Taka Sande's Blog, page 9

This is Part One of the Fourth Episode of the Marriage Journals and it is continued from You Could Be Having A New Marriage In Seven Days.

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. – Ephesians 4:2 NIV

In marriage it is unavoidable to offend your spouse, intentionally or unintentionally. A number of times you will find that you have hurt the one who you love. It will pain you as well.

On the other hand, know that you will definitely be offended by your spouse, intentionally or unintentionally. In both cases be prepared to seek real peace so that your marriage relationship moves forward.

As we begin this conversation I would like to mention this important thing. I wish I could say ‘You will not sin.’ I wish I could say ‘Your spouse will not sin.’ Both of you will sin. The good thing is there is forgiveness available, unlimited forgiveness from God. You forgiveness is not enough. It will get used up. Make use of God’s forgiveness for the good of your marriage.

I really acknowledge your fight in the faith, your fight to stay out of sin, your fight for your marriage, your fight to be a wife or husband of honor, a fight to be the person who God want you to be. God notices your efforts and it will be rewarded. It is a blessing.

‘And the two shall become one flesh; so that they are no longer two, but [are united as] one flesh. [Mark 10:8] Genesis 2:24’ What is to ‘become one?’ How do you really ‘become one?’ If you think of it, one in what? How can two different people become one? In most cases it’s like mixing water and oil. Yes, they can be in the same container, but remain occupying different spaces within the container.

To become one is not to lose your identity but to complement each other’s identity. It is to notice that we are different hence we can do more together. It is to know that your spouse’s strengths are in your hands. So your strength is in your difference and uniqueness. This is the good part.

Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One). Wives, be subject (be submissive and adapt yourselves) to your own husbands as [a service] to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife as Christ is the Head of the church, Himself the Savior of [His] body. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, So that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, That He might present the church to Himself in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such things [that she might be holy and faultless]. Even so husbands should love their wives as [being in a sense] their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and carefully protects and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, Because we are members (parts) of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. [Gen. 2:24.] This mystery is very great, but I speak concerning [the relation of] Christ and the church. However, let each man of you [without exception] love his wife as [being in a sense] his very own self; and let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband [that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly]. [I Pet. 3:2.] – Ephesians 5: 21-33

The union of marriage is compared to the union of Jesus Christ and the Church. It is a mystery. The man should submit (respect and honor) to Christ, and the woman should submit (respect and honor) to her husband. This is the divine order. One interesting point is that the wife should submits (respect and honor) to the husband in order to bring transformation in him (Read 1 Peter 3:1). It is a divine calling that God uses to spread the word by changing husbands. The Husband must love his wife as Christ loved the church. He must be ready to sacrifices for her knowing that she is the weaker vessel.

Form this you can see that becoming one is easy when all is well, but things are not always rosy every day. It will take sacrifice from each of you, to sacrifice your comfort for the marriage, to still show love when your love level has been depleted.

You will have to be humble. Humble to spend time with your spouse even if you do not feel like it. Humble to accept compromise when you know that you had the opportunity and right to squash your spouse and win.

Becoming one means to forgive your spouse when you have been offended, disappointed and hurt. It means to forgive again and again, just like Jesus. It means that at times there will be little time together but you choose to let it go. It means to be selfless, kind and being a giver.

It will not be easy. It will not happen overnight. It will take God working in you. It takes grace. It is serving. It means submitting your marriage to God. It takes patience.

To become one takes one to align the heart correctly in order to hear God’s voice. It means to look for the God idea, not your own idea. It calls for the courage to serve your spouse coming out of your love for God and for your spouse. This is what it means to become one.

There is one thing that keeps our relationship going. It is forgiveness. One party ask for forgiveness and the other party must be willing to receive and forgive, again and again. The same with a marriage, without forgiveness no marriage can stand.

Forgiving an apologizing spouse is very hard.

First of all, apologizing is very difficult especially when you ‘know’ that you are right. In reality you can both be correct but just have different opinions and preferences. You can both think you are right but actually wrong. So it seems apologizing is not about who is wrong or right. It is about seeking peace and healing for your loved one.

Why is it difficult to apologize? It is pride. When did pride come in? During you dating period you did not urge or fight. ‘I am sorry’ was very common. It was all about ‘I forgive you.’ What had changed? It is familiarity. It is the relaxedness and casualness to your spouse that comes from ‘I know him/her’ attitude. With this attitude you find it not necessary to respect your spouse. You spouses opinion will not matter anymore after all ‘I know where his/her ‘dirty laundry’ is hidden.’

