Dr. Mike Oluniyi.
This is the most vivid lesson I learnt this year. The lesson is that there is an imperfection in your spouse and it will pay you to continue to bear with her until death do you part.
Sometimes, a minister of God will get to a stage in life and ministry and decide to find an alternative solution to that imperfection and end up destroying all that he had build up over the years in Ministry.
When the Abiding Couples-In-Ministry Conference 2022 was approaching, I thought of a minister of God that could be given the HUSBAND OF THE YEAR AWARD. My mind went straight to a man of God who I really respect for a testimony he shared years ago about his wife.
That day, we organized a couples program and invited him and his wife to be part of it. While the program was ongoing, I asked that people should share with us what they had been coping with in their marriage that could be difficult for others to cope with. He then shared with us that he had been married to his beautiful wife for thirty three years. Since they got married, the wife had never opened her mouth to say ‘I am sorry.’ Everyone was surprised how someone could live with a wife who could not apologize for any offence for thirty three years. It was unbelievable because even after thirty three years in marriage, they were very closely knitted together in a loving relationship. You could always see them together taking a stroll in the evening or sitting together in front of their house. Since then, I used to counsel couples that if someone could live with a wife who could not say sorry for thirty three years, you don’t have any reason to complain that your spouse doesn’t know how to apologize. I continued to tell people that your wife or husband may not know how to say sorry in words but may have another way of saying it effectively. My mind readily went to him for the award of Husband of the Year. However, when I told him on phone he declined and promised to see me to explain why he is not qualified to be so awarded. When he came to me and explained, it made me to be really afraid, and be more serious about finishing strong.
After thirty six years of bearing with his wife of the inability to apologize and other ‘elements of pride’, he decided to find solution to it! Obviously, the solution was to look for another woman who would be more humble.
According to him, the reactions from the significant others in him life were shocking and far greater than he could have ever expected. From their grown up children, friends, church etc: it was like all the recognition he had in ministry in his denomination were consigned to the dustbin of history. He became completely isolated. He regretted what he did, and couldn’t imagine that he did it.
The lessons which I learnt from it are:
1. You can’t have a perfect spouse, learn to cope with the imperfections of your spouse.
2. When people are telling you that you are stupid by coping with the imperfections of your spouse, the devil through them is only looking for ways of making you to slip so that he may have occasion to rejoice over you.
3. Often, you may appear foolish allowing some imperfections from your spouse, but the prize ahead of finishing strong diminishes every present inconvenience.
4. Things you may scatter in other to prove that you are not foolish at times may make you to live the remaining part of your life in regrets.
5. Remembering the following scripture makes a lot of sense: 1 Corinthians 1:25
'Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.'
6. Remembering the testimony of Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7-8 is also important;
'I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.'
Maybe you should look at the imperfection in your spouse as part of the course that Paul mentioned above.
7. Finally, I must also remember always that in my life too, there is an imperfection that my wife must have been coping with.
