The Emancipation of Bella!

On reflection after a conversation with a friend, I began to read through Malachi again, some of which deals with God’s refusal to bless the nation of Israel because of the failure of the men of Israel to be faithful to their marriage covenants. The book tells the story of a people with renewed zeal for God.  They returned to the land of Israel, re-instituted Levite worship, made offerings imploring God to bless them, and yet God refused to do so saying that He had turned a deaf ear to their cries due their unfaithfulness to the marriage covenant instituted by God Himself. The following part arrested my attention, a simple few verses packed with meaning, implication and application:

‘And did not God make [you and your wife] one [flesh]? Did not One make you and preserve your spirit alive? And why [did God make you two] one? Because He sought a godly offspring [from your union]. Therefore take heed to yourselves, and let no one deal treacherously and be faithless to the wife of his youth. For the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I hate divorce and marital separation and him who covers his garment [his wife] with violence. Therefore keep a watch upon your spirit [that it may be controlled by My Spirit], that you deal not treacherously and faithlessly [with your marriage mate].’ Malachi 2:15-16 (Amp)

Who, What, When, Where, Why?

This singular book in the bible raises more questions than gave me answers on this topic. Does God ‘make’ you husband and wife once your marriage is consummated or does God choose him/ her from before time began??? Does that mean she is his wife BEFORE you are married? What makes her your wife before you are married if you have not ‘been’ with her? And does that mean God chose it that way and you can’t do anything to change it? And if you do, that it is part of the script already written out for your life? Is divorce of certain marriages part of the will of God? Do we have free-will? Does God already know what our free-will to choose will result in? Is that part of His great plan also? How can a loving God create a ‘husband’ for you fully knowing that he will bring you pain that is not of God and that separates you from all notion of love from the Father? A love that he has been mandated to pour out on you as Christ has loved the church and poured out Himself for her! A bride that Christ has loved for eternity since the beginning of time…..????

‘He who finds a [true] wife finds a good thing and obtains favour from the Lord.’  Proverbs 18:22 (Amp)

But then what is a ‘true wife’? What is truth? If truth exists then surely it is calibrated against an untruth? And if Jesus said that the truth will set us free – does this means that you could find a wife that wouldn’t set you free? If Jesus said that He is the truth, does that mean that you could find yourself a ‘Christian’ wife who is not of God? A wife that you found, that is not ‘the truth’ to set you free in the midst of many alternatives, some of which may be such slight variations that perhaps one would not notice the difference?

Hello! Is it me you’re looking for???

‘Now the Lord God said, It is not good (sufficient, satisfactory) that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper meet (suitable, adapted, complementary) for him.’ Genesis 2:18 (Amp)

Seeing many of my friends take part in many long term relationships that led to nowhere other than a long stay at heartbreak hotel really made me search my heart for and question every single one of my core beliefs on whether there was such a thing as ‘the one’. I’ve heard thrown around the doctrine of there not being such a thing and of there being a potential pool of people out of whom we choose and then God blesses our choice. This never sat well with me so recently I decided to dissect my thought on this. I consider myself a thoughtful and intellectual person which helped me in this process and so I did the only logical thing my mind found to do, I peeled back every courtship and marriage relationship in the bible, spent months studying the steps leading up to each covenant marriage agreement between each husband and wife and I finally came to the conclusion that I don’t actually agree that there is no such thing as ‘the one’. And these are my reasons why…….

God is Eternally, Specifically and Purposefully Intentional!

‘The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, surely, as I have thought and planned, so shall it come to pass, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.’ Isaiah 14:24 (Amp)

‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways says the Lord. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and doesn’t return, but waters the earth and makes it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater… So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.’ Isaiah 55:8-11 (Amp)

I have given this much thought and come to a radical conclusion-I believe in pre-destination! The way I see it, God creates with purpose and nothing that He creates misses its purpose because if it did then that would mean His purpose wasn’t absolute or perfect, both of which I believe they are!

‘A wife is bound to her husband by law as long as he lives. If the husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she will, only [provided that he too is] in the Lord.’ 1 Corinthians 7:39 (Amp)

The bible verse above makes one thing very clear that somewhat terrifies and yet simultaneously comforts a woman-that a woman’s God ordained husband is not one of her own choice. So this means that as long as she is seeking first God’s kingdom, maximising her God given beauty and positioning herself in the right places at the right time, nothing more that she can do will result in ‘the one’ liking her anymore or any less. It helps her realise that nothing is ‘wrong’ with her if she don’t get married by a certain age and it teaches her that her love for her husband will grow out of a desire placed by God that is laid deep in parts of her soul that she might not even grasp.

I hear my Christian friends say all the time when they get engaged ‘I’ve never felt this way about a guy before, I can’t imagine my life without him’. Now I am beginning to question how subconscious and profound this statement runs and how much pre-programming (for want of a better word) might be involved in us arriving at the point where the specific enzyme-substrate complex occurs and the reaction moves forward! Surely God does not leave this up to us/ to chance? I don’t think so!

‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be united firmly (joined inseparably) to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together let not man put asunder (separate). They said to Him, Why then did Moses command [us] to give a certificate of divorce and thus to dismiss and repudiate a wife? He said to them, Because of the hardness (stubbornness and perversity) of your hearts Moses permitted you to dismiss and repudiate and divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been so [ordained]. I say to you: whoever dismisses (repudiates, divorces) his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery and he who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery.’ Matthew 19: 5-9 (Amp)

‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall become united and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’ Genesis 2:24 (Amp)

Re-reading the above verses strikes me every time. Jesus refers to a man’s woman as his wife BEFORE the marriage ceremony and consummation occurs. And just when you would have gone down the ‘he chose her’ philosophy…..he chimes in with ‘what therefore God has joined together’!

Final Destination!

I found many biblical verses backing up both the theory of pre-destination and of free-will in my journey to write this piece. They were important in my journey of understanding and yet out of all of them, one became the deciding word!

‘Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them’ Psalm 139:16 (NASB)

The question of my belief in pre-destination brought up the question of ‘divine election’ and although I have specifically stayed away from that quarrel-inducing topic for the sake of this blog piece that has more to do with something else, what I will say is this. I don’t think one can separate free-will of choice from pre-destination as one is perfectly capable within the other. I believe that God creates us with the capacity to choose freely, but I believe that before we have even been conceived God knows in His sovereignty what choices we will make and I believe that all those choices are part of His plan given the fact that He has created us with the capacity to make and follow through with those choices. I believe that God knows that our choices will take us ultimately either to hell or heaven and although it is not His will that anyone would perish, people will because of their choices and as God only responds to faith and repentance, He chooses not to intervene.

‘For I have no pleasure in the death of him who dies, says the Lord God. Therefore turn (be converted) and live!’ Ezekiel 18:32 (Amp)

Leave me alone

The bible also deals with the ending of marriage which is a tricky topic in itself but I believe offers some very important lesson in God. Marriage is a representation of the relationship between Christ and the church and although I have known several young Christian couples to divorce, my take on it is this: If a marriage ends (and I mean irreparably ends permanently) in any way including the death of one or both, then I still believe that the couple were (even if the end occurred due to relational breakdown) the husband/ wife purposed for each other, but that it was pre-destined that their marriage would only last that long as a result of the choices that they would make and here is where this lesson comes back again-I do not think one can separate free-will of choice from pre-destination as one is perfectly capable within the other.

My personal opinion from my observations of marriages is that some of them and even indeed every marriage at some point reflect the periods of breakdown in relationship between Christ and His bride in the same way that they reflect it in all its full glory. I see just as much prophetic message from Christ to the church in marriage breakdown as I do in marriage build up and irrespective of what the choices result in, in it all God wants to reconcile us to Himself a bride pure, spotless and without blemish.

And so…..

I have resolved that God is the primary agent and the initiation of a marriage covenant in which a man and a woman come together, only as secondary agents. It is the Lord who made them one before time began. God creates a marital union, the man and woman are responders first and initiators second. To describe God as the facilitator of man’s choice stemming from incomplete and inferior knowledge, describing a situation in which God ratifies the decisions of the parties being married is to weaken and make passive God’s role in marriage. Just as God has predestined those who will choose to come to faith in Him by virtue of their decision (based on the choice to choose that He gives), so He has also predestined whom we will marry.  In the same way that God inclines the hearts of all men toward Christ and knows before time began who would respond and when; it could well be that all of those emotions and desires we have toward our partner in courtship go deeper than our hormonal, emotional response and sense of romanticism.  I believe that this is God inclining our hearts toward a particular person to ultimately cause us to unite in marriage with ‘the one’.

Looking at it in this way adds far greater weight to a marriage covenant.  This means that a man and a woman cannot undo a marriage as and how they feel like because they did not initiate it.  God did and it was His idea.  In the same way, a man and a woman cannot undo a marriage because they are not the only parties to the covenant.  God is the chief party; He is the author, initiator and perfector of the marriage covenant.

In closing…..

To Femi and Jummy

‘Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the LORD delivers him out of them all.’ Psalm 34:19 (KJB)

I dedicate my thoughts to courting couples like my good friends Femi and Jummy (see pic above) who are engaged to be married and hopelessly devoted to one another; to add to their current joy as they see the hand of God carefully and lovingly crafting their love affair into something so much greater than they imagined.  And I also dedicate these thoughts to my single friends to whom marriage sometimes just seems distant and hopeless.

I sometimes hear divorced folks talk about the mistake they made in marrying a person and I want to encourage you all whether you’re single, courting, engaged, married, separated, divorced or bereaved of your spouse, that it was God’s idea that you marry this person before it was ever your idea.  No matter how you feel about it now, God’s intention has never changed, even if you don’t quite get how it’s working out.  He has plans and hopes for you that go beyond what you can ever hope to see and my prayer is that in time God would open your eyes to see and mould your heart to carry what He shares with you. Wherever you are in your journey, keep your eyes on God. He will see you through.

Stay Fabulous

Love Belle.x