and then you wonder why people are still getting married every day when all that is in it is bad and evil all the time. You then ask yourself how God feels about this ratio concerning an institution he created and ordained to bring ease to the man and woman He created. If I feel this bad about what I read daily on social media platforms with regards to marriage, then I wonder how God feels about it.

In the course of this week I pray the Lord will give us His word, and help us reach a lot of people; defining to them the truth of marriage, the laws of marriage and the seed that needs to be sown in marriage for us to be able to reap a harvest of peace, love and joy in a marriage.

For every issue raised concerning any form of misunderstanding in marriage, no matter how minute that disagreement was as long as the owner of the issue is careless enough to share it on the these group platforms the comments that follows are almost always “leave before its too late” and for some when they come on to share that they quickly walked out the marriage before things got worse, you will read comments like “I am happy for you for taking the bold step of walking out of their marriages; walking out of the duty post that God assigned for them; doing what God says He hates and yet they are being congratulated.” We aren’t talking about courtship here; we are talking of people who are duly and legally married. And you will have up to 5000 comments in some cases, 80% of which are applauding negativity in marriage and among these 5000 commentators are Christians, Muslims, freelancers, Idol-worshippers, Pagans and so on. And do you still wonder why the world we are now is as evil as it is?

Getting to the roots of this decay is gross rebellion against God and His words. We claim to know God but act, speak and think contrary to His words and instructions for our lives. We quote bogus Bible verses yet we don't apply them in our inner being. We are diligent church workers, missionaries in the field working for God, pastors and leaders in God’s vine yard, yet we know nothing about submission to your husband. Yet Jesus said if you have failed in one law, you have failed in all.

Some women are so diligent for God that wearing make-up and wearing female trousers is a sin as far as they are concerned. They are even against the use of hair extensions or nail polishing, yet submission and reverence to their husbands is not what they want to hear. That command from God is not practicable in their world and worse even if their husbands and not yet born-again or as spiritual as they are. For some they abstain from earrings and all forms of jewelry, yet they disdain their husbands from the depth of their hearts. A woman will encourage another woman that once your husband slaps you once you better carry your bag and leave the marriage before he makes it a habit. Forgetting that against all odds, the woman that you have asked to leave her marriage is actually leaving her primary duty post in her assignment for God for which she will give account to God on her performance. Forgetting also that with prayers and right attitude her husband will not make the mistake of being violent to her and yet she does not have to leave her marriage for which she is accountable to God. 

Now, have you bothered to ask that lady why her husband hit her? We all don’t face the truth of the matter. If you expect the husband to be civil and matured enough to keep a check on his temper, why can’t we expect the wife to be civil and matured enough to keep her tongue tamed and submit to her husband as unto the Lord. In truth what we will and hear is the husband who beats his wife, but what we should see is a wife whose untamed tongue and bad attitude has dealt her beating through her husband.

If a man is not high on drugs and he is not under the influence of alcohol, I am finding it hard to comprehend a husband waking up in the morning and the first thing he’ll do is hit his wife for no reason. There must have been some form of conversation that must have led to an argument the eventually turns to violence. In as much as I hate a violent man and I won’t excuse their bad habit, but everything in life is cause and effect. When there is violence in a marriage the first thing is to understand the cause of the violence. Something originated it and that thing should be identified and removed. Marriage is to be enjoyed and not endured, but there are seeds to sow in marriage that will yield a harvest of joy and enjoyment for you. It is not an automatic occurrence no matter the level and degree of chemistry between you and your spouse. Just as a woman can retain and sustain her husband’s love for her through good attitude, submission and reverence for her husband and prayers, so also can she lose her husband’s love for her through negligence and bad attitude.

For the so many commentators on social media who applaud evil and encourage disobedience to God instructions, do you bother to ask the owner of the problem about the quality and quantity of her investment in her marriage for it to yield negative results for her. We sow seeds, but God makes them grow and produce fruits for us; but in truth we can’t deceive God, it’s what you sow you reap. When you aren’t reaping the desired result in your marriage, check the quality of your seed. No matter how many times you change spouses, if you don’t change your seed you can’t reap the fruits of a successful marriage.

And for the many issue owners, I will lend my words here. Many people will give you counsel, but against all counsel good or bad, the word of God will stand sure. You can be advised right or wrong, but ultimately the decision is yours. When you decide wrong you alone will face the consequences of your decision. You can’t give God the excuse of wrong advice as a reason for failing Him. When you have issues in your marriage, rather than leave the marriage or run to men for help and social media's faceless entities for advice, please run to God. He is just as real and practical as the wrong advisers you have on social media and everywhere around you. 

Another Story to Share

Hello wonderful people, I trust that by the special grace of the living God, this new month of March will be a month of divine uplifting for us as we remain daily in the love of Christ.

