Dr. Mike Oluniyi.
A marital anchor must possess some qualities in order to be able to withstand the pressure of holding the ship of marriage, and preventing drift. Some of those qualities are discussed in this chapter.
WILLINGNESS TO ALLOW GOD LEAD YOU.
Since God is the author of marriage, a marital anchor must constantly submit his or her home to God to be able to succeed at it. You should really believe that God must have the best ideas on how to keep your home. Consequently, a marital anchor must be dependent on the word of God and using it’s precepts in handling situations at home.
Your word is a lamp to my feet
And a light to my path. (Psa.119:105)
If you believe that God is the author of marriage, it follows that you will take His word as a lamp unto your feet to guide you in the journey of marriage. There are a lot of situations you will find yourself in marriage which you will need the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Often if you act on impulse of anger or often in response to the counsels which you may be given by others except those that may guide you with the word of God, you may overreact to situations and work in concert with your spouse in jeopardizing your marriage. One of the things I have noticed about God as far as marriage is concerned is that He is always interested in reconciliation. Consequently, if you walk prayerfully in obedience to His will, you are likely to always act as an anchor to keep your home steady when others in similar situations would have disintegrated. Let me share a personal experience here:
Not long after God called me into ministry, my wife offended me. I can’t even remember what she did, but I was really ‘mad’ at her. I was ready to do just anything out of the intense anger. So, I went to her before sleeping and I told her something like this “For what you have done, I will deal with you and you will know that you have been dealt with. May be you feel I can’t do ministry without you. I will deal with you and will do ministry even without you.” I was really boiling that night. As I was going to bed, I prayed and reported to God thus; ” Holy Spirit, my wife has offended me and I can’t take it. I have promised her that I am going to deal with her. Lord, teach me how to deal with her in a way that she will really know that she has been dealt with, in Jesus name”
That prayer may sound funny to you, but that was my sincere prayer that night. Indeed the Holy Spirit responded, I can’t ever forget the response. I heard, “Go and apologize to her”
Can you imagine someone that promised to deal with his wife mercilessly and is now being asked to go and apologize? The ego of a man may not allow that, but I had learnt before then that the greatest secret of walking with God is doing exactly what He asked you to do. I got up from bed, went to her in the sitting room and apologized. She was afraid when she saw me coming because someone that promised to deal with you in a deadly way can do anything. However, when I got to her and what I did was to apologize, she became confused. As I left her and laid down on my bed, I started hearing Abiding Couples Conference. That was the beginning of that impactful conference that we have been holding for ministers of God and their spouses since 2004.
As a marital anchor, you must be prayerful and always allow God’s leading in your marriage. The leading of God may make you to take steps that are not convenient for you. You must believe that it is not about your convenience but about the will of God. Eventually, you will realize that it is in the will of God that you will find fulfillment.
HUMILITY.
A marital anchor should be a humble person because it takes humility to avoid claiming your rights in situations in which it would have been natural for you to insist on it. You may sometimes need to apologize even when you have been offended if you sincerely desire to keep your home. This is because there will be times when your spouse though wrong, may not see things from your perspective. In such a situation, you as a marital anchor may apologize for an offense not committed by you. Later on by the time your spouse see things from the right perspective, it will be his or her turn to apologize. This is definitely cheaper than the crisis which often result from partners insisting on their rights due to pride.
SELFLESSNESS.
A marital anchor is a selfless partner who is ready to put self last to keep his or her home. The anchor is ready to put self last so that the marriage may not hit the rocks. Depending on the circumstances of your marriage, you may need to allow the interest of your spouse to prevail while holding on for your own plans until a more acceptable time.
BATTLE READY.
As noted earlier, a lot of battles we fight in marriage are really spiritual battles which we ignorantly fight physically. We must note that anyone who fights spiritual battle physically will lose that battle. For you to be battle ready however, you must take your walk with God very seriously. Often, the devil will make it appear as if you need to fight your spouse, for a perceived misdemeanor and you go ahead to have big fight, not knowing that the battle would have been better fought on your knees with the wisdom of God. At the end of the day, you could have created the avenue for the devil to do his three fold ministry of stealing, killing and destroying in that home.
DOGGEDNESS.
There is a saying that when it gets tough, the tough gets going. Things often get tough in marriage. Nobody prays for it, but it does happen. Toughness may be as a result of job loss, it may be as a result of sickness, it may be as a result of your spouse committing adultery, it may be as a result of your spouse being a problem for your ministry. When the challenges of life come into your marriage, your ability to be tough in the face of it, defines whether you are an anchor or not.
As an anchor, you must have an enduring faith that your marriage will last until the end of life of either of you. Such faith will help you to remain resolute in the face of difficulties that would have destroyed other homes.
And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” (Lk.22:31-32)
Satan desires to sift your marriage. The sifting may come in any way and through any means. However as a an anchor, your abiding faith in your marriage must not fail. When faith fails, you give room to the devil to complete the job which he started in the first place.
ABIDING INTEREST.
Having an abiding interest in your spouse is a trait that you should have as an anchor. This is so important because there is no way you won’t offend one another.
