Matters Arising

When a marriage has challenges, someone will be blamed. The man, the woman or the institution itself. It is important that we address certain issues that contribute to marital failures and reinforce the principles that ensure success in matrimony.

I’ll start this message by saying:

THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH MARRIAGE

THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH MEN AND

THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH WOMEN.

 

THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH MARRIAGE:

Marriage is a beautiful thing created by God to bring you joy and blessings. Marriage is the highest form of relationship. Business partnerships don’t ‘join’ the individual parties. They remain separate. It’s only in marriage that “the two shall become one flesh”(Matthew 19:5). The phrase ‘one flesh’ simply means ‘one person’.

God said about marriage: “He that finds a wife finds a good thing…”  (Proverbs 18:22) and he obtains a level of blessing he cannot achieve when he is single. Being single is not a crime, but being married comes with tremendous blessings.

The Bible says “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up.” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10) .

This means their concerted efforts would yield a better result than when they were single. This is God telling us how good marriage is! Everywhere God talks about the union of marriage, it’s always a good thing.

That means marriage is good in every area. Financially, mentally, in every way. There’s nothing wrong with marriage. You may hear bad stories on T.V, on the internet, amongst the famous, but the truth is that no matter who is failing in marriage, the institution itself is a good thing, meant to work for our good.

THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH MEN AND WOMEN

This is true despite the bad experience you have had with one man or woman. It is important not to generalise, such classifications are harmful and prevents you from seeing or accepting the best.

So the problem isn’t with marriage, men or women. It is with the choices that are made i.e your choice of spouse can defeat the purpose or blessings that marriage is meant to provide.

 

The criterion for marriage is that two must be better than one.  If joining with someone won’t cause an improvement, then stay single. Do you know that there are some people who are better off single? As long as a man is single, he cannot kill himself or beat himself up or steal from himself. When a woman marries such a person though, she’ll have the experience that marriage is bad. Nobody changes in marriage, for anything a person does in marriage, there must have been signs of BEFORE marriage. People see all those bad signs and still jump into a life-long relationship with such a person. After the course of time, it occurs to them that they were better off single. Then they push for divorce.

You’re better off when you realise such things before the wedding. The only reason you should release your single life is for an improvement. There’s no need for marriage if two won’t be better than one. Tackle your deal breakers before marriage.

Ensure you are getting married for the right reasons, putting emotions out of the way. Most people enter marriage based on emotion. When most people are getting married, their emotions are very high. Emotions can be misleading and when it is gone reality sets in. At that point you are left alone to deal with your spouse’s flaws. So settling these issues before marriage is best to ensure a pleasant journey. Tackle your deal breakers!…

Some of the things to look out for is character:- How he or she treats you. Is he violent? Does he beat and fight others? Then he’ll beat and fight you too! If he’s lazy now, marriage won’t make him hard working. If she’s abusive now, marriage won’t change her.

The Next is Understanding :-This must be established before marriage. It also includes an agreement of what will be done after union.  The standard of living you want to have, the number of children you want to have? Are you on the same wavelength?  For instance, I don’t have to tell my wife ‘let’s not waste money on this or that’. The understanding is there already. Certain marital quarrels make me ask HOW certain people got married in the first place, because there’s no understanding at all. You must ask yourself if your spouse is understanding to save the marriage from these challenges of disagreement in goals.

Also important is how you place yourself. The cheaper you sell yourself, the least respect you get when you cross over into marriage. Don’t accept every single thing because you want to get married. The harder something is to get, the more valuable it is.  This is why you don’t pick gold on the ground. Ladies, make sure your fiancé respects Spiritual authority. Let other people see and talk to him, let him go through protocol because this helps to calm the emotions and reveal his real character and intentions.

I always advise that people undergo premarital counselling because the journey is always different in marriage. Thus the more prepared you are before you start, the better the chances of making it in marriage. There are certain questions a counsellor would ask that you might not have considered. Everybody does counselling. If it’s not done before the wedding, it will definitely be done after the wedding, It is best as a single person to do it now before the marriage. Premarital counseling is non-negotiable.

Where no counsel is, the people fall, but in a multitude of counsellors, there is safety (Proverbs 11:14)

Without counsel, purposes are disappointed, but in the multitude of counselors, they are established. (Proverbs 15: 22)

It is important to remember that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with men, women or the institution of marriage. Your choice of a life partner is key to what you will experience in marriage. Base this choice on qualities that stand the test of time after emotions are long gone. This will ensure that you have the marriage of your dreams.