RE: MARRIAGE, CHURCH AND DIVORCE. In furtherance of this discuss, I want to highlight two cases for your reasoning and consideration CASE 1 A deacon in the church once approached me to have a talk with his wife. He needed me to counsel her to take her role as wife seriously in terms of Christianity so as to be a good example both to him and the church in general. He didnt particularly mention any matter to me. This was around 2004/2005. I was pastoring that particular branch of the church then. I called the wife and had a very lively and interesting talk with her. I encouraged her to be a good wife and to support the goodness of God as requested or advised in the description of a virtuous woman in the book of Proverbs. Three weeks after, the same deacon approach me and the church council. This time, he wanted us all to appeal to his wife to take things easy and make life bearable for him. Considering that his marriage was less than 2 years old and the fact that he was an elderly man of about 55 then, I asked him to tell us what the issue was exactly. He declined on the basis that he didnt want to wash his dirty linen in public but that he will equally appreciate a pep talk by the church council to both of them, advising them both to live peacefully with one another. I tried hard to probe deeper but he wouldnt reveal any detail beyond his request for counseling. So, after service, we called both of them. Good enough, the husband was a deacon and a member of the church council while the wife was an intermittent worship solo singer in the church. When both of them sat down, I introduced the issue at hand and to my amazement, the wife burst into serious tears immediately she discovered that the husband had actually reported to the church council. It took us almost 5 minutes to calm her down. During the calming down, I knew in my mind that the husband must have been the guilty person because as we calmed the wife down she kept on muttering words like, just three times, what will a Christian do, what have I done etc. in my mind, I wondered why then the husband will confidently come to the church council when he was the one at fault. Perhaps, he thought his wife will keep quiet throughout the discussion. With that bias in mind, I asked the wife to tell us what the husband had done to her. My thinking was that if the man refused to let me in on the reasons he keeps telling us to us to talk to his wife then the wife will naturally spill the beans. My fellow brethren, Pastor, I thank you all for this meeting.....that was how she started her intro.......in fact I am very happy this type of meeting was called. The reason why I was crying is because my husband seems to be a very wicked man. After I told him not to worry just yesterday night that an incident occurred, he still came to church to report me. After all, how many times did I slap him that he is even reporting me. Pastor, I slapped him only thrice because I was very annoyed. I wouldnt have done so if I was just annoyed but in this case I was very annoyed. I asked him a question when we were at a party and he refused to answer me so I got very annoyed and slapped him. When I slapped him the first one, he got up, left the table we were sitting together with other guests and went to sit at another table. I became more annoyed after sometime and followed him there where I slapped him again. He now stood up and instead of telling me he was going home, just made for the exit and wanted to leave. I caught up with him and slapped him again before he finally left the party. But Pastor, before God and man, it was only three slaps and I even told him when I got home that I will try not to be getting that angry again. Why he is still bringing up the issue is what I dont understand. As shocked and surprised as you are now was exactly how I can describe the whole meeting that day. When we recovered and discovered that what we were witnessing was real, I managed to ask a question, sorry madam, this party, were there people there or it was only you, your husband and the celebrant ahh Pastor, it was a full party held outdoors O, you know how ukwale parties are. It was very full Pastor. Madam, I dont really know what to say right now because what will come out of this mouth wont do anyone any good. We will see you on Wednesday. Just go home and rest but before you go, let me just state that this your husband, despite several probings, refused to tell us the reason why he asked us to talk to you and him. It is now that we know what took place that warranted the call for counseling. In other words, you told us the truth. When she left us, we turned to the husband, the deacon whose eyes were now tear filled. He was visibly embarrassed as he didnt ever want us to hear what manner of behavior his wife had exhibited. We encouraged him with the word of God and urged him to stand firm and persevere. When he regained his confidence, he shocked us more with a couple of more happenings his supposedly Christian wife had done. As we encouraged and prayed with him, an inner anger filled my heart. Personally, I am a stickler to marriage by the word of God, not by church, not by tradition, not by court and certainly not by western values that are definitely demonic and squarely anti God but simply by marriage by the Word and its principles. To cut the story short, after turbulence e here and there, the deacon sued for divorce. I immediately opposed it, reading relevant sections of the Bible to him but the man was as determined as I have never seen before. Again and again, I tried to find out what must have led to this grave decision but he in his usual character refused to disclose any. He just said Pastor I am tired. If you think you are man and godly enough, you can have her willingly on my account but I know it is impossible to live with satan. I tried all I could but to no avail. I couldnt reach the wife as she avoided me like a plague. To her, I was supporting her husband since the day I rebuked her sharply for slapping her husband in public. Well, it really didnt matter whether it was public or private because it was just as well as an abomination anywhere. Lastly, I convinced the deacon to come to my house for lunch where I hoped to make a final plea to him. Since he was much older than me, I called in my wifes mother who was older than him to help talk to him based on experience, age and advice. He came and my mother in-law engaged him. After about 20 minutes his anger grew from bad to worse. Will you all be satisfied when I die? he voiced out. Just two months ago, I was sleeping deeply at about 2 am when my wife poured a bucket of water over my head. Water ran straight through my nose into my brain. I choked, suffered for almost 30 minutes unto death before God miraculously saved me. My offense was that I talked and chatted to my neighbors wife beyond permissible time. She said I had no right to be friendly with my neighbors wife even though weve been friends for over 10 years. It took me over a month to forgive her but after the intervention of nearly the whole of Lagos State and the same neighbors wife upon whom I nearly drowned, I did forgive. She apologizes as usual but believed that I was still annoyed. Yes, Mummy, I was still annoyed but I had forgiven her. So last week, she was still moody and was making moves towards me in bed. Initially, I wasnt for it but I started to question the reality of my forgiveness if I couldnt sleep with my wife. As we made to have --- I felt a very terrible pain in the darkness of the room. As I screamed and jumped out of the bed, I put on the switch only to discover that my wife had nearly cut off one part of my manhood with blood pouring out like tap water. I ran out like that just with a wrapper in tow to the nearest hospital where they stitched me in serious pain. Pastor, mama, madam this is it O. As he made to bring out his manhood, I stopped him. There was no way I was going to allow another man showcase his asset before my mother in-law and my wife. After hearing all this, I begged the man to end the marriage quickly. I even told him I will be very annoyed with him if he went back because I reasoned the next news I will hear will be the news of his death. About a month later, I was able to trace the wife. She had literarily abandoned her home and took shelter in another church where she was consulting with her maker. I was able to get her to come to my house for discussions. I equally invited my mother in-law to spearhead the discussion again. When faced with the accusations made by her husband, she agreed to having done all. When asked why, she said her husband annoyed her so she reacted like any normal person will do. When asked if she was still interested in the marriage, she said she loved her husband and would want to go back home but that the man needs to move out from that particular place to a new abode where they can start afresh. My people, I just shook my head and prayed for her. I have narrated this true life story so that those of us in good marriages can appreciate the favor of God in our lives. Those of us in not too good marriage can still appreciate the enormous hope of a good marriage that lies before us. Those of us who love to preach the letter without understanding should understand that the scripture was made for man and not man for the scripture. I will discuss the other one later. JESUS IS LORD, ALWAYS.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 12:41:16 +0000
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