MARRY YOUR FRIEND

Do you want to know the reason why a lot of people are not married? There are a lot of reasons anyway, but one of many is that they want to marry strangers. Do you also know why we have a lot of divorce and separation? One of the many reasons is that people marry strangers and not their friends.

I have seen ladies and guys alike say blatantly that they cannot marry their friends. And if you are close to me, you would have observed that I like to ask a lot of questions especially the “why?” question. So when I ask them the “why?” question, I get a lot of flimsy reasons which gives me stomach upset. Can somebody please tell me how in the world somebody will prefer to marry someone they just met over someone they have known? This like we stated earlier is the reason many singles are not married. They are looking at Sokoto (a northern state in Nigeria) when what they are looking for is in their Sokoto’ (Yoruba word for under wear).

If you are ready to get married and nobody is coming or you don’t seem to be seeing anybody, make a list of your friends of the opposite sex, look at the list critically, your spouse may just be there. I will not be surprise if some persons have no name on their list- can you see the problem now? In case you don’t have names to list, make a conscious decision right now to build viable friendships, please not with desperation or with an intention just to get married.

 Also remember that where you go determines who sees you and if you are not seen or you don’t see, you cannot get married- go out to worthwhile places and stop sitting at home complaining of old age! Please also be careful of the places you make friends from as the kinds of friends you make determine the kind of husband or wife you will marry. Don’t expect to marry from the club and have an angel as a wife. Selah.

Remember we also said that the failure of people to marry their friends is one of the reasons for divorce and separation in many homes. Friendship is the foundation for every lasting love relationship. When you marry a stranger, how do you communicate and gist as friends do? There is already a wide gap that needs to be closed. The major thing couples do is talk and it takes friends to talk. And please don’t say you will develop the friendship in marriage. It is like saying that you will grow as a child in adulthood (wrong timing!). It is something you don’t want to risk. And it is friendship that reveals compatibility- you can’t know if you will be compatible as couples if you have never been friends and that is why when couples that have never been friends realize that, they are not compatible, it is always too late.

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that somebody that is your friend presently qualifies to be your spouse- that is not always the case. In fact, you cannot marry all your friends and there are some of your friends you cannot get married to for a variety of reasons ranging from attraction to compatibility. So what am I saying? Marry your friend! Whether the person is your friend presently or not, make him/her your friend before you get married. If you have been friends for a while, fine. If you have not been, build friendship first, bond for at least six months to one year (my personal bias). In all marry your friend!

After reading this, does anybody still want to marry a stranger? If you do you must be a witch/wizard.lol

OVERCOMING SEXUAL TEMPTATION

Philosophy: “Say unto wisdom, thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman that they may keep you from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words”- Solomon Jesse

Temptation is a common phenomenon; in fact sexual temptation is a common phenomenon. Everybody that has passed puberty age whether male or female has been tempted sexually- no matter how religious you are, you will be sexually tempted. If you have not been tempted, you need one out of two things- to see a medical doctor or to go for deliverance; so make your choice. Even Jesus as holy and righteous as He was also tempted while on earth (Heb4:15).

Temptation as defined by the oxford advance learner’s dictionary is the desire to do or have something that you know is bad or wrong. This tells us that every temptation including sexual temptation emanates from our lust (desire) for something. For instance, an average lady feels like having sex at least once a month and twenty times a year, irrespective of how spiritual or knowledgeable she is. And for men, we feel like having sex at least once every seventy two hours. You cannot be tempted with what you don’t have a prior desire for.

Watch it, it is not a sin to be sexually aroused or tempted neither is it a bad thing like I said earlier on, I think what is bad is not feeling aroused; because this stuff is a product of hormonal (biological) functions which was put in there by God himself. So each time you feel like having sex, lift up your hands and give God praise because your endocrine system is functioning properly. What can be bad is acting or falling for the desire/temptation. Like my mentor Praise Fowowe would say, “A (sexual) thought is not a sin until it is been given a thought”. What that means is that a thought that flashes through your mind is not a sin until you start processing it and eventually act on it.

