Married But Not Together

I am no marriage counsellor despite the fact that I’ll soon be clocking a decade experience in the revered institution. Trust me, I am still a MAJOR work in progress. But I just thought to share these 2cents that came  roaming on my mind in recent times.

 

 How can you be married but not together with your spouse? Some married couples will tell you they are only married to their significant other only on paper and not in practice. While some are just flat mates, some others are bed mates; that is, their spouses are just there for them to have a 'weather for two' experience and nothing more. How can two people be sleeping with each other and still have no connection? We shall soon examine that. Some others are just technically baby mamas and papas. Only the children are keeping them together and nothing more.

Yet some others are meal tickets or ATM machines as the case may be. Some are also only together for social media and paparazzi as shocking as this may sound. The trophy wife is beautiful and drop dead gorgeous, therefore she's good to have by the side for the purpose of pictures that will trend on social media. And the list goes on. This leaves one to ask the question,

"Why stay married?"

What do I mean by being married and not together?

·         When your money is your money and his money is our money and vice versa;, you are married but not together.

 

·         When your spouse is not your first ‘go to’ when you need to break a news (either good or bad) or share and discuss updates on daily happenings in your life, you are married but not together.

 

·          When you both have divergent opinions on a matter and cannot seem to find a middle ground, some sort of compromise; then you are married but not together, particularly when this is always the case.

 

·          When you have completely different values particularly on major life issues like parenting for instance, you guessed right. You are married but not together.

 

·         When the spark has completely gone out of the marriage and no concerted effort is made by either parties to reignite it.

 

·          When all the fun you seek and ever want is always without your spouse.

 

·         When you see nothing wrong in running down your spouse or exposing his/her weakness to whoever cares to know.

 

·          When you can go days (notice I didn't say weeks or months because that is really a major deal) without talking to each other and your world is just normal. You are married but not together.

 

The issue of togetherness in marriage is what the devil has been fighting since the days of the garden of Eden. He made Eve disregard her husband and by extension, God's instruction making her to believe his lie; hook, line, sinker, fisherman and boots without recourse to even her husband. We all know the rest of the story. There is great power in unity. Great results are achieved when a couple is together. A wise man put a twist to the word team by making it an acronym meaning;

When a team (like couples are supposed to be) is together, there is no stopping them. Ask those who built the Tower of Babel. Even God was amazed and He alone had the power to stop them.

For the married folks reading this, please take a moment now and do this little litmus test will you? Are you married and TOGETHER?

 

Shining or Dimming

‘’Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

Let your light so SHINE BEFORE MEN, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’’

                                                                                Matthew 5:14, 16 (KJV, Emphasis mine)

 

The bible passage above I’m sure it’s one that we have all read and maybe memorised at one time at Sunday School as little children. What’s more we might have even learnt and sang that popular song of letting our little lights shine. But then I ask myself and every believer out there today,

‘’Are we really letting that little light of ours shine?’’

Have we not in the name of political correctness attempted to hide our lights under a bushel? Some of us might have not hidden it entirely but we have gradually started reducing the brightness of our light to adjust to the darkness. In short, rather than shining, our lights are dimming. There are some stances believers these days find difficult to take so as not to be seen as primitive, old school or not even enlightened. I even hear there are many gospels being propagated now. According to today’s Open Heavens devotional by Pastor Enoch Adeboye where he highlighted the dangers of heretic teachings that is now the order of the day in this present age, that there are different gospels now being propagated. They are; The Gospel of Relativism, Gospel of Modernism and Post-Modernism.

As a believer, are you truly shining? You know how it is when NEPA of old (my Nigerian readers will understand me better)supplies light with very low voltage to our homes and then the light starts to fluctuate. The light is so dimmed that even a candle appears to be brighter. What then happens? In frustration, one is left to either turn off all electrical appliances to prevent damage, wait it out till light of higher voltage is restored or if it were at night, we switch to generator. This analogy goes to show the utter uselessness of a light that is not shining brightly. Does that describe us as present day believers? How brightly is your light shining? Is it low current like we call this light that NEPA brings? Is it any wonder that the world is in darkness? We have through our daily acts of compromise and attitude of ‘it doesn’t matter’ or ‘God is not so wicked’ allowed the world to snuff out our light. I like the apt way this Instagram handle I follow, @storm_326 puts it,

 

When light shines brightly enough, soon darkness naturally finds its way out. Are you shining or dimming? You dim your light when you hang out in the club on Saturday nights and yet think it’s nothing because you do not miss your Sunday services. You dim your light when on your social media accounts people find it difficult to really say you are a Christian because of your very un-Christianly conduct.

‘’It’s my personal page’’, they say.

‘’ What I do or believe in is personal’’

Say what now?

You dim your light when as a believer you see nothing wrong in cussing or using vulgar language. Shoot me!

‘’...but be thou an example of the believers, IN WORD, IN CONVERSATION, IN CHARITY, IN SPIRIT, IN FAITH, IN PURITY.’’

                                                                1Timothy 4:12 (KJV, Emphasis mine)

 

I meet people of other faiths who never attempt to hide their belief. In fact you can easily tell from their conduct and speech without being told where they belong but believers, we like to ‘dress to suit the occasion’. I tweeted sometime last week that the world is finding it difficult to come to the church because the church keeps trying to look like the world. The world feels they miss nothing for coming to the church while the church acts like they missed something(s) for leaving the world.

 

This message is for the discerning. Maranatha!