There is a strong temptation to control your spouse. This desire to control results in conflicts because you think that you know more about than him/her. ‘How can I listen to someone who has made these other terrible mistakes?’ ‘Should I trust him/her with my life?’ If you find yourself at this prideful position, it means you have empowered you spouse to control you. You spouse has become the standard. And if you spouse has become your standard then you will find that God is not so close enough to be the one controlling your life, and not the standard.

As you draw closer to God, the intimacy makes you aware of your own faults and the need to forgive your spouse.

It’s not about competing but completing.

“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you” (Romans 12:3).

When you find yourself in conflict with your wife, give God a chance to speak to your heart and your spouse’s heart. Regardless of who is wrong, you will drift towards humility before God and just say, ‘I’m sorry.’ And if you are in close relationship with God, you will follow His example and forgive.

Know each other in the spirit more than in the flesh. See more of what God see than what your flesh sees. Seeing imperfection of your spouse without God’s eyes is one of the most horrific sights for a person. There is no love, no grace and no mercy. It harms your souls and attracts sin. Seeing your spouse’s imperfection with God’s view is seeing things with the lenses of grace, you will see the love of God.

As you contemplate;

‘And the two shall become one flesh…’ How is your journey to become one with your spouse?
How easy is it to accept your spouse’s imperfection?

This Part One of the Fourth Episode of the Marriage Journals will continue in Part Two as Journey to Your Soulmate.

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This is very insightful and is highly recommended.

Nice educative article.

This is Part Two of the Third Episode of the Marriage Journals and it is continued from You Could Be Having A New Marriage In Seven Days.

Now how do you prayer for your spouse or family? First, pray together with your spouse. Put your fire power down. This is how you throw strife out the window. The husband is the leader and priest of the home. It is your job to make sure the people under your home are prayerful. You do not have to be a prayer warrior. What you should understand and know is that God anointed you to be the head. This means that if you pray for your wife and family things change. There is special grace that you have as your stand for your family. You have God given spiritual authority over your family and forces that work against your family. Do what you can and God will do the rest. Just try it and see the results.

Instead of spending time arguing and quarreling invest that time in pray. Quit striving with your spouse and get into prayer. Have regular time to pray for your spouse and children.

Truly I tell you, whatever you forbid and declare to be improper and unlawful on earth must be what is already forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit and declare proper and lawful on earth must be what is already permitted in heaven.  Again I tell you, if two of you on earth agree (harmonize together, make a symphony together) about whatever [anything and everything] they may ask, it will come to pass and be done for them by My Father in heaven. Matthew 18:18-19

There is power in a prayer of agreement. The most powerful anointed prayer is that of a couple that is agreeing together because you are in a covenant. So you see why make sure there is strife between you. It is to weaken your prayer life.

Temptation to give up will come, but do not give in. Some couples pray daily together, other weekly, some have a long monthly prayer time. What is important is to set time that is comfortable with you and commit to it.

And when you pray it’s not that worthless religious ritualistic piece of garbage. It’s about pouring your heart to God. It is about being sincerely as you mean what you say. Seek the will of God. Listen to God’s voice and direction. Pray for God to intervene for your spouse. You cannot guard your spouse away from temptation but you can control the environment around him/her through prayer. You can plead before God for his/her heart to be changed.

If you have a disagreement, do not let it escalate. That’s being stupid. Bring it before God and allow Him to solve the problems. This is a fantastic way of living, leaving someone to deal with your problems, and allowing someone to deal with your spouse for you. Just let God do it for you.

If your spouse does not want to join you for prayers, well that’s not a big deal. You go ahead and pray for him/her. You see, someone can refuse to join in prayer but they cannot stop prayer from working. Confess your favourite scripture over your spouse and family. As you do this, you will feel the heavy dark cloud that has been oppressing your marriage lifting. Slowly rays of hope will flood on and you know that you are on your way to heaven on earth in your marriage.

At times it takes time for things to change, especially if things have been left without prayer for a long time. Fast as a couple for your marriage and family. If you are not familiar with prayer find good books on prayer to read together and practice what you have learnt. As your stand together know that nothing is impossible with God.

