Marriage

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THE UNGUARDED GARDEN
By Ebenezer Afolabi

The month of May was the family month in our church, and the theme we chose for the month was Creating Awesome Family Memories. We had series of teachings that blew our minds and opened our eyes to how we can really create awesome family memories. In one of the meetings I spoke on the sermon titled Family like a Garden. I likened every family to a garden that needs to be cultivated, cared for, watered and guarded so that it can be productive and beneficial to the owner.
The Bible tells us how much God values marriage and family. The first institution He founded on earth was marriage and the Bible also speaks of believers’ marriage with the Lamb of God – Jesus who is our bridegroom – at the end of this age. This speaks of how important marriage is to God. However, the consummation of our betrothals to Christ will be incomparably glorious, absolutely devoid of pains, sadness, sicknesses and whatever challenges any marriage is facing now. It will be absolutely blissful and glorious. Interestingly, this will be the fulfillment of God’s intention for the first marriage in the Garden of Eden and this is exactly how He wants every marriage and home to look like.
God instituted marriage and He placed the first couple in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Why the Garden of Eden and not another garden? God deliberately placed the first couple in the Garden of Eden because He wanted their marriage to be pleasurable and delightful. Eden in the Hebrew word means, ‘delicate’, ‘delight’ or ‘pleasure’.
Like a garden, every marriage needs to be cultivated, watered, guarded and cared for. If a garden is left uncultivated it may grow to become a wilderness full of thorns and nettles. If it is not watered its plants will die; if it is left unguarded, bandits and plunderers may break in and ravage all that you have worked for. If the garden is left uncared for, locusts may break in and devour your crops. Proverbs 24:30-31 reads: “I walked by the field of a lazy person, the vineyard of one with no common sense. I saw that it was overgrown with nettles. It was covered with weeds, and its walls were broken down.”
Gardening is not just about planting and harvesting. In order to produce top flowers, shrubs, vegetables and lawns, you will need to pay close attention to your garden. According to gardeners, one of the key times to be active in the garden is in spring after you are done with planting. You need to wake up to the task because if you leave your garden unattended to, you will soon see different types of weeds and grasses encroaching on your garden path, and by the time you decide to wake up and do something, you may have to engage yourself in hard labour. This is exactly how your marriage looks like.
Back to the story of the first couple on earth, they were put in the Garden of Eden to dress [till] and keep it. To “keep” in this context means, to protect, to guard, to attend to, preserve or to watch. The duty of tilling and keeping the garden was given to the couple. The same is the case with every couple today; they both are given the responsibility of tilling and keeping their garden. Therefore, none of them can afford to fail or neglect his or her duties; otherwise, unwanted and uninvited guests will subtly come into their garden and ruin it.
Severally marriages are suffering today because the two parties involved failed to guard their gardens and they allowed deadly intrusion to creep into their gardens and make waste of it. They allowed interlopers to break in unnoticed to vandalize the good proceeds of the garden. These interlopers come in several ways; they come in form of bitterness, ego, selfishness, lust, sauciness, disloyalty, insolence, distrust, lack of submission, overfamiliarity, contempt, sarcasm, etc. All of these are deadly intruders that can ruin the blissful garden of any marriage. Therefore, couples need to guard their garden so that these interlopers do not break in and destroy their marriages.
Wives need to be careful enough to resist every infringement that may possibly destroy their gardens. However, before they begin to look outward, it will be wise that they look inward first to see what is within them that can mar their marriages. As a wise wife, you need to look inward. However, the sincere way to carry out this inward search is to ask yourself what you do to your spouse that you do not wish he does for you. Would you like to be treated the way you treat your husband? If your husband creates the kind of emotional distance you have created between both of you, would you be happy? Think about this.
Wives, beware of subtle intruders! Beware of parasites and locusts that can easily destroy your garden. Diligently guard your garden against devourers; they will do no good to your marriage. To be strict about this, many of these devourers are within your domain, and faultfinding is one of them. When you are fond of finding faults with your husband and you see no reason why he should be appreciated, you are by yourself inflicting injury on your marriage.
