Love & the Home (4)
I am propelled to proffer some kinds of divorce busters to unify the family and help them build a good and godly home. ‘Experience is the best teacher’, is a dictum. I got burnt in the spiraling society which led to my divorce after 19 years of marriage. But I got lucky by focusing on the proper perspective on time. God’s perspective is the only good, pleasing and perfect option. God’s perspective helped me, shaped my life, and made me a good mother. I am proud to say my children turned out very well, unlike some in similar circumstances, and they are focused on Jesus Christ, the author, and finisher of our faith. I am today a proud mother and grandmother. My children are excellent examples of integrity, good character, and godly attributes, and they are children of the kingdom of God. Halleluiah. My children occupy top positions in their various occupations. Taking a cue from my experience, I know better those things that lead to conflict in homes.
Couples create marital conflict by:
- Failure to make each other happy
- Determination to deliberately hurt each other.
Marital conflict has nothing to do with firm religious and moral commitments but lies in the power of basic emotional needs. You can only keep true to your marital vows by being realistic about meeting each other’s critical emotional needs, being determined to love as stipulated by Jesus Christ, and opening a ‘love bank.’ Pleasurable interactions cause deposits, and painful interactions cause withdrawals.
All marriages can be saved from divorce. Extramarital affairs are wrong, yet marriages torpedoed by affairs need not sink. They can be towed into a dry dock, repaired, and refitted. They can also be parked on a hanger while repairs are carried out to make them better to fly. Christ-like dedication to your spouse can affair-proof your Marriage and build a relationship that sustains romance and increases intimacy and closeness year after year. Marriage renewal is similar to spiritual renewal. It is necessary, essential, and essential for healthy living.
Commitment and trust are vital bonding links in Marriage but are easily thrown overboard when the spouse’s basic emotional needs are unmet. The spouse becomes vulnerable to the temptation of an affair. Couples that commit themselves to each other’s needs lay the foundation for lifelong happiness in a marriage that will be more satisfying than they ever deemed possible. In the beginning, God created males and females. Genesis 2: 22 says the woman was created from the rib; God had taken out of man to be a helper suitable for a man. From this, we can deduce that a woman needs affection from a man. Affection symbolizes security, protection, comfort, and approval. God created male and female for companionship. Couples should engage in recreational activities that both could enjoy together. Couples must trust each other totally and keep up honest and open communication to have a successful marriage.
Harley spoke about five laws of Marriage that can be summarized as follows:
- Men must give their wives affection, and women must give their husbands sex because ‘women want affection and men want sex.’
- Couples must meet the needs of each other.
- Couples must converse with each other in a caring way. He advised couples not to use:
- Conversation to get your way at your spouse’s expense;
- Conversation to punish each other (mental and you); and
- Not to dwell on each other’s mistakes, past or present.
- Couples that play together stay together.
- Harley’s fifth law indicates that honesty is the best marriage insurance policy.
Christians must make their homes despite trials, seductions, and temptations. Their homes must be conducive for their living mates. Couples must express agape love for each other and devotion to their offspring. There must never be a diary of wrongs. Wipe off the slate of wrongdoings daily before you sleep. Think about the love of Christ and exhibit such love in your home to glorify God. Live a life of repentance and forgiveness. If you enjoy God’s forgiveness from your sins, forgive yourself and your spouse for any sin committed against you. Always be joyful and thankful to God for giving you your own home. No Christian is free from the obedience of the commandments called morals, and these are the Ten Commandments that the two laws Jesus gave hanged on.
My final word on this issue is on, the Wisdom of Solomon 12-15: “Do not invite death through your errors or bring on destruction by the works of your hands. God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. For He created all things so that they might exist; the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no destructive poison in them, and the dominion of Hades is not on earth. Righteousness is immortal.”
I call for righteous living by Families. My prayer is that God gives us Christian homes.
