MARRIAGE MATTERS NEWSLETTER.
Monday 30th December 2024.
STANDING ON YOUR WATCH IN MARRIAGE.
In your marital relationship, there will be need for you to stand on your watch to ensure that no ugly occurrence will take place that may rock the boat of your home. In the world today, there are so many seemingly harmless things that can harm your relationship. Some of those destroyers of relationship are very big while some are very simple. As simple as they may appear however, they can gradually weaken the bond between you and your spouse. The other time, I was counseling a couple and the husband said that his wife was so addicted to social media that often when they were making love, the wife would be holding her phone and watching a film!
I have also seen a marriage that gradually got destroyed because the wife was waiting for the husband to apologize as usual. Every time they quarrelled in the past, it was the husband that used to apologize but in this particular case, the husband just decided that he could no longer do so. The wife kept waiting for him to do so until it was too late to rescue the situation.
WHILE MEN SLEPT.
‘But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way'(Matt.13:25)
In Mathew 13, we are told a parable of a man that planted good seed in his farm. However while he slept, the enemy came and planted tares among the wheat that he sowed. In a lot of situations in our marriage we are like the farmer who planted and went to sleep, consequently allowing the enemy to seize the opportunity to plant tares within the good farm. Sometimes the tares thus planted eventually take over the good plant we have sown in our marriage and it becomes unmanageable eventually destroying the marriage.
KEEP WATCH!
Your adversary, the devil does not want your home to stand. He knows that the best way to disorganize your life is to destroy your home while you are having the feeling that all is well. When you are not keeping watch in your marriage, any of the following may result;
Complacency.
Complacency means self-satisfaction, especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies. Complacency is a sign that you are not keeping watch as you will become self satisfied that nothing could happen to rock the boat of your marriage. If you are keeping watch, you will always be on the lookout for something you can do to spice up your relationship. Routine is often a subtle killer of marriage. The fact that you have doing something in a particular way does not mean that it is the only way in which it may be done. Complacency will make you to have the feeling that your spouse should be alright with the decisions that you are making whereas he or she is not.
Carelessness.
This is another feature of a home where the couple is not keeping watch. The extent to which you pay attention to the needs of your spouse may go a long way to ensure that your home will succeed. As a man, how attentive are you to the emotional needs of your wife? In the middle ages, women often become careless about the sexual needs of their husbands. Many men have strayed into the waiting hands of sexually starved women outside because their wives got careless about their sexual needs.
Distance.
Distance is another feature of a home where the partners are not keeping watch. Ignoring the fact that distance is a subtle killer of marriages can spell doom for the success of your home. Physical distance will not help your home, consequently you may need to think twice before accepting that offer of a higher paying job that will create a great physical rdistance between you and your spouse. It is a potential invitation to temptations. Emotional distance is a situation in which you are emotionally far from one another though physically near, it can also destroy your home.
Comparison of spouse with another person’s is also a feature of not keeping watch, as well as believing negative report of others about your spouse.
Conclusion.
As a conclusion, marital success requires keeping watch over your home. When you do so, you will be in position to discover when the enemy wants to creep in even sometimes through you to create problems which when not nipped in the bud might destroy your home.
May you not sleep for the enemy to sow tares in the good farm of your home in Jesus name.
Dr. Mike Oluniyi.
