…Then you need to read this patiently and thoughtfully.
Your marital health is important not just to you but to your congregation.
Beyond that, it is important to the community, both the secular and the spiritual community of people.
More importantly, your marital health is important to your children, their marriage and their future.
I know there might be nothing much I could teach you because you might have heard it all from various places, and if there is, we shall talk about it later.
But my concern right now is beyond you and your marriage, I’m concerned about your children and their future.
You must understand two things:
- Your marriage will most definitely affect your children’s lives, careers, choices, futures and marriages.
I want you to please think deeply about this and how your marriage would or could affect your children in each of these areas.
But that is not where I want to dwell on in this Lecture. But this…
- Your good marriage does not guarantee your children’s. This is a truth every minister must note, understand and work with.
The fact that you have a good and happy marriage does not mean your children would automatically have one.
You need to work with them, for them and on them in order for them to enjoy a good and happy marriage too, if you have one.
If you don’t have it, you have to work very much extra. But let’s focus on the assumption that you have a good and happy marriage.
I was a first guest speaker at a marriage and relationship seminar in July 2019. After my session, I waited to listen to the second speaker.
He’s a man who has traveled the world. He’s a United Nations ambassador. He’s a successful professional. He’s a business man and a Pastor.
Well, I never knew any of those except the latter. He didn’t dress like it. His appearance also betrayed his real self. But I’m glad I waited behind to listen and learn from him.
During his delivery, he narrated a story of how Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo told them of how he once invited a young but dynamic minister to minster in his ministry.
The young man got connected to his daughter. With time the connection became a relationship. The relationship was prospecting into a marriage.
The young lady informed her father. The man of God prayed about the relationship, to know the future and God’s will about the two of them getting married.
When he prayed, he saw a vision that had something to do with the young man having something to do with dogs around him.
That means he was going to be a promiscuous man in the marriage and his daughter would have to contend with many marital challenges.
He told his daughter and the relationship ended there.
Now, think about it. If the man of God had not taken the matter to God in prayer and asked God about it, if he had left it all to his daughter to handle…
His daughter would have had a turbulent marriage despite the father having a happy and fruitful marriage.
Servant of the Most High, please don’t just leave your children’s marital decision to them without guidance. Don’t be so busy guiding others while leaving your own children to guide themselves.
There are many great servants of God who impacted the world, had very happy marriages, but their children’s marriages are nothing to write about.
Don’t fall into that category. Don’t join such statistics.
Let me tell you two of the most famous ones that we can relate with.
Billy Graham’s daughter was narrating during the funeral of the great evangelist of how her first marriage was a disaster.
After the divorce, she came home to stay with her parents. Then she met another man and without seeking or listening to counsels, she wedded the man.
Not long after, she was back home again.
Why would the beloved daughter of the great man of God and one of the most beloved couples in the world have two disastrous marriages within few years?
Perhaps we shall have time to x-ray that in another Lecture. But this shows that the fact that you as a servant of God have a Happy and lovely marriage does not mean your children would have same.
If you want them to, you must help them by working with them from now on it.
What about the great Evangelist Oral Robert? One of his three children, Richard, had a divorce very early in his marriage.
There are so many things to learn from this great man of God, things that include even the choice of a school for your children.
This man had some of the most blessed, wonderful and talented children that were ever born into this world . But each of them had one tragedy or another befall them. But now we are focusing on marriage.
It will interest you to know that Richard isn’t just a minister’s offspring. He’s a man of God himself with very notable ministry.
But something went wrong in his marriage and his life, especially at the beginning of his marriage and career. Thank God he later had a positive turnaround.
We need to learn from those ahead of us so we would excel where they succeeded, succeed where they failed and improve on what they left behind.
Please train your children how to have a happy and successful marriage. Don’t have a happy marriage while your offspring have a disastrous one.
It begins today. Yes, it takes prayers, but more. It takes training, and more. It takes talking, and yet more.
You must be involved without necessarily being in charge. You must intervene in their premarital affairs without necessarily interfering.
You must teach them how to pray and hear from God by themselves in daily matters and how to hear from God in marital choices.
Thou Servant of God, help thy children to marry rightly and enjoy a Happy and Successful Marriage.
Do we need to talk?
Please Call or WhatsApp +2347030371153.
I am A. T. ADENEKAN
Founder, The King’s People Connection & Happy Marriage Training Programme