Hey Logosophical Fam!
It’s your girl miss g and I am here to present to you our latest podcast series, loosely titled ‘Relationships’. It’s borne out of a conviction I had in 2020 that I just well…took forever to act upon. Y’all, the pandemic was doing its thing and ensuring one’s mental and emotional health sometimes meant doing the least. So please have mercy, LOL.
The idea that was placed in my mind and spirit centred around examining the male-female relationship from a biblical, born again and Holy Spirit informed perspective. I am glad to say that in 2021, there is a wealth of teaching and pastoral content that has been shared to help men and women rewire their understanding of God’s call to marriage and the journeys we take to get there, including what the nature and purpose of marriage is. I thank God for social media because it’s through platforms like Instagram that I have come to follow such great and anointed Christian teachers of this subject. These are men and women that God has given a ministry and a burning desire in the area. They possess a burning desire to see God’s original plan and intention for marriage be rediscovered and practiced in Christian marriages, and I believe that as we watch the end-times roll in, God will raise the standard in/among His children in order that they REALLY be a clear, undeniable and unapologetic remnant that is most reflective of Him. Restoration is occurring and we are being called to truth and purity…not man-made versions of it or watered down types of believers. God wants to use us as pure, set-apart and wholly submitted, to make His name even more known on the earth as the tide begins to change.
His plan for marriage entails restoring the right knowledge of the coming together of a man and a woman, their appointed roles within the covenant of marriage, and their unique make-up, a biblically informed understanding of which will ensure successful marriages. God intends for marriage to be a representation of the relationship between His Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and the redeemed, His Bride. Broadly speaking, the love of Christ for his Church is sacrificial, and ultimately, God wants to use marriages as an example of how we ought to love one another on earth, across the numerous divides that exist among humanity. I have not been married, but it’s not rocket science to figure out that loving and permanently living with some person you met randomly can be the hardest thing we ever have to do in our adult lives. Loving people you grew up with or share a home with is hard enough already…but now a person from a different background, different personality, perhaps different values and wildly different ways of seeing and understanding or interpreting the world? Near impossible. But not so much if we are submitted to the pruning and refining of the Holy Spirit. It is literally only through coming to know God and having God continuously reside in us that any of us can love anyone else. See 1 John 4:8
Essentially, God wants to make us like Him. Because we are anything but. Human beings are selfish, self-absorbed and driven by self-interest. God’s way of being is the opposite. Being selfless is one of the hardest things any of us can ever be asked to do. It goes against our fallen flesh. It is my belief that as Christians, one of the key ways in which we are constantly refined throughout our journey with Christ is in dying to self and becoming people that love others as we love ourselves and who know how to put others first, without any benefit to ourselves. That’s hard. And God’s version of marriage (the only authentic version) is perfect training ground for that. And because it’s so hard and it is a lifelong commitment, WHO you do marriage with becomes the most important decision you will ever make in your life.
God also wants to restore Kingdom Marriage to restore the family unit and all the important things that flow out of that. Broken homes often produce broken people, and the ripple effect is that we have broken communities and societies. There is not a lack of sociological and anthropological documentation of this fact. Children leave single parent homes and become confused, insecure or untethered adults. God’s heart is reaching out to the world to give them the blueprint for how to produce spiritually, mentally and emotionally well-adjusted people. It happens in homes with a mother and father. Both of whom are submitted to Christ and each other. Because (sorry men…the church has been reading the verse to y’all wrong all along) God calls BOTH spouses to submit to one another…point, blank and the period.
Now…back to who you choose. It’s the thing we have experienced time and again with failed marriages. People just didn’t take their time or exercise spiritual wisdom in deciding on a spouse. Even Christians make that mistake. It is especially heartbreaking when Christians lead with impulsivity because it says to the world “If they can’t get their own God’s institution right, why should we honour it?” It also leads to untold heartbreak once things have fallen apart and people are left to pick up the broken pieces. The constant reckoning with God and placing blame on Him (God, how could you allow this?) can even break solid believers’ faith. And of course, as much as God loves us to heal our brokenness when we have experienced failed marriages, He often responds by reminding us that we never invited Him into that decision-making in the first place. Choosing a wrong mate can set you down a most regrettable path…one that may irreversibly change your life for the worst. Abuse can scar you for life. Incompatibility can grieve your spirit and a lack of a shared common vision and belief for the marriage can lead to loneliness, feeling unfulfilled and even eventually looking outside of marriage to meet certain needs. And I know that we all get into situations where we are so, so convinced that WE KNOW BETTER THAN GOD. That prospective job offer in a new country, that major life purchase (e.g. a house) are all things that LOOK good for us because they will progress us and meet our needs…all things God wants for us. They are intrinsically “good”. But not always. Part of why God is jealous after us is because He is aware of the perils that litter our human experience. When He bows and breaks us to surrender to Him, it’s not because He is mean; it’s because He wants to train us to always confer with Him FIRST, in all things (Proverbs 3:5-6). He also wants to protect us from harm and evil. There is no world or situation in which a Christian should ever make such major decisions without diligently seeking after God’s heart on the matter. None whatsoever. I know that as humans, we think that our intellectual understanding has evolved to the degree that we believe we know it all. We don’t. We still need God and HE WANTS to guide us into goodness, into much better than we could ever select for ourselves of our own limited wisdom. Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
It is my firm belief that no amount of loneliness in singleness can equal the pain of experiencing the demise and death of a marriage. None. And it is also my belief that for each of us that desire marriage, God has appointed a time and a person suitable for us. And we only come to this revelation if we diligently seek Him first when we are presented with potential mates.
In pursuing this idea of speaking about male-female relationships, God had already given me a start point. He showed me my good friend Rita Bamanayi. Rita is currently going through a divorce, after having been married for more 10 years. Her story is filled with multiple layers of pain and betrayal, but God is THE Redeemer. She agreed to talk to me about how she came about to be married to someone that was absolutely not who God would have led her to in His perfect wisdom. We may come about to meeting potential mates in different ways, but I believe that certain principles can help us to be shrewd/wise, Spirit-led and patient in the decision-making process. More than Rita’s story being a cautionary tale, it’s really more about the wisdom we can pluck out of it that we can apply to our own pre-marital situations. I invite you to listen to our 2-part conversation and pray that you will receive an impartation of wisdom, no matter how small. Please also feel free to share this with whomever you may have in your heart. Be blessed.
