Before I go
ahead with this post, I will like to say that I am not writing from a wife’s
perspective but from an experience I had which helped me understand quite a lot
about living in the same house with another believer. Last year, I was living
with my sisters in their house in another city, as much we had a great time
living together we hardly prayed together. Funny enough, we are all born again
and actively spreading the Gospel of Christ and yet we prayed only on occasions.
Our feeble excuse was that they were working on their master’s dissertation
while I was working. When they were at home, I was at work and when they
returned home we’ll all be tired or I was already sleeping. Many times we tried
praying together but it always ended up as a one-day event. When I moved to
another city, everything suddenly changed; I had time to study my Bible, read
and pray. I was able seriously to manage my time to have some time reserved
exclusively for studying before bedtime. I began asking myself questions about
why we couldn’t pray together successfully everyday or even at least 5days in a
week. Thus, I specifically used marriage as an example because it happens more
in marriage than any where else. Before marriage many Christ conscious singles
have developed the habit of either praying before bedtime or waking up at night
to have a time of fellowship with God; they study the Word, sing, pray (in some
cases aloud or silently). But when you get married, you will have new
responsibilities like taking care of your new home, your husband and don’t
forget you still have church commitments, your job and many more. It’s so
possible to ignore spending time together as a couple in fellowship with the
Father. These two suggestions I believe will enlighten us to build a great
spiritual bond in marriage and even with kids it won’t be burdensome.
Have individual times of prayer and fellowship: In life they are certain things that if you cannot
successfully do alone you will hardly succeed in doing it with another person.
Prayer is one of those things; if you don’t have a private time when you pray
you will find praying with someone else burdensome. Cultivate the habit of spending time alone
with God and be intentional about it because you will need to grow more and more in an
attitude of commitment. Pray for
yourself, pray for the ministers of the Gospel, pray for the church of Jesus
Christ, your family, friends and many more. Spend time thanking God for His wondrous
works in your life, sing songs of adoration, meditate on God’s word, lay hands
on yourself and declare what you know is God’s persuasion of you (You have been
made righteous by your union with Christ, blessed, favored, you lack nothing because
you are enriched in everything by Christ, you are secure in Him because your
life is hid with Christ in God, etc). Most times when you have a personal time
of fellowship in Prayer and thanksgiving your spirit is enlightened to hear what
God is saying and where He is leading. He will reveal to you many things about
your life, ministry, purpose and he will guide you to fulfilling it. In Apostle
Paul’s epistles, he frequently made statements of mentioning the saints in his
prayers; I don’t believe there were only prayers he prayed in public. I believe he had
an alone time of fellowship and that way he was able to unlearned the things he
previously believed to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ revealed
the Gospel to Him through times of fellowship (Philippians 1:4, Ephesians 1:1
& 15, 1 Corinthians 14:18).
Set a particular time to study the Word and pray together: This one sounds some how easy but in practical terms it’s a bit
difficult. You may have different places where you work, different times when
you go to work and return. There are days when you are required to leave the
house earlier or later than usual. Amidst all these, make praying together a
priority. Both parties should work on their schedules and agree in order to
have a particular time when your pray together. Train yourselves to lay aside everything
for this time of prayer and thanksgiving together. Buy a devotional and a study
Bible, each person should actively participate; it should not weigh on one
person. And above all do it joyfully.
Beloved brethren,
it’s so easy to neglect these things especially in marriage. It’s so easy to be
busy with other things and look at spending time with God as secondary or even
unimportant. It’s so easy to feel you need to sleep longer and then give up
maybe 30 minutes to one hour of your time for bible study because you’ll wake up with puffy
eyes or tired (I’ve been there). As much as we’ve been saved by grace through
faith in Christ Jesus, we need to intentionally cultivate a habit of studying the
Bible along with books written by ministers of the Gospel, in order to grow
more and more in our knowledge of His person and finished works. As believers
in Christ, we are energized by God to take pleasure in His will but we have to
submit our faculties to the leadership of the Holy Spirit(Philippians 2:13). If
not, He won’t even have room to reveal the will of God to us and to instruct us
about what Christ accomplished with us, through us and for us.
You are
blessed!!!
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