Surrender

We all have dreams and aspirations, we always want things to go in a certain way. Am sure most of us if we were asked right now, to change the way things are going on in our lives, most certainly majority of us would raise our hands, why? Because maybe how we imagined our life to be is different from the reality that we are facing. So does that mean that we should give up? certainly not! But unfortunately this is exactly what is happening, more and more people are succumbing to the pressures of life. There is a difference between giving up and surrendering. Giving up means, you cease making an effort, you admit defeat to whatever it is that you were handling or going through. On the other hand to surrender means to stop resisting, and submit to another authority, to admit that you cannot handle the situation that you are currently going through alone, and so you submit to a higher authority.

To surrender doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a coward, it just means that things are not going on the way you anticipated them to, and so you surrender to the will and power of someone stronger than you. Take for example when countries go into war with each other. Most definitely there is always an army that is stronger than the other, it could be their machinery is stronger, it could be they are better trained than the rest of the army, or even have better weapons to fight their opponents. However, that doesn’t mean that the other army aren’t any good, they might even put up a very strong fight, but in the end, the strongest of the army always wins.

Am very passionate about marriage mainly because marriage was constituted by God Himself. However, so many marriages are breaking up these days, simply because people just don’t value the marriage institution. That said, I want to say congratulations to the many women and men out there that have “survived,” (for lack of a better word) and or put up a fight for their marriage against all the odds that might have come up against them. Unfortunately, this is not the same for many other couples out there, majority have give up, thrown in the towel! why wouldn’t they, after all they’ve seen or gone through! Some give up due to physical fighting, miscommunication that leads to no communication at all. Slowly and slowly a couple that used to “seem,” to love each other, now, don’t see eye to eye, arguments and arguments are the order of the day and each day they grow further and further apart. One small issue can escalate to become so major, simply because none of the couples wants to calm down and just listen to the other side. I once heard of a couple who wanted a divorce because their partner was pushing the toothpaste from the middle and the other partner was tired of the other making noise about toothpaste, to them, that’s a none issue that has being made an issue and now they both tired of one another. Silly right?

The biggest destroyer of marriages is trust! Where there is no trust, there simply is no marriage. How do trust issues come about? infidelity and many lies. Many people especially christians who have gone through infidelity don’t like talking about it, maybe because they are embarrassed about the whole issue, after all, to the world their marriage might have seemed as the picture perfect description of what marriage is all about! and so the easiest thing for them to do is shelve everything under the carpet. Why don’t we like admitting when wrong things happen? why don’t we like addressing the elephant in the room? why don’t couples communicate? Instead of addressing issues, majority of people start becoming their own private investigators, they start snooping on their partners lives, their phones or anything they can get hold of. What this does is create even more suspicion, if they tell you they are working late and maybe they genuinely are, you start thinking that maybe he’s having a date somewhere. Slowly by slowly where there was love, in comes mistrust, where people were in love with each other, they fall out of love and everything keeps fading away, and in its place comes anger, hatred and bitterness.

What then can you do? what then should you do? Marriage was ordained by God from the very beginning Genesis 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. This is the plan of God for every marriage, but we all know the work of the enemy! To kill, steal and destroy. When he sees a happy home, a happy marriage he doesn’t like it and he will find ways and means to break up happy homes. Look at our generation right now, children born with no fathers simply because they were afraid of responsibility and they ran away. While others born into a picture perfect family but still the parents don’t get along and so they get a divorce. Children born into abusive marriages, where all they see is violence and more violence, what will become of them? We need to go back to the ordainer of marriages and ask for help! We need to realize that without God as the centerpiece in our marriages, then were doomed. We need to surrender our lives and all the worries that we carry all day everyday unto Jesus.

Does it mean that if I put God at the centerpiece of my marriage/and or life I will never have issues and problems? certainly not! Issues will come up, but when we surrender to God, whenever we have an issue, the first person we should run to is God and ask Him for guidance on how to handle the situation. I know your reading this thinking, what is she on about? but I realized over the time that God has granted me to live that every situation where God is involved, you will always emerge a winner. Winning doesn’t mean that things go your way, it just means, that things have gone the way that God intended them to go. Don’t give up on your spouse, don’t give up on your marriage, remember when you fell in love, remember the love letters you wrote to one other! remember the days when you went out for candle lit dinner. What has changed? do you still do all what you did while dating? probably not! why? “am busy at work looking for money to provide for my family,” truth is if you don’t create time for one another, then when you find all this money, you won’t have anyone to spend it with.

Life is precious, so precious but we don’t appreciate the people around us, we use people and value things! Today while you still have the breadth of life, if your married, make the effort and just spend time with your spouse! but above everything else, let God be the centerpiece of your marriage.