Spiritual intimacy is fundamental for a strong Christian marriage.

Once established, it creates a bond that can never be broken. Praying together is almost impossible if you do not stay together. Marriages of great ministers have broken because they did not stay together. The husband and wife will be staying in different cities leading churches or doing the work of God. If you do not stay together as a couple perhaps because of work, you are at a greater risk. It is not a secret the Christina couple serving in the security duties have more challenges. Avoid distant relationship as much as possible. Rather seek God about it. Your marriage must come first before work or ministry. God did not intend you to have a distant relationship. His aim is for a husband and his wife and their children living under the same roof. In this way they can pray together and serve God together. Losing your spouse over a job is foolish.

Now that you know how to have spiritual intimacy, next time we will discuss another great game changer in marriage and it will take you on a Journey to Your Soulmate.

As you contemplate;

How is your personal devotional life?
How is your family devotional life?
Is your marriage being affected by distant relationship? Put it as a prayer item for God to turn things around.

This is the end of the Third Episode of the Marriage Journals . The series continues in the Forth Episode titled What it Takes to ‘Become On.’

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This is Part One of the Third Episode of the Marriage Journals and it is continued from What is The State of your Marriage.

Marriage is difficult! I have heard this statement many times and honestly I am sick of it. Marriage is not difficult! And marriage is not easy either. It is couples who make things in marriage difficult especially when they take the marriage designer out of it. Marriage was and is meant to be operated in certain ways. If you do not do that you will fight with your spouse until kingdom come. You will wear each other down again and again until you give up.

As mentioned in the episodes there are few things that can be game changers in marriage. These are things that can turn the tables around, and you will be having a new marriage in seven days. One most important thing that will change it all is ‘prayer.’ Yes, praying. What do I mean by this?

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. – Philippians 4:6

Statistics clearly shows that the satisfactory levels of couples who sincerely pray together regularly and for each other is distinctively very high to the point that they indicate that they do not have major problems. On the other hand those who do not engage in prayer have problems that range from minor to ‘world war three.’ Statistics also indicate that no divorce has been recorded in couples who pray together regularly, that is at least once a week. That’s why I personally believe that 99% of your problems will vanish as you engage in regular prayer together. If you are serious about turning thing over you have to take this regular prayer challenge.

In his bestselling book Relationship Rescue, Dr. Phil writes; … an interesting statistic shared by David McLaughlin in his wonderful series entitled The Role of the Man in the Family reflects that the divorce rate in America is at a minimum one out of two marriages. But the reported divorce rate among couples that pray together is about one in ten thousand. Pretty impressive statistic, even if you reduce it a thousandfold.

A research project led by Christopher G. Ellison at the University of Texas, San Antonio was reported in the “Journal of Marriage and Family” published by National Council on Family Relations. One of the critical outcomes of that study led to the , in Phoenix, Arizona to report that when couples prayed together on a daily basis, less than 1% of those couples would end up getting a divorce. To be specific the numbers was 1 out of 1156 couples. This means that prayer has a 99.99% guaranteed chance to divorce-proof your marriage! Here is the solution you have been looking for.

You can agree that it’s a war out there. And the struggle is tearing you into pieces and threatening your family. The enemy want to see you go down and under. He wants you and your spouse to be miserable and your children to be destitute. He has planned it all for you. You have to fight and defend your spouse and your family. You have to stand up and say enough is enough, it ends today!

Daily prayer has a 99.99% guaranteed chance to divorce-proof your marriage.

I have been in many Christian homes where there is no time for family prayers. I mean this guy is a leader at church but in his home there is no family devotional time or time for prayer at all. You can guess that they do not have personal devotional time either. They only pray at church. I firmly believe that church begins at home. It is at home where Christ must dwell. A church meeting is just a two or three hours long. The more church members pray at home the strong the families and the stronger the church.

Additional Resources;

The One Marriage Habit That Helps Everything Else
The Power of a Praying Wife
The Power of a Praying Husband
Praying Through the Deeper Issues of Marriage
War Room movie

This Part One of the Third Episode of the Marriage Journals will continue in Part Two as You Could Be Having A New Marriage In Seven Days – Part 2.

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Send me more posts.

Quite interesting.

Next episode please!

Thanx Taka …..

An honourable mention to your good work.

This is amazingly true.