IF YOU SPEND SIX YEARS STUDYING MEDICINE THAT YOU WILL RETIRE FROM. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT YOU WILL NOT PREPARE FOR MARRIAGE THAT YOU WILL NOT RETIRE FROM?
MARRIAGES FAIL BEFORE THE MARRIAGE ARE NOT AFTER THE WEDDING BECAUSE HALF OF THE PEOPLE SPEND TIME PREPARING FOR THE WEDDING AND NOT THE MARRIAGE.
IF YOUR MARRIAGE WILL SUCCEED YOU MUST HAVE A PLAN AND THAT PLAN SHOULD INCLUDE THAT DIVORCE IS NOT AN OPTION, THESE DAYS I SEE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR TWO MINUTES TALKING ABOUT DIVORCE.
YOUR MARRIAGE CAN START FROM EMOTIONAL LOVE BUT IT TAKES INTENTIONAL LOVE TO SUSTAIN YOUR MARRIAGE
- Pastor (Mrs) Mildred Okonkwo at Pastors Seed Family Session, Day 3 RCCG Holy Ghost Congress 2021 || Part 1
I was told I am supposed to speak on PROTECTING YOUR MARRIAGE FROM CRISIS. Let's start from Genesis 2:18-25.
Father we thank you for the reading of your word, we ask that you will bring light, you will bring revelation, you will bring answers and remove all confusion in the name of Jesus. I ask for the grace for every hearer to also be a doer in Jesus name we have prayed.
If you want to protect something, you have to first know the value of that thing. If something is not valuable, you don't put your heart into protecting it. If you don't understand what marriage is you will think it is something you will do, after you have finished secondary school, you go to university, after that NYSC and then after NYSC, you get a job and after you have worked for a while, your mother would start waking you up in the middle of the night about when you are bringing a wife home. You will think it is just a cycle to fulfill. But if you understand what God had in mind when He created marriage you will understand how valuable it is and you will understand why Satan is fighting it so much. Church Gist. I have not seen anyone who heard that there are mosquitoes in this room, to kill the mosquitoes they now start gathering AK47, armour tanks, bazooka, machine guns to kill mosquitoes. I have not seen anyone do that because for us, mosquitoes are not really a big deal, you just clap your hand and they die. So the devil bringing everything he has to attack marriage tells you that marriage is important. Satan understands that if God can get two Christians together and they understand what marriage is about that they are unstoppable. So he will do everything to make sure marriages are not working.
Satan doesn't create anything, all he does is to pervert things. Today we now see that in some parts of the world it's okay for two men to get married. That was not God's plan, if that was God's plan He would have made them Adam and Steve not Adam and Eve. Marriage is between a man and a woman, any other thing is not marriage. They can call it whatever they like, God has a reason for marriage and the reason is not just synergy. It's not just for the two of you to be in love, if you read Micah 2:14 the Bible says God wants godly seed. Church Gist. Satan is trying to make sure we don't have more godly seeds in this generation. He is very determined and he is not wasting time at all. Marriage is your last chance at home training, all these things they are teaching you, be patient. If you don't learn patience now, you will learn patience in marriage. If you don't learn to forgive now, you say "I don't take nonsense from anybody". In marriage you will take nonsense, you will keep taking nonsense and you will even enjoy taking nonsense. That's why God loves marriage so much, that the weakness that you have and someone else will bring their strength and rub off on you. If you have bad character, hopefully you will marry someone that has good character. You will be watching that person and learning. But now people are telling us that marriage is a contract, if it doesn't work you are out.
God's original idea for marriage is that it is good, everywhere you read God talk about marriage in the Bible, God says marriage is good. God has a good plan for marriage. The things they are doing now is to distract us from God’s original plan. Let me tell you the thing about Satan is that Satan's actual plan is to get you to doubt and question God. If you can question God on one thing, you can doubt God on everything. When you debate the word of God on one thing, you will debate the word of God on any thing. Church Gist. In the beginning when he told Eve “did God really say”, it wasn’t about the fruit, it was about getting them to question whether God was really who He said He was. He is still doing the same thing today, Did God really say you must submit? Did God really say you must love only one girl? Men we have strong sexual desires oh, The Bible says your sexual desires are strong but marriage is strong enough to curtail them. These days we don’t call sin sin. The day you call it sin you will stop it. They are making it okay for people to be in adulterous relationships.
I don’t have so much time so let me just jump into what you can do to protect your marriage. There is a way to make sure that your marriage works. There is a way to make sure that you don’t disappoint both God and your parents.
- Prepare
Marriages don’t fail in marriage, marriages fail before the marriage because half the time people spend time preparing for the wedding and not the marriage. Marriage and wedding are not the same, wedding is for a few hours, marriage is for life. Wedding is for people, marriage is for two of you. Church Gist. I see people who buy their wedding gown from across the world, buy their rings from Italy, call the best caterer, call the best photographer and when you ask them if they have read any book on marriage you will be amazed. As a single person, now is the time to invest in knowledge that will change your marriage. It’s not when you enter the marriage that you start working.
