SECURE YOUR MARRIAGE 

Yesterday, my wife Veronica Nakanyika Chanda and I were invited to teach married couples at area 36 Baptist Church here in Malawi. What an overwhelming moment it was. Thank you to pastor Willes Master Chisale for providing us with the opportunity to serve. 

I was teaching about 12 sources of conflict in marriage and how to handle them.

I'm not here however, to teach those 12 conflicts but rather to give you a word of caution. 

A beautiful marriage doesn't come by accident. There is always an intentional action to make it look health and better. 

The danger for you is to stay complacent. When you think that you have arrived  and that all is well, you stop to do all the necessary things that you were taught to keep your marriage work, you will wake up one day to a rude shock that your marriage is no longer moving the way it started. 

You think like Leah in Genesis 29:32 ...Surely my husband will love me now, this was after she bore Ruben for Jacob.

Marriage is not about bearing children alone. Marriage goes far deeper than you know it. It is like fire wood. Fire wood requires your attention to keep a constant flame lit up. This flame keeps you  warm. If you stop putting wood on fire, it will die down.  

Like oil in a lamp,  you need to supply oil of love, trust and faithfulness to each, other otherwise the light  slowly grows dim and darkness of confusion and conflict will takes over.

In my pastoral ministry I have seen young couples who broke up their marriage and their lives are never the same up to now. This is because they became complacent and forgot about what they needed to do.

Young couples nowadays quickly get divorce because they have not learned the art to promote and secure their marriages. They have  wrong expectations of how a marriage should be. They come with fantasy concepts of marriages they watched in movies where they expect no challenges. When they do not experience  what they saw, they quickly want to run out of marriage and prefer to be single. 

It is your duty, husband and wife to secure your marriage so that the perceived enemies may not easily reach and destroy it.

I learned this from birds. Some birds do not build their nests anyhow. You  find their nests high on top a tree, others build on  hanging thin branch of a tree besides the river. Others will build underneath the roof of people's houses. They do this because they know there are snakes and big birds which attack them. They want to secure their eggs. God has put instinct of survival in them otherwise they could have been extinguished. 

Set your eyes your wife or husband. It is very easy to fall in love with your workmates because most of the time you are found together. Avoid unnecessary physical contacts with the person who is not your spouse. This is because you can be tempted to illicit relationship.

Constantly and intentionally allow God to be in the centre of your marriage. Let the teaching of the Bible influence your decisions. 

For sure, there is no smooth road in marriage. Keep trusting,  keep your patience. Love is the mother of all virtues. 

Love you.