I saw a post on one of my social media platforms and the post was about marriage; someone had brought an issue that bothered on her marriage to a group I belonged to and before I could lend my thoughts on the issue and pen my comment, the comments icon had been disabled so I decided to share my thought via this blog. The very few comments I read on the issue broke my heart; to know the mindset of a lot of people concerning marriage made me realize why we have this high rate of failed marriages. So here is the story:

My mother-in-law’s first advice to my husband (I was seated beside him) was, “Don’t show too much love to your wife.” Please note that during the wedding, she did not come with the engagement requirements (dowry and traditional marriage rite gifts for my family) and she acted aloof and negative throughout the ceremony. She did not sit with parents in the front seat, but sat at the back. My husband’s action since then has been as follows:

·         Verbal and Physical abuse

·         Continuous disregard for my need

·         Utmost disregard for me before his family

·         Once there is disagreement, he leaves the house to go stay in his family house for days. His mum stays there

·         He doesn’t call my parents or siblings even after they call severally to check on him. He said I must not give him the phone when my family members call me and he’s beside me.

·         He does not pray with me.

Please what do I do?

I feel terribly maltreated. I developed these bad palpitations after I got married and these things started. I have lost two pregnancies. My monthly salaries go to his expenses.

Looking back, I had more joy as a single lady compared to after I got married. It’s been sadness-ridden 27months. I want out.

My Response

My darling sister, I want to wish you a big welcome to the examination room of life. Every stage in life comes with its own challenges and hurdles to cross as you grow, now you are in mid-life stage of life’s hurdles and with God on your side you can come out of it stronger and victorious.

In your first stage of life, you learned to grow from being a baby to being a toddler, you learned to talk, walk, run, sit, and stand and all that. Then you began to learn to read and write and began to learn to move from a child to a girl, then to a lady and now to a woman. Now you are learning to be a wife.

The first thing you need to understand is that you own your happiness. Never let your happiness depend on anyone but you and God. Allowing your emotions to be controlled by any one including your husband is giving such a person too much power over your life and such a person can use that power as he/she wishes even to your own detriment. The ability to control your own emotions is a powerful tool that God has blessed you with and you need to use it wisely and not give it to anyone.

You should not be miserable in marriage just because your husband is not seeing the value in you. When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see a powerful woman whom God has made in His image and likeness who has been fearfully and wonderfully made? If not, then begin to look deep within you and dig out the giant in you. Know your own worth, value yourself first. It is the value you place on you that your husband sees and appreciates. Don’t let the value your husband has placed on you or that which his mother has placed on you be above the value you place on yourself. Value yourself and in no time your husband and his family will value you.

Then in Genesis 2:24 we read that “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,” if your husband does not know this, you should know it. So your mother and father or his mother and father have absolutely no significant contribution in your marriage. Whether he relates with your family or not is of no significance at all and that should not cause you sleepless night in any way. If he does not want to talk to your family members, simply explain to them that he is not available at that moment and drop it. When he is ready to talk to them he will talk to them. He is currently not giving value to your family members because he has not placed value on you. It is the value that he place on you that he extends to your family. So the family value is not important at this point. Let's work at him building value for you first.

What should be of uppermost concern to you is how to get your husband’s attention and how to dig out the love that God has placed in his life for you. That love that he possesses belongs to you as his wife and not his mother or anyone else. The word of God says a man should love his wife as himself (Ephesians 5:25-29). So your assignment is to dig out that love that God has ordained for you that resides in your husband and that you enjoy it to the maximum because it’s there for you.

You cannot dig out that love with force, not with nagging or with a fight, and it cannot be bought with money. But you will effectively dig out that love by obeying the law of the Lord for your marriage. It is then and only then will you invite the intervention of God into your marital situation and when He intervenes, positive changes begin to take place. Note that you cannot change your husband, neither can you change his mother, the only person that you can change is you and make sure that the change is a positive change in line with the will of God for your marriage.

This law of the Lord begins with “wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22-24, Colossians 3:18 and 1 Peter 3:1-7), so apply this law to it's tiny detail in your marriage. You will find the code of conduct for a godly wife in Proverbs 31:10-31, apply this codes too; they are very effective. When you prayerfully submit to God by submitting to your husband and imbibe the code of conduct of a wife of noble character, God will cause the impossible to happen in your marriage.

Your mother-in-law and her manipulations are no match for the power of God when you allow God to intervene in your marriage through your prayers and deeds which are in obedience to His instructions for your marriage. Never allow your husband’s negative attitude or your mother-in-law’s manipulations make you deviate from doing God’s will for your marriage. Don’t focus on your husband or his mother, focus on God. Your focus on God will enable you to do the right thing and doing the right thing will help you win the battle over your marriage.
And lastly, you mentioned that your monthly salary goes to his expenses and I would have loved to know why that is so? I am an advocate of a wife financially assisting her husband when the need arises because that is what God has instructed us to do, but your responsibility is to assist and not to be a permanent breadwinner. Is it that your husband is not working? If yes, what effort is he making at earning income? If he is working, then he should take care of his own expenses if he can't be husband enough to take care of yours. With prayers and wisdom, you need to tactfully discontinue carrying his financial burdens IF your husband is making money or earning income.
But be mindful of the fact that obedience to your husband in everything includes the submission of your money if he demands it. But if he has not asked for your money, please don't carry his financial burdens if he is working and earning income it just amount to a waste of your hard earned income. Never think that you can earn his love by spending your money on him. It does not work that way. Love is not bought with money unless you are on a self-deceit and wasteful venture. You can only earn his true and genuine love and respect through the God approach which I have already highlighted earlier.

Be sure of this truth, your marriage will be sweet again. Joy will be restored in your home and love will reign in it as long as you are willing to fight for it.