Casting aspersions on your spouse over everything, being confrontational, and blaming him for all that went wrong in your home will do your marriage no good. These are locusts and pests in your garden. Blame never restores; it wounds. Blame does not unite; it separates. Blame never builds; it ruins. It never solves; it complicates. You must always remember that a happy marriage requires a deaf husband and a blind wife.
Furthermore, when your garden is left unguarded and you allow all of these moral malaises to creep into it, you may be showing your husband the way to other ladies outside. Let it not be said of you that it is your attitude and disposition that drives him into infidelity. Severally wives had driven their husbands out to other women and the moment they have the taste of other women, bringing them back home becomes difficult.
Without mincing words, some wives are the architects of their own misfortunes. The carelessness of some wives with regard to their husbands’ emotional and sexual needs had brought great misfortunes to their marriages. The moment they are married and perhaps start raising children, they become careless about their appearances, they become nonchalant in their attitudes, they sometimes look unkempt and speak carelessly to their spouses. Some of them even neglect their husbands for their children, forgetting that they are now playing the role of a mother and a wife at the same time. They take their attentions away from their husbands and focus more on the needs of their kids. A wise woman will know how to manage her role as a mother and a wife in such a way that one does not conflict with the other.
But my husband seems not to appreciate me
Even if your husband seems not to appreciate you, make it a duty to appreciate him, respect him, esteem him higher, and pour encomium on him. You do not have to treat him the way he treats you that you do not like. You can actually be of great help to him by introducing what you want to see him do for you. If you want him to appreciate you, begin by appreciating him first. If you feel you are not respected enough, give him maximum respect first and as you keep doing this, you will see him do the same. Remember that two wrongs can never make a right.
I remember when I started my love relationship with kikelomo, we often have misunderstandings and she seldom say I am sorry. I would demand that she apologize but she would not at times. We struggled over this for a long time until I learnt to be the first person to say I am sorry without even considering who was wrong or who was right. Before long, I started noticing that she no longer find it difficult to apologize or to also say I am sorry. Interestingly, she has also learned to say I am sorry even more than I do now. According to Barnett Brickner, “Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.”
Appreciation is reciprocal, but it has to start from someone and you can be the first person to start it in your family. Appreciating him will help to spice up your marriage than finding faults with your spouse. Send charming text messages to your husband as often as possible. Do not wait for him to do it first and then you reciprocate. If he is not doing that, you can introduce it to your marriage and before long you will see him doing the same.
Another way to show appreciation
Men like to be appreciated; they feel appreciated when you acknowledge the efforts they make to keep their families together. When you treat all they do to hold their families together with contempt, it amounts to reducing their efforts to nothing, and consequently they become resentful and defensive towards you. In addition, endeavour to teach your children to appreciate their father. Teach them to always commend their dad and appreciate him for working hard to take good care of them. Furthermore, appreciate your husband before your children and if anybody says nice things about him, be kind enough to tell him. Do not think he will be proud if you tell him. This will only make him a better man, and a more loving husband and father.
I remember when I was a young lad in the high school; most times when I and my younger ones were in need of something in school, we would go to our dad to ask. Sometimes he would not be able to provide the money immediately because of one thing or the other, but he would promise to send mum to us. After some time mum would give us the money on behalf of dad. As the eldest, I knew it wasn’t him who provided the money; mum just decided to help him out so that the needs would be met. What often interests me in that was: mum would ask us to go to dad to thank him for providing the money. I knew fully well that it was mum that provided the money but she would insist that we go to dad to thank him for the provision. I learnt an important lesson from that.
Teach your children how to appreciate their parents; this will make them better people in the future and such practice will also help you solidify your relationship with your husband too. However, when you do not guard your heart and allow the seed of contempt to grow in it, it may push your husband outdoor, only to be won over by other ladies.
What if he takes me for granted?
