Now godliness with contentment is great gain. (1Tim.6:6)
The battle of contentment is all about being contented with your spouse. Marriage creates a world of reality around you, the characteristics of which is peculiar to your own family alone. You will be doing your home a lot of good if you recognize these realities because if you fail to do so, it will be detrimental to the success of your home. The features of other families are different from your own. When you look at what God or circumstances have packaged into another family, that family may appear to be more blessed than your own. Covetousness often comes in naturally as you look at your family and conclude that God has not been fair to you. It is a real battle to prevent yourself and/or your spouse from unnecessary pressures that result from trying to catch up, take possession or bring down others.
READ MORE: MARITAL BATTLES 5: THE BATTLE OF FAITHFULNESS.
There are several reasons why you may need to fight and win the battle of contentment. Some of them are:
– Lack of contentment will make you to be blind to the good features of your marriage. When you are not contented with your marriage, you are not likely to see anything good in your spouse. When he keeps seeing that in you, it may make him to reduce his affection for you as he will translate it to lack of interest in him by you.
– If you are not contented with your spouse, you can’t enjoy your family. You simply can’t enjoy your marriage, if you are not contented with your home. This is because you will be seeing the other family that you are coveting as being better than your own.
– When you are not contented with your family, it will make the home environment to be filled with uncertainty and fear of the next thing that might happen. A home in which there is lack of contentment is bound to be filled mistrust which in turn makes other members of the family to be uncertain of what might happen next.
– You will see nothing wrong in being cruel and violent against your spouse because you are already obsessed with another person. There have been cases of husbands who maltreated their wives to the point of death. There have also been cases of wives who abandoned their home just because of lack of contentment.
– Lack of contentment may expose your life and that of your family members to a lot of dangers. When you are not contented with your spouse, you may under the drive of lack of contentment take inexplicable diabolical steps with dangerous consequences.
– It may lead you to doing things that a child of God would not have done.
– It is very difficult for a covetous person to maintain good relationship with God as a result of ungrateful heart.
In other to win the battle of contentment, you may need to note the following:
• Always look at your spouse as the best thing that can ever happen to you.
* Be grateful to God about the circumstances of your family.
• Remember that your spouse, if possessed by another person, would be celebrated despite all the shortcomings you might have discovered in him or her.
• Remember always that one of the most expensive ventures in life is divorce. One may not know how expensive it is until he goes into it.
READ MORE: MARITAL BATTLES 5: THE BATTLE OF FAITHFULNESS.
Conclusion.
The battle of contentment is a battle that you must win, if you want your marriage to be a success story. You need to be frank with yourself and take the necessary steps if you will not allow it to destroy your home.
Dr. Mike Oluniyi.
