Let me start by sharing the perspective I had on marriage for a couple of years, due to what I witnessed in my personal life. At a certain point in life I thought that marriage was not worth it. I had lost faith in the in the whole institution of marriage, because I wondered how two people that claimed “for better or worse”, could end up the way I saw happening around me. “Is this what marriage was going to look like”, I thought by myself. Then forget it, I didn’t want it.
Keeping God as the Centre of Your Marriage
It took me a few years to change my perspective from this, to wanting to be a married woman myself. This change started when I began to read what God’s Word says about marriage. First, it is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18). God wanted man to have a companion, so that was step one. As I continue to read His Word, I also understood that God must be involved from the beginning of the courtship leading to marriage. And then it hit me, this was the missing link. God wasn’t emulated in the marriages around me. I did not see the love, the compassion, the submission and the forgiveness. God was not the leading component, so you can imagine why I had a negative outlook on marriage.
When God is the centre of your marriage, no matter what happens, you will take it into prayer by faith, believing God to work on it, lead you through it and allow the marriage to become even better. Now the Word of God says this about faith in Hebrews 11:1 – Faith is the substance of things hopes for, the evidence of things unseen (KJV). I understood this as; as long you keep hoping in your marriage, you still have faith and because you still have faith you will continue to have a hope. It is like a circle working around and with each other. It is that same faith that will help you and strengthen you to fight for your marriage when all seems to fall apart.
The Worse of “for Better and Worse”
In Matthew 17:20 we read that He said to them, because of the littleness of your faith [that is, your lack of firmly relying trust]. For truly I say to you, if you have faith [that is living] like a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, Move from here to yonder place, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you (AMP). The type of faith we need to have is the one that is living, never slacking & always active. It is that type of faith that will allow you to stand and fight when the worse of the “for better and worse” part comes. That is why the Word of God says that a wise woman builds her house, and she does not help destroy it (Proverbs 14:1). It is only lack of faith that will cause a woman not to fight but rather to destroy her marriage. Your attitude can tell others a lot and it the same attitude that determines the outcome of any situations you find yourself in.
In Matt 15:28 ( Amplified) we find that Jesus answered her, “Woman, your faith [your personal trust and confidence in My power] is great; it will be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment (AMP). This scripture tells me that the faith that we have should be living and based on personal trust in Christ Jesus, instead of on ourselves, because the One we serve goes above the physical and the ordinary.
Our (future) marriages must have a faith that is extraordinary. Faith that goes beyond the human mind. That men cannot comprehend. It is that faith that will make our (future) marriages last and stand the test of time.
God bless,
Claudia Baah
Guest Writer
The Purpose Wife 