Apart from offenses, you may also discover that there are some traits in your spouse, which made you to fall love in the first place which within the passage of time has been altered. May be the lady you fell in love with then was slim, but after several children she has become fatter than you would have liked. As an anchor, it must not affect your interest in your spouse. It may also be that he lost his job along the line after several years of marriage. You must keep falling in love with your spouse and keep on seeing why this home must not go under. You must deliberately find at least one reason why your spouse worth it! If it is not there, it will be very difficult for you to sacrifice keeping the home.
INDUSTRIOUS.
Whether as a man or woman, it is important to be industrious in keeping a home. Even as a housewife, you will discover that so much required to keep your home. The virtuous woman was described in Proverbs 31:13-17;
She seeks wool and flax,
And willingly works with her hands.
She is like the merchant ships,
She brings her food from afar.
She also rises while it is yet night,
And provides food for her household,
And a portion for her maidservants.
She considers a field and buys it;
From her profits she plants a vineyard.
She girds herself with strength,
And strengthens her arms.
WISDOM.
Wisdom is the ability to make use of knowledge appropriately. An anchor must posses a good dose of it. You will be faced with a lot of situations in marriage that if you don’t use wisdom, you will only end up complicating things. A woman caught her husband with his female cousin, sleeping with each other, she raised alarm and ensured that the lady in her nakedness was exposed to the public. Though the husband’s family did not approve of such an act, they never forgave her, as the home later broke down as a result of the consequences of her action. In another case, the same thing happened in another family, the woman, shut the door after discovering them and later informed the husband’s uncle privately instead of exposing the matter.
When you look at the above cases, wisdom was exhibited in the second case which made the husband to be grateful to his wife for the way she handled the matter. There are things that will happen and on the spur of the moment, you will feel that the best thing is to expose your spouse instead of bottling up your anger and following the path of temperance, which is the quality of moderation and self restraint. If you follow the first path, you would achieve your aim and satisfy yourself, but on the long run though you won the battle, you would have lost the battle over your home.
SELF DISCIPLINE.
Self discipline or self control is the ability to control one’s feelings and overcome ones weaknesses. It is an essential trait in the life of a marital anchor. It is also one of the fruit of the spirit as stated in
Galatians 5:22-23;
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,… gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
Unless there is self control, you will do things that you will definitely regret later. For instance, you you may fall for temptation which will be an eternal source of regrets to you later. Whether in your words or actions, you must exhibit self discipline. If not, there are ordinary words you will speak that will destroy your relationship in a way that ten years of correction may not be able to rectify.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS.
Proper communication is the mortar that holds the building blocks of marriage together. The ability to communicate effectively will help your home tremendously. When communication fails or there is improper communication, a lot of problems come up, which may threaten the home. Knowing that effective communication is not just about talking, a marital anchor must utilize every available means to effective communication with his or her spouse. Consequently, a marital anchor must guide against obstacles to effective communication in his or her home. Some of the barriers to effective communication in the home include following; inability to forgive, anger, desire for retaliation, nagging, assumptions etc.
DISCERNMENT.
Discernment is the ability to understand or know something through the power of the Holy Spirit. This an essential quality in the life of a marital anchor because in a lot of situations, you will need discernment to be able to understand and interpret a lot of situations in your marriage. There are signs you will notice about people and situations in your marriage that you will need to be able to interpret before it causes damage.
SUSTAINING THE POINT OF INITIAL ATTRACTION.
If you are able to look back and remember the point of attraction through which your spouse fell in love with you, as a marital anchor, you may strive to ensure that you don’t lose it at that point. I met my wife and we got married before I gave my life to Jesus. One major reason why she fell in love with me was that I was very brilliant. When we met in our secondary modern school days, we were in the same class. At the end of our first term at school, I came second in the class after one boy called Olumide. She was surprised that when we resumed second term, I called Olumide and told him openly that he should go and study very well because I always come first in any class. I made him to know that as from that term, I would always come first because I had no intention of allowing anyone to be ahead of me. True to my word, I came first, never to come second throughout our stay in that school. I used to do quite a number of things that would have made any girl to loose interest, but she never forgot that incident among others. However, when I proposed to her years later, she made me to understand that she agreed because she wanted to marry someone that was better than her academically so that her children would have someone to guide them.
To a woman such as my wife whose initial point of attraction was academic excellence, falling from such standard may make her to have the feeling that what she really saw in me then was no longer available in me. When the point of initial attraction is no longer functional in a spouse, it may reduce the attraction, especially if such spouse is not spiritually matured.
As a lady, the point of initial attraction may be the way you dressed in those days. You must not get to a stage where you will be dressing anyhow because you feel that no one is looking at you. You must not forget that even if there is no one else, your husband appreciates good dressing. On the other hand, your husband might have fallen in love with your commitment to spiritual assignments as a single sister, if in the future you deviate from the house of God, you must remember that you have denied your husband one of the things that attracted him to you initially.
Conclusion.
For you to function as a marital anchor, the circumstances of your home will determine the traits that must be manifested by you to be able to keep that home. The wife of a man who is very troublesome may need greater deal of patience which one of the hallmarks of humility to be able to hold her home stable than the wife of a gentleman. Whatever the trait that needs to be in you to be able to hold the ship steady must be developed by you in order for you to fulfill your purpose as an anchor.
