COUNSEL TO PASTORS THAT ARE ALREADY DIVORCED AND REMARRIED, SEPERATED OR DIVORCED BUT NOT YET MARRIED AND TO THOSE IN A REGRETTABLE MARRIAGE:
Sometimes life is not always as you think.
We are all product of God’s Mercy Grace and favour.
The race is not always to the best runner.
It is not of him that willeth, not of him that runneth, but it is to him that God shows mercy.
The greatest assets in building anything is wisdom. Yet Solomon the wisest had wives and concubines that ruined his life.
When the Mercy of God departs from your wisdom, Wisdom will make a wise man mad.
If our Marriage is still standing, it is not because of our expertise but the help of God.
We have continued till this day by the help of God.
But there is then a group of people amongst us that needs to be talked to. Some don’t really have the wisdom to manage their current marital situations and positions.
As a pastor, divorce should be your last option or not an option at all because of the after effects on your personality, your kids, your ministry and sometimes on your spouse.
I WILL TRY AND GIVE EACH OF THESE GROUPS OF PEOPLE SINCERE ADVICE THAT I THINK WILL HELP THEM.
MY COUNSEL TO THOSE THAT ARE ALREADY DIVORCED COMPLETELY AND HAVE ALSO REMARRIED:
*Be sure you divorced for the right reasons.
Never try to explain yourself to people, you will always be wrong. Be sure you are in God’s perfect will for your life. Try not to make the younger generation feel anyone that wants to be happy should quit his marriage. Always let the younger folks know they should not follow your footsteps when it comes to Marriage. You are only lucky to be alive to tell your story. Make it a law never to talk bad about your ex in the open and in the secret. Your kids will forever live with the unprintable names you call their mother. Obviously you are enjoying your new Marriage at the moment, don’t get carried away. The devil you left can recruit other demons to attack your new home. Be vigilant and be sober for it is not time to rejoice for you are always in the battle field of life. The first one was a mistake; if it happens again it becomes your mandate and not a mistake.
MY COUNSEL TO THOSE THAT ARE SEPERATED BUT NOT YET DIVORCED OR DIVORCED BUT NOT WILLING TO GET MARRIED AGAIN:
These group of Pastors are the most confused set of people I have seen. You left a woman or a woman left you and you can’t tell what is your position maritally. You are just kept in abeyance because you don’t want to be the first to act. How does who act first determine who is wrong or right? Your ministry is suffering at the moment. Your kids are also going through emotional pains at the moment because there is no direction for them. Do everything possible to return back to your wife. Use every person she will listen to, to talk to her, if she refuses to listen to them, give her a time frame to return, where she refuses to return, prayerfully seek the face of God on what to do, we both know that God cannot tell you to be waiting for her to return while you sleep with women everywhere in the name of my wife or husband left me and abandoned me. There is no right reason to live in sin.
INCASE you are not living in sin, you are already losing quality couples and family from the church because no one wants a Pastor with a bad marriage as their Pastor. Some Women will do everything possible to move their husbands away from that church. Of course, Unless you are a miracle worker, then people will just come and take their Miracle and don’t care how you live your life. If you are sure God told you not to divorce but to just remain SEPARATED, you can only control what God told you, you can’t control what the Devil is telling your partner. Stop waiting for your dead marriage to rise without doing anything to make it rise. Abraham the father of faith buried Sarah out of his sight and married Keturah. But if you are sure of the voice you heard telling you not to remarry, then inform your congregation and face the consequence. You may be lucky to still have followers; sometimes your next level is waiting for the devil in your life to leave you. And if everything goes down, you have to move your heart from people and things to your Relationship with God.
TO THOSE IN WHAT YOU WILL CALL A REGRETTABLE MARRIAGE:
1. Forgive yourself for marrying the wrong person.
2. Find a common ground to stand in the marriage. Let something bind the both of you together.
3. Focus on the good part of your partner. Everything about a person can’t be bad.
4. See your partner as your own blood. If I can’t love you as a wife or husband, I should be able to love you as my blood sister or brother. What will my sister do to me that will make me divorce her?
5. Get a father or Mentor with a good Marriage. Sometimes it is the example you see, you manifest.
6. Never compare your Marriage with that of your friends, every marriage is hiding something from the public. Don’t take your own to the public.
7. Let the weakness of your spouse be your ministry to your spouse, as long as it is weakness not wickedness.
I CAN LIVE WITH WEAKNESS NOT WICKEDNESS: IF YOU POISON ME AND I SURVIVE I WONT ALLOW YOU POISON ME A SECOND TIME. THAT WILL BE WICKEDNESS ON YOUR PART AND FOOLISHNESS ON MY PART.
Thanks for reading.
I want to believe I have helped someone with this epistle.
Whether they are right or wrong to divorce is not what this epistle seeks to establish please stay within the confine of the write up.
Irabor Wisdom
Presiding Bishop Answers’ Assembly
Warri, Delta State Nigeria.