Don’t Restrict Your Life To What People Say
A major puncturing factor to the joy of many marriages today is the four-word phrase: “What people will say or think?” Because of this phrase, certain things that you ought to do to boost your marriage, strengthen bonding in your marital relationship and increase your joy, are deliberately not done.
In the search for validation by people who have no stake in their destiny, some people have stamped a negative perception about themselves on the social media. Inferiority complex and ignorance about the essence of existence and the meaning of life have created a desperation that resulted in someone mounting a roadblock on the person’s future blessing.
Dear reader! PLEASE, DO NOT GO NAKED ON THE SOCIAL MEDIA OR SAY UNPRINTABLE THINGS JUST TO WIN FOLLOWERS OR GET VALIDATION OF PEOPLE. Your blessed future is at stake. The internet never forgets. Future marriages have been broken in advance while right choices of spouses have been missed as a result of such irresponsible conduct from bandwagon effect.
“Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil” (Exodus 23:2).
You find a lady to marry. She is the love of your life. You love each other. Because of her occupational status, she has a car, house and some other assets that you do not have. You now feel that ‘if I marry her, people will say or think it is because of her wealth’. Now, you leave her and eventually marry someone that is wired for another man. Then, you begin to endure marriage instead of enjoying it. Live your life on God’s word. Don’t restrict your life to what people think or say.
There are marriages where elements of romance are missing just because one or both parties are afraid of what people will think or say. “What will people say if I drive my wife in a car to a destination, alight quickly from the driver’s seat and rush to open the door for my wife like her employed driver? What will they say if I am taking a walk with my spouse and I hold him or her in a romantic manner? What will they say if I am the one cuddling my baby or bathing the child in public while my wife looks on? Will they not call me woman wrapper? Live your life on God’s word. Don’t restrict your life to what people think or say.
What will people say if out of all the children in my child’s secondary school, it is only my child that does not have a phone? How much is phone? Look! It is because of this kind of thinking that even primary school children now have access to tablets and ipads and now have sex. What a taboo! Where is the future of such children? The future generation is being rendered toxic and morally hopeless because of the quest to belong and to avoid what people will think or say. Don’t restrict your life to what people think or say. Follow God’s word and standard.
You have a wife who is an accountant by profession and prudent with spending, in contrast to you, a wasteful and careless spender. You know that if you hand over the family financial management to her, your family finance will improve and family business will grow. But you are finding it difficult to do that. Now, there has been financial and economic stagnation since you both officially became a couple. How will God’s plan for this marriage manifest except you call the bluff of what people will think or say?. You are even accusing witches for your situation instead of facing reality. Live your life on God’s word. Don’t restrict your life to what people think or say.
You have a fiancée and you both have remained in pre-marital status for years. Wedding is delayed simply because of what people will say if you do not throw a lavish wedding ceremony like so and so person. What will they say or think if you guys simply walk up to your clergyman or court registry with your family representative as witness, take the marital vow and move forward with your life? They will say you did a poor man’s wedding. Right? Live your life on God’s word. Don’t restrict your life to what people think or say.
You have money to buy a car but you have deliberately delayed purchasing one for your family. Why? Your wife can drive but because of your job schedule and other factors, you have not been able to learn how to drive. ‘What will people say if I buy a car and my wife is the one always on the steering during outings? Live your life on God’s word. Don’t restrict your life to what people think or say.
You are presiding over a public meeting and your wife is among discussants. During discussions, she suggests an idea which happens to be superior to an idea that you earlier tabled. Because the suggestion came from your wife, you jettison the suggestion. ‘What will people say or think if I implement what my wife has suggested? Won’t they say she is the one that dictates what I do?’ Live your life on God’s word. Don’t restrict your life to what people think or say.
Maybe your wife is yet to conceive, years after marriage despite her good character as a person. You are considering going for another wife because of what people will think or say. Maybe also, you have had just one child for a long time and you are considering another woman for the purpose of having another child so that they will not say or think that you are infertile. You now want to break your marriage covenant and suffer implications because of ‘people’. Live your life on God’s word. Don’t restrict your life to what people think or say.
I don’t know what you may be passing through right now in your marriage and you are feeling so unhappy because of what people are saying already or what people will say or think, especially when that saying is not true. First, I want you to know that no matter what you do in life, people will always say something negative or positive about you.
Secondly, people will always say something about you as long as you live. Why? It is because you are a special being to God. The day people stop talking about you is the day you stop existing. So, your decisions in life and your self confidence should not be based on what they think or say because in most cases, people judge you based on who they are, rather than who you are. Some people who smoke weed for instance believe that if you are not a smoker, you are worthless. You know this is not true. So, most times, people’s judgement of who you are is wrong. This is why it should not determine your decisions and conduct in life. The only righteous and correct judge of human conduct is God through his word called the Holy Bible. You can never go wrong (before God) by living based on God’s instructions.
Thirdly, if you run your marriage based on what people say or do not say, your marriage will lose its peculiar identity. Every marriage has a special element that makes it unique. So, you are expected by God to seek and strive to make your marriage work by putting in deliberate efforts to attract positive ingredients that other marriages may not have.
Maybe you are a single lady and people expect you to run after men like most of your contemporaries are doing because they think or are saying that you are getting old. My dear! Marriage is not the certificate to heaven and it is not going to count on the judgement day whether you married a husband or not. Focus on your career and pursue success in several other sphere of life. If you follow what people think or are saying with mockery about your being single, you will take a step that will truncate your future happiness.
Again, what people say about your marriage or family is totally irrelevant as long as you are living joyfully with your spouse and children in a godly way. It is what God says about your marriage that matters because God is the founder of the marital institution. As long as you run in this institution based on the manual of the inventor, your challenges will come and go but peace will be constant.
“For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1st Corinthians 3:11).
“Submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it. That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. That he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hateth his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church” (Ephesians 5:21-29 KJV). Read more details in the book, MAKING YOUR MARRIAGE WORK by Albinus Chiedu.
Your marriage shall be a miracle and a testimony in Jesus name! Amen.
FOR QUESTIONS, PRAYERS, COUNSEL, CONTACT
Pastor Albinus Chiedu
+234-8038117704
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