The fear of some wives is that they may be taken for granted if they become too generous in pouring affections on the husbands who gives them less attention. They think bridging the emotional gap by themselves may cause their husbands to give them less respect and take them for granted. Lamentably, the true meaning of love is alien to the world we live in today. The world will consider you naïve and imprudent if you are too gracious. They will advise you not to love too much. The truth is: you can never love too much. Your love and good gesture will only make your husband become more affectionate towards you. Such loving gesture towards your husband will definitely influence his disposition towards you, and he may be won over if he senses sincerity in what you are doing. As time goes on, the law of reciprocity will set in and I think any reasonable and responsible man will give in as soon as he is sure of the authenticity of your new life.
However, if he seems to be taking you for granted, do not turn away from being kind and loving because this pays the greatest dividend. Make a deposit into his emotional bank account on daily basis, and consider being kind and loving your core duty to him. According to the paradoxical commandment of Kent Keith, “If you do good, you will be accused of selfish motive. Do good anyway!” If he had left his garden unguarded and you also, perhaps because of your displeasure for what he had done, you have decided to be indifferent, both of you may have to pay dearly for your unwise decisions.

CASTING OUT THE INTRUDERS
Intruders come not, but to steal, to kill and to destroy. They have no good thing to offer you than to ruin your garden or shipwreck your marriage. They subtly come to steal away the joy of your marriage. They want to kill the love that is bubbling in your marriage and to totally destroy the good proceeds of your marriage.
But the problem is that, are you really ready to cast the intruders out? Are you ready to challenge the culprit and stab it right in the chest? I know it will be very hard on you because the intruders I am talking about are closer to you than the cloths you put on. They live with you every day. Funny enough, you change your dresses every now and then but you cannot easily pull them off like your cloths. They are found in your habits, in your character, in your mannerisms, in your attitudes, and even in your words.
One of the reasons it may be difficult for us to deal with these intruders is because of self-justification. We tend to always want to explain them out and justify ourselves without being ready to admit that we have actually accommodated intruders in our gardens. We are prone to shifting blames instead of taking responsibility for our actions. Blame never builds; it destroys.
You must do all that you can to get rid of these intruders from your garden; they are too dangerous to live with. However, getting rid of them is not going to be instantaneous, but gradual and deliberate. It takes a deliberate, strict and conscious effort to deal with these deadly intruders before they totally ruin your garden.
Nevertheless, the first step to getting rid of them is acknowledging that they are there with you. Having acknowledged that you have them with you or in your garden, you need not to pamper them again but get ready to mortify them.
Perhaps you are still wondering what the intruders may be in your own marriage, I will briefly highlight them again so that you can begin to deal with them. These intruders include:
Anger, malice, unresolved conflict, faultfinding, lust, over-possessiveness, pride, indifference, depression, sarcasm, nagging, impatience, over-busyness, bullying, distrust negligence, sauciness, disrespect, bitterness, sexual dissatisfaction, insolence, emotional distancing, unforgiveness, insecurity, selfishness, arrogance, lack of submission, breakdown in communication, etc.
All of these traits are negative traits that have taken root in most of us over the years and the unfortunate thing about them is that we sometimes use them as both defensive and offensive weapons of attack. We seem to have won at one time or the other when we used these negative traits as weapons to attack our offenders and consequently we feel at home with them.
These negative traits had grown to become habits in most of us, but it truth is: old habits die slowly. Therefore, we have to apply the Principle of Mortification in order to deal with these negative traits that have encroached into our gardens unnoticed.
Mortification
Mortification of these negative traits is a painful work. It may at times make us feel like we are incarcerated and denied of our rights. But in the real sense, there is no other means that I know that we can employ to dealing with these negative traits which is almost breaking down several marriages than the principle of mortification.
To mortify simply means to deaden a thing. It is the process of subjugating or overpowering something. Mortification is that habitual process where someone gradually weakens the power of these negative traits. It does not mean the cessation of all these traits or absolute immunity from them. Rather, it implies the subversion of the dominion of these traits in our lives.
