6 Best Kept Secrets in Marriage You Must Know

Marriage is a school with a dynamic curriculum. What works in school A might not work in school B. This notwithstanding, as heirs of the kingdom, there are general rules that apply in all climes and contribute to the success of godly marriages.

Allison Hyacintho, a certified relationship and marriage counselor, coach, author and Christian minister has shared some kingdom compliant truth about marriage in what he terms best-kept secrets in marriage you must know.

We also share our views on each secret.

Are you a single, you do yourself a world of good to receive them with an open mind and readiness to pray and work with them till they become your reality.

Are you married, you might find answers to challenges you are currently facing in your marriage. You can walk your way back to where you and your spouse got it wrong by using these secrets. Shalom!

Are you aware of unconscious bias in parenting?

Secret one – Marriage is Garbage In and Garbage Out

“This is the first lesson that begins to dawn on you about six months into your marriage. You will realise too soon that whatever effort and commitment you put into your marriage is the same output you will get out of it. Your marriage grows only as much as you water it. “

The Bible attests to this in Genesis 8:22 – while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night shall not cease.

Just as the finished work of Christ does not send us to bed to sleep for a lifetime, successful marriages are cultivated and not happenstance.

Secret two – No one can truly make you happy in marriage

“If you are getting married to find happiness, I’m sorry you have jumped on the wrong ship. You would soon learn that you don’t have control over your spouse’s actions, the only action you can control is yours.

Your happiness will keep swinging on your partner’s mood, temperaments and dispositions per time.

Please come into marriage with your own self-happiness and satisfaction, because no matter how lovely your spouse is, he or she cannot make you happy all the time, they are not ice cream.”

Your joy should always be sourced and sustained in God not in man or things.While your spouse can make your happy with some things they do, they can also disappoint you and fall short of your expectations sometimes and this might or might not be intentional.

Man and things are sources that cannot sustain joy. Philippians 4:4 says Rejoice in the Lord always and I again I say, Rejoice. Psam 144:15 says Happy are the people who are in such a state; Happy are the people whose God is the Lord!

If you cannot live a happy and satisfied life as a single but instead believing that only a spouse would give you the ‘happiness’ you seek then you are setting yourself up for an impending frustration.

Be happy and flaunt your joy even as a single because in life, apart from God no other person or thing should add to your sense of being.

No man or woman can be your lifetime joy-giver and sustainer.

Secret Three – What we call change is actually making adjustments to accommodate the other person

“No one truly changes just like that. Be prepared and know that you cannot demand change from your spouse overnight, even with prayer and fasting.

A partner who has been a master of his or her addictions and habits over many years cannot give up on them easily after 3 months of marriage; they could but it would have to come through a process.

In marriage, you will learn to be patient with your spouse as they keep working on themselves to make things more accommodating for both of you. “

We are all on a journey to perfection. It is God who is working in us but to will and to do of his good pleasures

Secret Four – A kingdom marriage is voluntary missionary work

“This is why I feel sorry for anyone forcing marriage or coercing someone to marry them. Never try to influence marriage, it is either they want to undertake the mission with you or not.

If you force anyone to marry you, you’ll keep forcing that person to stay married to you.

There is a heavy price to pay in marriage guys, a very heavy one. Some of which are going to inconvenient and sacrificial. Marry someone who acknowledges you as their life assignment.”

God is purposeful with all he institutes including marriage. Deciding to get married is enrolling fora piece of the kingdom mandate.

It involves two people fully submitted to God and each other to carry out the mandate he has assigned to them. Ephesians 5:22 says submitting to one another in the fear of God

Secret Five – Many of the qualities and checklist you are looking for in a spouse are there in form of RAW MATERIALS

“You will never find true satisfaction in your spouse if your gaze is set on the finished products. In marriage you will realise that many of the things you want your spouse to do, how you want them to look, etc, would have to be engineered by you.

A perfect marriage is only an illusion. Actually, in marriage perfection is measured by your level of contribution to your spouse”.

The best version of any man is in God, but in marriage, it is in God with the partnership of your spouse.

You would be making sure the God-version of you finds expression if you marry a man or woman who sees you through God’s eyes and deals with you from that same perspective and not just how you look physically.

Even though Adam was asleep when Eve was created, he woke up and called her exactly what God made her – woman. He was also able to recognize that he was her raw material. He saw her exactly how God did.

And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man – Genesis 2:22-23

Secret six – Every marriage comes with its own uniqueness

“No two marriage are the same, nor have the same blueprint.

You will be faced with Temptations to compare your spouse and your marriage to that of your neighbour, fight it, never do it, else that will be the genesis of the matters arising in your home.

If two marriages do not have the same battles, why should their success be measured the same? Comparison is a thief, it will steal everything you have worked for in your marriage”

Without a doubt, there are good things to desire and emulate in other godly marriages, but as our purposes differ, so do our paths differ.

You must be careful not to slip into comparison because it will blind your eyes to the good things in your marriage. The things you desire in another couple is a product of their partnership with God, and the one who gives one can give the other if it aligns with his plan for you.

DELIBERATE CHALLENGE

Wherever you are on the journey of marriage by the help of God, his will for your marital life can be fulfilled. Believe this and prayerfully partner with God to make it a reality.

PRAYER

Lord I believe your thoughts towards me for marriage are good. Let this truth I have received guide me by the help of the Holyspirit in Jesus name

The only way to make this truth your reality is to live it in your personal walk with God by being deliberate with your spiritual growth.

Whether you have given your life to Christ or not, let’s walk with you to becoming a Deliberate Christian.