So how do we overcome this dilemma that has befallen a lot of people, good, bad and ugly? If you will agree with me, when it comes to sex, emotion is stronger than reason(ing). In other words how you feel can sometimes overshadow what you think. In fact research has shown that the part of the brain that controls intelligence/reasoning is also the part that controls our sexuality, which accounts for why it looks like everything we know comes to a standstill when we are consumed with our urge for sex (Does anybody relate with what I’m saying or am I the only one that has experienced this?). Because the truth is that everyone that has a conscience knows that sex outside the marriage environment is wrong and some persons even have additional information as to the consequences of sex outside the marriage environment, yet they fall victim of sexual temptations even after confessing the previous Sunday or saying to themselves with every form of sincerity and willingness “I will never do it again!”.

The black and white truth is that knowledge alone which is very good will not deliver you from sexual temptations, but WISDOM will. Amongst the numerous definitions of wisdom is “knowing HOW to go about a matter”. Solomon Jesse said “The labour of the foolish wearies everyone of them, because he knows not HOW to go to the city”. And the opposite of foolishness is wisdom. The wiser man will always overcome temptations better than the stronger man. I have discovered that many of the people that have fallen for sexual temptation were strong people or people who thought they were strong while many of the people that have overcome sexual temptations are people who valued wisdom over strength or thought they were not strong enough and employed wisdom. And what does wisdom say? FLEE FORNICATION!!!. It did not say explain, analyze, mentor, or change it says FLEE! But the truth of the matter is that people who fall into sexual temptations want to do one of the things we mentioned above. Flee is from the word fly which is a step above run. It actually means to run in terror- If you have watched how cartoon characters “run” you will know what I’m talking about.

A man of God shared a story of how a lady came into his office for counseling with her breast half exposed and the next thing he started hearing in his mind was grab it, grab it and he had to run out of the office to overcome- that’s an example of what it means to flee from fornication. I tell people that you may not be stronger than Samson Manoah, you may not be braver than David Jesse but you can be wiser than Solomon especially in the area of sex. Flee! What are you doing with that lady/guy by 11:00pm behind closed doors yet you are complaining of sexual temptation? Why are you kissing and smooching and complaining of sexual temptation?

My friend, the best place to stop a thief as at the gate not when he has entered your bed room. May your wisdom increase in handling situations!

Quote: “Abstain from all appearance of evil”- Paul of Tarsus.

EMOTIONAL MASTERY

 

There happen to be seven dimensions to our lives, and I find the emotional dimension to be one of the most cardinal dimensions amongst others. Truth be said, emotions affect every area of our lives. And only those that have mastered their emotions can truly succeed. For instance, in the work place you hear something like “emotional intelligence” which is a vital quality to make it big there. Emotional intelligence is another word for emotional mastery. Without it you cannot succeed in the workplace, without it you cannot succeed in relationships, you can’t just succeed. Without it you won’t be able to differentiate between your home and your workplace. If for instance, you are the boss at work, without emotional mastery, you will come home to your family, ordering your wife and children the same way you do at work. Without emotional mastery, you won’t be able to differentiate between your wife and your secretary and who you should sleep with. It is the lack of emotional mastery that is the causal factor why our celebrities never last in marriages- they are only actors anyway. They fail to realize that they are only a celebrity on stage not at home- stop expecting your wife to treat you like your fans will. Can you see how powerful recognizing differences are? Dr Mike Murdock said “Wisdom is the ability to recognize differences”

How do you handle criticism? How do you handle anger? Emotional mastery/intelligence tells you that you don’t transfer aggression or anger on somebody else who is not the person that got you angry in the first place. It is a form of defense mechanism in psychology called displacement . How do you handle your sexual emotions? At the root of many mental illness, divorce, break ups, wretchedness, physical ailment and even death is lack of emotional mastery.

Emotional mastery is simply mastering your emotions. Solomon Jesse said, “Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life”. That’s another way of saying guard your emotions with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. The heart is the seat of our emotions while the head is the seat of our logic and reasoning. Emotional mastery is about controlling you emotions and not allowing your emotions control you.