After a guy gives you a ring and says he wants to marry you, the next question is when. You can be with the ring for eight years. Men and women don’t have the same relationship with time. If at 25 you date someone for 10 years and he says he is not doing again, at 35 your options have reduced. The older a man gets, the more his options but it’s the opposite for women. At 50, those who should marry you would have started going to be with the Lord.
There are so many books out there, the reason why marriages are failing is because people don’t know what to do, not because marriage is bad. Marriage hasn’t changed, it’s the same marriage that our parents were marrying that we are marrying and it’s the same strategy that we should be using. We don’t want to do what they did because they are old school. You that is new school, how is your marriage turning out? Learn to prepare. It’s always before the marriage that you will know which one will work and which one will not work. Church Gist. I am a marriage counselor. When people come to me and I ask them, the thing that is causing you problems now, did you see it before? If they are honest they will tell you Yes. The husband that is beating you, did he just start? If a man gives you "body", "body" is “I go….” Better run for your life. I have heard ladies tell me, he is just hot-tempered, he lost his temper. I have been saying it for years that if someone loses his temper must he find it on you.
No matter how good you are, if you don’t marry someone who is like you your marriage can’t work. The first time I really understood that concept it was in the kitchen. My mum told me to go and fry eggs and I was reading a novel, so I wanted to do the thing sharp sharp and go and finish my novel. So they gave me four eggs. I broke the first one it was good, I broke the second one, I broke the third one, it was the fourth one that was rotten but I was breaking all of them together. Church Gist. So that means all the eggs will now be bad. The beating I collected that day taught me that there is a way to do things right. I don’t care how the first three eggs were, the fact that the last egg was bad has spoiled the egg. You can say you want to eat omelet, you now go and take one really fresh egg and another rotten egg and say it will work. It won’t work.
You have to learn together, some marriages fail because some people were learning and thinking that their learning was enough to cover for themselves and the other person. If you want to marry someone make sure that both of you are going at the same pace. Church Gist. If you spend five years or six years reading medicine, medicine that you will retire from. Why do you think that you will not prepare for marriage that you will not retire from? I have seen people destroy their lives by putting their head under someone that is not prepared to be a husband. As the man you must be the head, as the woman you must submit. I have never seen two people driving and struggling steering without having accident. That is what they are teaching you to do today. Anything that has more than one head is a monster.
- Plan your life
Count the Cost, don’t say you want to get married and you don’t know what you are going to do there. I was talking to someone and she said she is so stressed out that her marriage and her three children are so stressful. It is because you didn’t plan. Is it not the marriage that our parents were married with eight to nine children and you say you are having mental depression with your marriage.
Plan yourself, you will have children. You can even get pregnant on the wedding night. If you do what gets you pregnant you will get pregnant. When children come, they don’t ask for permission, they want diapers, they don’t want to know whether you have money or not. They want milk and children don’t have faith. When it is school time, they will dress up. They don’t know whether you have school fees or not. Church Gist. These are the things you will plan ahead. How will we serve in church after we are married? A lot of people get married and they join the Marriage Department. We have been praying since for husband but immediately they get married they start serving their husband and children. “Sister, why did you not come for the meeting?” “Pastor you don’t understand, My husband does not eat yesterday's rice so I had to wait this morning to boil his rice before coming to Church”. “Sister we noticed that you did not come for the meeting, I was feeding the baby at night so I was tired”. That is Marriage Department. They are no longer serving the Lord, they are now serving their spouse. When you get blessed, you forget the Blesser and focus on the blessing.
If your marriage will succeed you must have a plan and that plan should include that divorce is not an option, these days I see people that have been married for two minutes and they are talking about divorce. One of my daughters that got married recently came to me and said “I can’t take it anymore. He is rude, he is entitled and he expects me to cook everyday”. I said “Eh hen, so the rest of us other wives what do you think we used to do? ''. Church Gist. But she said “I am done, I can’t anymore”. Food when them never put for fire, na em want done. When you were taking your vows, the girl said “you are the moonlight in my sunlight, every breath you draw leaves me breathless”. The guy says “I can see my babies in your eyes”. After everything you say “I Do” now do, you can not do.” I do” means you will do and continue doing. When you get married make sure you are planning that there is no way out. If you don’t plan your marriage it will fail, you have to be intentional. I know that it is emotional love that will start it, but it is intentional love that will take it to the next level. Do we always feel like being kind to each other, No! Do we always feel like forgiving each other? No! But I said “I do”.
When I got married, I was shocked by how scattered my husband was. When I entered his room, e choke. Books everywhere, shirts here. I just remembered for better for worse, I do. You don’t get to choose the worse. You will be there and you will make it work. So you must plan, if he is scattered what will I do? If he gets angry easily what will I do? If there are things I don’t like now and he never changes what will I do? If we plan to have one child and I have triplets what will I do? If I don’t get my job immediately after I finish school, what will I do? Plan.