An attempt to look into Christian marriage matter is the concern of our devotional today. It will be run in three series. It is proven that marriage issue stands as one of the biggest problems facing the families of our societies. Many marriages have their unique problems. The church is not exempted. An area whereby marriage built on love, established on love, moving along smoothly on love, but suddenly enmeshed in crises is what we are looking into today. It is a situation whereby the firing altar of the love in marriage seemingly begins to go out. From the passage above, the scripture likened love to flames of fire. One Shulamite, could be King Solomon’s wife, said that the flame of love is “…flame of fire, a vehement flame”. The word ‘vehement’ means ‘very strong feeling.’ The full passage goes thus: “…for love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave; its flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame” (Song of Solomon 8: 6).
Love in marriage that keeps it going sweeter and stronger should carry a characteristic of flames of fire. It has to be burning inside the husband and the wife for both to be guided by its illumination. Whether one is married for just one year or has been married for five, ten, fifty or more years, the flame of the love should maintain continuous flaming and flaming aglow. It takes a burning love in the minds of the couple towards each other daily and forever more; if not the fire of the marriage will go down. This is a phenomenon this devotional christened “Marriage Fire Outage.” By definition, outage means an interruption or failure in supply of power such as that of electricity. When the original love between husband and wife is being interrupted by external influences, it stops transmitting the enviable relationship existing between the two partners. Its power supply will register “outage”.
By extension of description of marriage fire outage, an illustration of goods missing from a shipment is considered appropriate here. Marriage is said to be like a merchandise ship, that moves with quality commodities. If some goods got missing from a ship going to another place of sale, and the goods reduces in contents, the monetary value of the shipment will be reduced. Marriage, especially Christian marriage is a ship carrying qualities of goods for shipment. Those qualities are not to get missing. The moment some of the qualities got missing from the marriage, the quality of initial love is reduced and the resultant effect will be “marriage fire outage. Basic fact here is that, marriage fire outage is very gradual in process. The beloved, are you married? Is the LOVE that matured into the marriage is as strong as when you all started? Make a check list.
PRAYER:
Holy Spirit, source of remembrance and wisdom, bring into my memory how low LOVE of our marriage has dwindled. I need a clear understanding of where our LOVE for one another stands in Jesus name.
bishopubaudenyi@hopealivechurch