An unbeliever believes that God is far away in heaven, busy with His daily schedules, and unmindful of what goes on in the world. This explains why he, the unbeliever, does what he wants in the way and manner that please him most. The child of God behaves differently. He knows that God, his Father, is interested deeply in everything that concerns him. It includes: how he uses his time, his choice for career, spouse, et cetera.
The unbeliever has no problem concerning, who to marry. To him, it is a game of chance. If he is fortunate––in his language, ‘lucky’––he will get a good spouse but if his spouse does not meet his expectations, there is somebody, somewhere, to replace her. He has no guarantee that the new spouse will meet also his perceived expectations. If she does not, the union is weakened or once again broken and as would be expected, someone, somewhere, is ready to fill up the gap. The new comer may not even care to consider his marriage history of divorce until the tie is either broken or there is estrangement between them. In each of the marriages, children might have been born. This is why, in a family, you can see some children of the same father but of different mothers or of the same mother but of different fathers!
This situation would have been avoided if God has been brought into the marriage from the beginning. He reveals our life partners if He is allowed to do so. “If you ask anything in My name,” the Lord Jesus told His disciples, “I will do it”. Nothing is exempted in the package. If we want Him to reveal to us our life partners, He will do so, provided that we have a personal relationship with Him. The problem with some believers is that, while making the prayer, their minds are already made up on who to marry. Their prayer is for God to rubberstamp their choice. He keeps quiet and they accuse Him then, of not answering prayers. If we are sincere in our prayers, by leaving everything in His hand, He will answer. We must appreciate the fact that by seeking His guidance, we are not doing Him any favour. It is absolutely for our good.
After God has revealed a life partner, communicating it to the partner-to-be is a lot easier with men than with ladies. The man will approach the sister and then makes his proposal. She may ask him, how he knows that she is God’s choice for him. He will then share his testimony with her. In my case, thank God that tribal bias had never been in me. The person I regard as my brother or sister is a child of God, irrespective of the tribe of origin. It was my desire to marry by the will of God, Who knows my future. I knew that I needed Him for it. It was in a dream. I was doing my long vacation job at Aba in 1973, a year before graduation, that God revealed my life partner to me. It was a very tall journey for me to propose to her, a lady I had wanted to sleep with in 1971 before I was born-again. I kept the revelation to myself for eighteen months, praying for God’s guidance.
The lady, Sister Ify, after my proposal, spent fifteen months before acceptance, as if she was paying me back with my coin for delaying to propose to her for eighteen months. During my waiting period for her, I nearly goofed. In one of my letters to a beloved Yoruba sister from Illorin, I wrote, “Are you engaged?” God told me that I was prostituting by asking that question, that if I trusted Him, about Sister Ify, I should then wait until I heard from her. I apologized to Him and deleted that offending paragraph. After my engagement, I informed the sister and asked her if she was engaged. She said that she was not. If I had not deleted that paragraph, she would have had the impression that I wanted to marry her!
In the case of sisters, it is not as easy as it is with men. They try to avoid being misunderstood. A few ladies have gone to brothers and laid the card on the table. The men refused to accept them. One of the men went to the extent of warning the lady never to enter his office again. Imagine!
In another case, the sister kept the revelation to herself for two long years, praying over it. One day, she went for a friendly visit to the brethren living in a house of four flats. She mustered courage to knock at the door of the brother, God had revealed to her for marriage. When he opened the door, he was surprised to see her. There and then, God told him that she was his wife and that he should propose to her that day. “If I propose to her,” he told God, “and she says that she will pray about it, the matter will be closed for ever”. That was his true nature, a nice and dedicated brother, but he seemed very tough. After exchanging pleasantries, he made his proposal and was surprised when, as if she was aware of his deal with God, she accepted. It was when they attended my couples’ retreat that the lady shared this testimony, while our brother was there, laughing. They lived in England but unfortunately, the brother has passed on recently.
In another case, a sister was watching a television and she saw an image of a man on the screen. It was a brother she would not have anything to do with ordinarily. While she was from a royal family, he was from a humble home. While she was a student in the university, he still needed some papers to qualify for admission. While God was very benevolent in making her beautiful, our brother was her opposite. What was common to them was their Christian faith. God told her clearly that the man was her husband. She was angry, very angry. “If this man opens his mouth to tell me anything about marriage, I will pour my anger on him,” she told herself. Within split seconds, she heard a knock at the door. A boy gave her a letter. It was a marriage proposal letter from that brother. I gave the vote of thanks during their wedding!
There may be some sisters and brothers we are praying for today, for God to show them their future life partners. Some of them may not confess the whole truth to us, so that we will know, how to present their case to God. The only thing we can do in their situation is to plead with God for mercy. These are people God had revealed to them their life partners many years ago, but they refused to accept His choice for them. Their carnal considerations might have hinged on the person’s education, physical built, economic consideration, position in the society, office, business, et cetera.
Tribe of origin might have been considered as if anybody chose his or her tribe before birth! In that situation, someone might have taken the spouses God had given them. It is only His mercy and that alone that can change the situation now.
For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi: 0802 3002-471; [email protected]