Heb 13:4

 

Marriage is the bedrock of any society and any nation is only as strong as its families. Every human being originated through the family. To portray God's vested interest in the family, Psalm 68: 6 records that God sets the solitary in families; it's not His will that anyone should be alone or without support. Even our Lord Jesus Christ, Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, was raised in a family setting, with Joseph as His father figure. Also, Adam could have continued to exist alone, but God said it was not good for man to be alone, so He created Eve, thereby instituting marriage.

 

A lot of the issues people confront in life are traceable to the family. Present day statistics do not go in the favour of marriage. A major cause for this is the lack of honour in marriage. You must honour your spouse for you to be able to practice the art of learning to show love in a way he/she appreciates. Mutual respect and honour is extremely vital in the marriage relationship for both man and woman; parents and children. Hebrews 13: 4.

 

These days, a good number of people are ashamed of the marriage institution. Being ashamed of your marriage is of the devil and not of God. For instance, failing to attend activities in your children's school because of work, simply implies that your children are not as important as your work or you are ashamed to admit that they are important enough for you to spend a little of your work time with them. This type of mind-set is wrong. The family sphere of influence is of more importance than other spheres of influence; therefore, we should give it the most attention.

 

Understand yourself, first, then seek to understand the person you are married or getting married to. See the people in your life as projects to be under studied. While communicating your honour, be demonstrative and adaptable, show honour by your actions. 1 Peter 3: 1-7 admonishes husbands to honour their wives and wives likewise to be submissive to their husbands. When we honour one another, the marriage and family will be healthy. Let's esteem the other person as more deserving than ourselves. Those we honour, we neither talk-down nor beat up. These actions sometimes are not done willfully but can be a result of character flaws picked up from the family. When honour is the culture of the family, people grow to honour others. Let's be adaptable by going into the world of your spouse to understand what matters to him/her.

 

For our youths these days, marriage is no longer desirable. We can change this trend when we inject honour into our marriages. Beyond youths, unbelievers will see our beautiful marriages and want to serve God. We have to make up our minds that we will give a good testimony about our marriages but we must work on ourselves first, from the inside out - forgive past hurts from our background and upbringing. Let's prepare ourselves to be assets to others. Marriage is God's institution and should be honoured.