Do you remember the proverbial man who collects rain with a sieve? He is on a journey of self delusion. He is not a failure waiting to happen. He is one already in a present continuous sense. The issue is that his methodology is fundamentally flawed. A sieve can never hold water.
You should also remember that man Jesus described as a foolish man who built his house upon the sand, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.Matthew 7:26-27
Do you want a relationship that is bullet proof? That will stand the test of tests? I’m talking about even courtships that cannot just break just like that. When some of you write me and share how easily some of your 2 year old courtship collapse like a pack of card as a result of a little storm, I marvel. You say stuffs like, what you felt before, you no longer feel it again. After two years? If you used every day of those two years building the right things into the relationship, it won’t be possible for your feelings to disappear overnight. But of course you don’t know that there are factors that keep your feelings alive for your partner beyond their looks, personality and sexuality. There are hard core factors that keep love fresh and feelings alive when the looks may have waned or reduced in value due to familiarity.
Indeed many of what you brothers and sisters are involved in which you call relationships are empty carcasses. There is no life in them. They are relationships without deep roots in the soil. They are like reeds that can be easily blown by the wind. They are what the Yoruba people of West Africa call “Ofuutufeete” signifying something that has no substance. It is the building of a castle in the wind.
The most common “sand” on which young people build their “houses” is romantic love. The love that is precipitated by the chemical reactions in the brain of a young man who looks upon the smooth skin of a damsel and the captivating succulence of those notorious two fawns of a gazelle swinging rhythmically to the motions of the limb. Relationship for most people is all about this. The consummation of sensual passion. Perpetual exchange of sweet nothings. In a nutshell the profile of this relationship is one that is dipped solely in Song of Solomon.
But Song of Solomon alone cannot deliver a bullet-proof relationship or marriage. You need love that is expressed as character. I Corinthians 13:1-4. You need the love of Galatians 5:22&23. These all talk about dutiful love. The love that is an outflow of the life of Christ in you which you have deliberately cultivated for years. Verse 24 of Galatians 5 talks about the crucifixion of the flesh- the human nature- that hardened egoistic spirit and nature of the devil in every human at first birth. This Mr. Flesh is unarguably the greatest troubler of marriage for instance. He is the unbending selfish controller who seeks only his own interest. He always pushes the blame on to others. He never says sorry, but will rather give excuses and explanations for his own actions. He is the strong willed one who must always have his way. He is the one behind every selfish contention, bitterness and unforgiveness. You can’t spend your entire courtship ignoring giving this guy a final burial and hope you will have a blissful marriage. “Impossicant!”
The summary is that romantic love is too weak on its own alone to deliver a bullet proof marriage. If you ignore cultivating the other kinds of love- dutiful love (agape) and the love of delight (philia) and you think it’s all about romantic love, life will teach you a hard lesson. You’ll get into marriage and realise the absence of agape and philia will suffocate all your delusionary fantasised romanticising. Those who have malfunctioning relationships usually loathe the idea of sex. The nakedness of their partner usually irritates them. So there are several marriages where there have been no sex for months due to acrimony. Young marriages inclusive. Many marriages have permanently relinquished sex not because of the absence of libidinal appetite but the permanence of a hanging cloud of acrimony on those matrimonies. Whereas for you young brother or sister, all you’re doing in your relationship is this sex thing and romance. You think that’s all that matters. I pray that this article will mark the expiry date of your foolishness.
You want to build a relationship where your partner looks at you and says to you:
“Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, And there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, If anything but death parts you and me.”
Romantic love can NEVER on its own alone elicit the kind of commitment of life and destiny described above. Since romantic love is largely based on looks and sexuality, there will always be someone who has a better look or sexuality or even personality. To be more frank, great looks are in great supply. And you know the higher the supply the lower the price. Since all that binds you together is something in great supply, your position is really threatened. But there are other hard core stuffs that are in short supply. A wise man while not ignoring romantic love focuses more attention on building those hard core stuffs into his relationship. Do this and you’ll see how difficult it is for your relationships to fail.
We began to introduce those hard core stuffs in January. The principle was that the operating system for a blissful marriage is oneness. And since every man is spirit, soul and body there must be mergers across these three levels to achieve oneness. Merger of your spirits, merger of your souls before the final merger of your body in holy matrimony. In that order only.
We’ve been discussing merger of Spirits since January. Today marks the end of our discussion on merger of Spirits. From next week, we’ll start discussing merger of your souls. Now, we don’t want any of you to miss out. We want you to read and re-read again and again all the teachings on syncrhony (merger) of Spirits before we move to the next segment. We want to also see you amending your relationships or discarding some outrightly based on what you’re learning.
This place is not just for fun. We want you to see this platform as a school. Our goal is not to become celebrities. Our goal is to see you succeed in your relationships. And you can see that all the contents are free though we spend a lot weekly to keep this going. So what will be your excuse?
Please scroll down this page and read the following articles or go to www.lovestraighttalks.com to search them out. They are all we’ve taught so far on merger of spirits. The hard core stuffs I spoke about.
1. MAKING COURTSHIP COUNT
2. A SHARED MANDATE
3. WHEN LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH
4. THE COST OF MARRYING A VAGABOND.
5. WHO HELPS WHO
6. HE’S CATHOLIC, I AM PROTESTANT (1&2).
7. THE HOW OF SECURING DOCTRINAL AND OTHER AGREEMENTS WITH YOUR SPOUSE/PARTNER.
Ensure you read all the above before we meet next week. Thank God we are all at home. So there can be no excuses. If you have any questions or personal challenges after going through them, feel free to write us.
God bless you.
Your brother,
Peniela Eniayo, AKINTUJOYE.
#resettingtheodds
#makingyourmarriageacenterofrevival
#lovestraighttalks