Like I said earlier, mortification of these negative traits is a painful work. However, I am in nowhere advocating for any form of religious asceticism; rather, I am talking about self-control or self-discipline as the case may be. Furthermore, the usage of mortification in this context simply conveys the process where someone gradually weakens the power of these negative traits rather than harsh renunciations from pleasure or the humiliation of oneself. It is not extreme self-denial and austerity.
Ascetical practices include separation from the world, solitude, celibacy, poverty, bodily penitential practices, etc. This is not what I mean by mortification. The way to mortify a thing is to stop feeding it. We sometimes feed our pride and our anger. When we continue to feed our negative traits, we make them stronger and livelier in us. I have come across men who boast of their anger. They will threaten their spouses with words like: “You know I can be very angry; you know I am an Ondo man [Ondo is a state in Nigeria and they are known as people who easily get angry, especially when they feel you want to play on their intelligence]; you know I can be very saucy; you know it does not cost me anything to scatter everything you have done; you know I can decide not to talk to you nor greet you again.” These men take pride in their anger, sauciness, and the rest. When we do that, we are already feeding those bad characters in us and we will by so doing make them stronger and livelier.
Some men and women are full of lust; they feed and nurture their lusts by consistently thinking lustful thoughts, watching nude pictures and pornographic movies. When you give yourself to such movies and thoughts, you are only empowering that lustful tendency in you. The Apostle Paul provided a way out of this in his epistle to the Philippians chapter four and verse eight, which says: “Finally, brothers [and sisters], whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” (Parenthesis added). Thinking about what is true, what is noble, what is right, what I pure, what is lovely, what is admirable, what is excellent or praiseworthy will help you pattern your life and marriage aright.
Instead of harboring bitterness and unforgiveness, learn to forgive and let go of all resentments. When you hold on to it you are indirectly feeding and nurturing it. Instead of nagging, speak kind words. The Bible says, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (Colossians 4:6). The apostle Paul also wrote: “Therefore do not let sin [the negative traits mentioned above] reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.” (Romans 6:12; parenthesis added).
However, there is need for me to make an important point here: there is no level of human effort that can really give you total success in mortifying these negative traits. I am not saying you do not need any human effort; rather, what I mean is that, no human effort is adequate enough to cure anyone of these negative traits. We need the help of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit produces the fruits of godly characters in us and also helps us to live a wholesome life.
The Apostle Paul listed the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 as virtues every believer in Christ must possess in order to enjoy life to its fullest. The fruits are as follows: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. According to D.L. Moody, love is found in terms of all these other virtues as follows:
►Joy is love exulting;
►Peace is love reposing;
►Longsuffering is love untiring;
►Gentleness is love enduring;
►Goodness is love in action;
►Faith is love on the battlefield;
►Meekness is love under discipline;
►Temperance is love in training.
These fruits are indispensable virtues every couple should possess so that they can enjoy their marriages. However, these virtues cannot be bought; neither can they be passed on by parents to their posterities. The only means to getting these virtues is by abiding in Christ. Except the branch abides in the vine it cannot bear fruit; neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Christ the true vine (John 15:1-15).
Finally, you need to depend on the Holy Spirit to help you so that you can bear these fruits instead of the negative traits that are almost ruining your marriage. He can work on your weakness and supplies you with the strength you need to excel in your marriage. He is much more interested in the well-being of your marriage than you are. He wants to help you, but He will not break into your affairs abruptly. You’ve got to invite Him to come in and help you.
However, the direct and simplest way to gain access to this help is to first hand your life over to Jesus and accept Him as your Lord and Saviour. The Holy Spirit will counsel you, guide you in all truth, empower you to live aright and ultimately, He will strengthen the bond of love and peace that had been weakened by strive, bitterness, dissatisfactions, malice and arrogance. It is He (God, through the Holy Spirit) who works in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). Therefore, you will successfully mortify these injurious and negative traits in you if you allow the Holy Spirit to influence you will, your habit, your character, your attitude, and your words through the written word of God – the Bible.

This article is an excerpt from the book titled “Careless Wives, Unfaithful Husbands.” You can get the complete book from www.amazon.com 

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