Mike Tyson never had emotional mastery and it cost him his career. Strauss Kahn never had emotional mastery and it cost him his ambition. I can keep mentioning loads and loads of people who lack of emotional mastery cost them something valuable. Lack of emotional mastery will always cost you something, something valuable.

#getwisdom

FRIEND OR FOE

Some years back, I was in a seminar and the speaker told us to write the seven closest people to us- with our family members as number one. So we did wondering what he wanted to do with it. After we did, he asked us to look at the names we had just written and I began to ask what for as I perused through the names again. After some seconds of looking through the names, he said affirmatively “Do you know what you are looking at?” Half of the crowd said “No” while the other half which I was part of starred in perplexity. He continued, “You are looking at your future”. I was shocked as I initially did not understand what he meant until after some time of meditation and experience.

The truth is that you cannot be better than your association, or better put (in this context), you cannot be better than your friends. To narrow it down to what we are talking about, it is very funny how we have friend that are contrary to where we say we are going, but like the speaker said that day, they are your future. So, when you choose your friends, you choose your future (I’m the one saying this now). I think it was Dr Myles Munroe who said “Show me your friend and I will tell you where you are going” not just who you are.

Friends as far as I know are suppose to be people that have like values and interests as we do, so anyone that doesn’t may not be a friend but a foe. A whole lot of people we call our friends are just enemies in disguise. They may pretend to be our friends, in fact they may even be genuine but as long as where they are leading us doesn't look like where we should be going, they are foes not friends.

And what do you do to a foe? You keep away from such. Some of us will have to delete some numbers from our phonebook after reading this. Some may have to send a text message right now or put a call through and give good reddens to bad rubbish. Some of us may just have to silently avoid those people.

And mind you, some of these persons may not be bad people; it is just that their part in the story is over like Bishop T.D Jakes would say. Their chapter in the book is finished. Remember, Lot was not a bad person but until he left, Abraham could not see further. Jonah was not evil, in fact he was a man of God but until he was thrown into the ocean without emotional attachment, the ship was not at peace- Some Jonahs’ will have to leave our ships; from friendships to love relationships.

If these men who were not bad had to leave don’t you think it will be unfair to leave the bad ones? Think about it. Here comes the big question- Are your friends actually friends or foes?

FRIENDS WITH BENEFIT (FWB)

Hmmm…I guess you familiar with that phrase, our topic. In case you are not, “friends with benefit” is having a friend of the opposite sex (usually) that you are not in an intimate relationship with to satisfy your sexual appetite.

Going back memory lane, you will discover or remember that it used to be unusual to have sex with somebody you are not married to (at least in the African culture), then it became usual but still unusual to copulate with somebody you are not in a love relationship with. But today, the concept of “friends with benefit” is spreading like wild fire. In fact it has been acted as a movie.

Looking at it integrally, it is of my opinion that it is good to have friends with benefit (or don’t you think so?)-Friends that will benefit you one way or the other. But looking at it from the other spectrum, what benefit is a friend who wants to sleep with you without any emotional, legal, traditional or spiritual commitment?

Well, I can only think of one benefit- Instant gratification! Or is a benefit that you have lost touch with your creator through the act? Or that you may become infected with STD or STI in the process? Or that you may become pregnant out of wedlock as a lady and may decide to abort it which predisposes you to either death or other complications? And the most annoying of all these is that you will go through all these because of a person you barely know who cares less about your future. Think about it. Or maybe I don’t understand the meaning of “benefit” again. Maybe we should consult the dictionary- here is what it says: “Benefit is an advantage that something gives you; a helpful and useful effect something has”. So the big question is what advantage does it give you? How helpful and useful has the effect been?

If you really need a friend or friends with benefit why not go out there and get right thinking and right living people that will be of advantage to you and your destiny; people that will have a helpful and useful effect on you rather than flirting with people that have put their destinies on hold and are trying by all means to put yours too. If you go ahead and continue doing this, please make sure not to call it “friends with benefit” but rather “foes with disfavor”. Cheers!