Many of the responses to last week’s edition centre on the signs to watch out for in courtship to achieve a successful marriage. Several troubled marriages these days are in such condition because they failed to do what the people involved should do. Signs are one of the major indicators the elders rely on to determine what the future holds in a marriage.
This same question has been regularly asked in virtually everywhere I speak. In churches, at seminars and during counselling sessions, people often ask the question to identify the right partners when they surface. Beyond the grandiloquence of relationship experts which thrives on regimented outlines based on human principles for ensuring successful relationships, the spiritual dimension in conjugal affairs is largely being ignored. It is a fundamental issue that should not be handled with levity. Not a few broken relationships have their root problems traced to spiritual factors.
Explicitly, there are those who are under spells or enchantments from esoteric powers or forces to either keep them unmarried perpetually or never to allow them have peaceful homes. These things manifest in unsuspecting ways such as meeting wrong partners, pairing with hard or uncaring souls, preferring irresponsible admirers above the other suitors, lack of interest in cool, calm and less aggressive suitors, developing sudden dislike for partners midway in courtship, constantly being jilted at the threshold of consummation, parental disapproval, complacent disposition towards marital issues, ignoring or rejecting wise counsel, accepting to please family and friends against one’s conviction, living a superficial lifestyle, pushing too fast beyond the pace or limit of your partner, refusal to seek help when things are getting out of hands, insisting on getting a faultless partner, massaging your ego by justifying your weaknesses, priotising monetary consideration as determinant factor, insatiable hunt for beauty and material wealth, being misled by wrong advice, getting hooked with a cursed family linage, and lack of sense of discernment and urgency, among other factors.
It is an act of outright negligence for intending couples to downplay the importance of spiritual dimension in their anticipated union. Love, though a strong force and bedrock upon which every conjugal foundation is laid, is not sufficient to sustain a marriage when the vicissitude of life billows against the union. Apart from breakups or disappointments that often characterise such relationships, indices like lack, penury, hunger, job losses, stagnation, debts, helplessness etc. are common denominators.
Typical examples abound in the society of distressed relationships. Some indeed noticed the signs early enough but the fear of what people will say or think about them goaded them into solemnizing obviously jinxed relationships.
A marriage contracted in 1991 that should not have been solemnized was done just because the bridegroom didn’t want to lose face with his friends and to preserve his family pedigree from the scandal that his last minutes withdrawal would attract. Today, the marriage had broken up way back since 2005 on the account of the ignored warnings and signs. I want submit here that God does not always speak verbally through his servants or through dreams but sometimes through signs and events happening while in relationships.
I do counsel that the best time to pray about a life partner is when you are not involved with anyone at all. You will be able to pray with an open heart without anybody in mind. Such was the case with the chief servant of Father Abraham (Gen. 24: 12-22). But when you already desired or have a crush on someone, praying to know the will of God concerning the same person may not always yield the right spiritual signal because your mind is biased. A neutral party who does not have any interest in either or both of you will receive a correct answer.
An upwardly mobile professional executive had a delayed marriage in the late 90s. His friends were accusing him of being unserious whereas he was actually screening and evaluating the women around him to know who to settle for. Bowing to pressure, he accidentally took a fair, pretty lady who was working in a branch of his company. Barely a year into his hurried marriage, he lost his job. A well-connected and respectable man in the industry, he’s yet to get his bearing financially since as his frantic efforts at establishing his own outfit has ended in insolvency. Currently, he’s barely surviving on the goodwill of his good deeds with some people. He realized pretty too late that the cause of his problem has a lot to do with his choice of a life partner.
A diligent woman who was working in an industry that manufacture household items in Lagos was billed to go to France for further training consequent upon her promotion at work. Sensing a possible loss, her fiancé quickly proposed marriage to her. In her confession years later, her instinct declined the offer but in order not to put him to shame, “I accepted to marry him.” Two weeks later, her scheduled training overseas was canceled; instead, her immediate junior officer was sent in her place. Alarmed by this development, she initially suspected this might have to do with her man. “I became curious. I have never been so jolted and disappointed in such a humiliating manner before. I sensed that this might have something to do with my relationship with this guy; nay, I discarded the thought though it was persistent in my mind even till date.
“The devastating shock I received as a result of my cancelled trip to France nudged me into hurried marriage. On resumption from my annual leave cum honeymoon, I was relieved of my job as a senior manager without committing any offence. I didn’t receive any query be it written or verbal. It was while I embarked on ceaseless fasting and prayers on Prayer Mountains and camps that I personally dreamt about the source of my affliction which was the choice I made in marriage. Whoever ignore warning signs will live to regret it later just as I now do,” she explained.
There are those whose parents or parents-in-law are the sources of their problems. This is very common with mothers in particular as most fathers are largely indifferent to the choices of their children. Mothers prefer their sons or daughters to marry right but this motherly love is often taken to an extreme situation in which diabolical or esoteric powers are being used to manipulate the children or their homes. As much as I believe in parental consent on the choices their children make, their involvement should be moderate. Mothers will do much more on their knees praying than enforcing their will or preferences.
Are the signs all negative? Of course not. Many more people have achieved a lot and gone higher in life when they get engaged or married. Things they struggled to achieve as single but they could not became easily attainable in marriage. A failed life could adversely affect a whole generation of destinies. Every successful individual in a family has a way it lifts tens or scores of other lives in the family circle. It is better to watch the signs and respond to them accordingly as God speaks to us in diverse ways. Poverty or failure-infested family life is not a good life and it is avoidable if the signs are observed.
Quote:
“The devastating shock I received as a result of my cancelled trip to France nudged me into hurried marriage. On resumption from my annual leave cum honeymoon, I was relieved of my job as a senior manager without committing any offence. It was while I embarked on ceaseless fasting and prayers on prayer mountains and camps that I personally dreamt about the source of my affliction which was the choice I made in marriage.”
