A PIECE OF ADVICE (part 1)

Hello Beloved, I welcome you to this wonderful month of June. I know you are increasing in the knowledge of God and our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. I will like to reflect on the incident of one of our sisters, one of the gospel music icon that died allegedly as a result of domestic abuse. There were several persons who came out to criticize their pastor, asking what he did about it; that the pastor having known such a thing was suppose to do something about the marriage. I want to reflect on it, so that those that are married will be wise.

The minister of God who happens to be their pastor, came out on air and made know the extent to which he knew about the issue and how he wasn’t aware of the domestic abuse going on between the man and the wife. That not withstanding, even though the pastor is aware, he certainly will not be able to do anything about it, other than to try to make things work between them, not to separate them. As ministers of God, we stand for peace and unity in your homes. No matter how you fight, no matter the differences that you have, no matter the challenges in your house, when you bring it to us, we do everything to make the marriage work. We will never tell you to break it, we don’t stand for divorce because the God that we represent says, He doesn’t like divorce. If God hates divorce, why should we as ministers encourage you to divorce your spouse? Even though there may be cases of domestic abuse to our knowledge, we’ll try to counsel you on how the marriage will work.

You may be wondering why? One of the reasons is that we stand for peace. What we are after is for the marriage to work, not the dissolution of the marriage which we will never do. You will remember that when you came to the alter to be married, the minister asked you individually, “will you take this man as your truly wedded husband, to hold and to have, to love and to cherish and so........” You said yes, the man or woman wasn’t forced on you. Your mind was made up to go into the marriage. Let me make this clear, when you want out you make up your mind yourself and tell us you are not interested anymore. We can’t tell you to divorce your spouse. You are the one in the marriage, you are the one to say to us that it is over and I am not interested. We can’t force you to be married or stay in marriage because it is your will. Even in traditional marriages, you are the one as a lady to bring the man and you will be asked, do you want to marry this man? And when you say yes, you will be asked if the drinks and food from your potential suitor should be accepted and you say yes. Nobody forced you into the marriage and nobody can force you out of it.

When you come to us for counseling, one of the questions we ask is, do you still want to continue with this man or woman in marriage? If you say yes, then we ask, do you want us to counsel you as regards the differences you have in your marriage? If you say yes then we go ahead. But once the man or woman says no, I don’t want to continue in this marriage. We don’t speak into the matter until you are able to convince him or her to continue in the marriage. It is your decision. Even God will not unsurp your will, He works by the will of man. That is why you have to decide whether you want Him or not and if you don’t want Him, He doesn’t force Himself on you. If you say you don’t want Jesus in your life, He wouldn’t force Himself on you but He has to tell you the truth and give you the pros and cons for your decisions and you decided whether you accept it or not. If you don’t accept it then forget about it.

This is what marriage is; you are the one to say, I want out, this man or woman is abusing me and one day he or she will kill me. Whether you pray from now till tomorrow asking God for what to do when you are in an abusive marriage, you are not going to get any answer. What you have in your head is called brain and not sawdust, God placed it there for a reason. It is a mind for decision making. God is not going to make a decision for you, a decision you are supposed to make for yourself. Pray all you want, He is not going to tell you to leave that marriage, you are the one to decide. God will not make a decision for you on who you will marry, He will only bring the woman your way and if you are not spiritually sensitive enough, you will miss out. Genesis 2:22-23 says, “And the rib, which the LORD God had taken, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man” Adam recognized her when he saw her. If Adam has rejected her that’s the end of it, because he has his own will. The responsibility of God is to bring the person your way after you have prayed, if you are not spiritually sensitive enough to recognize that this is the person, you will lose the person. That is why you ought to be in the utmost spiritual perception when it comes to marriage, so that you wouldn’t miss it. And if you miss it, He carry on with you.

There is something that the devil fights against in your marriage relationship, Genesis 3:1-7, “Now, the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” You must come to the understanding that whatever problems you face in your marriage, whether it was caused by the man or the woman is a together problem that needs together solutions. Don’t begin to blame one another; Adam had the opportunity to blame his wife for the problem they were in but he knew that if he did that the purpose of God concerning their marriage will be overthrown which is where the devil is going to. The devil was not only attacking the authority God gave to them, he was attacking the unity between them. Learn to solve your problems together irrespective of who is responsible for the problem. What the devil is after is to separate you.

To be continued in the next edition.