n my head this topic is more applicable to the biblical principle series, but my heart says otherwise because I’m sharing out of my personal experience and what God took me through to be the husband that I am today. I know that whoever I am today is better than who Ola married 17 years ago (lot more still need to be done – she’ll tell you and I’ll agree).
Accepting Christ as Lord and Savior seem to be the beginning, not the climax of a relationship with God, one of the songs that constantly bring tears to my eyes is “unto Jesus I surrender” I cannot sing the chorus of that song without teary eyes because when one fully understand the ramification of what we are pledging, it is scary, here is the chorus “I surrender all/2ce all to thee my blessed savior, I surrender all”. When we study the relationship of God with ordinary folks under the law and in the early church, we see a pattern of God demanding total surrender without force or manipulation before a human’s potential is fully maximized.
In my little brain comprehension, total surrender means not doing what I think is good based on my intellect (or common sense) or some human data, but what God says to do even when it is not convenient for me simply because I trust Him. Oswald Chambers put it this way “Common sense and faith are as different from each other as the natural life is from the spiritual, and as impulsiveness is from inspiration. Nothing that Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, but is revelation sense, and is complete, whereas common sense falls short. Yet faith must be tested and tried before it becomes real in your life”
The life of a newly re-birth (born-again) person is often filled with an abundance of faith and zeal, and many times it seems such person has a direct access to heaven, more like a baby that gets everything taken care of by the parent, but then that baby has to learn to walk and feed itself, as much as the parent still loves him/her, they have to teach that child how to survive and grow. The growth and maturity of a believer (not a church person) is deeply rooted in faith, which the writer of the book of Hebrew define as substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen. Faith is trusting the leading of the Holy Spirit and the written WORD even when we don’t comprehend it intellectually, imagine it physically and it is emotionally painful to do.
Abraham was told to leave his family and head out to an unknown land, he was asked to sacrifice his “promised son”, he was told to wait for a child when his wife was past menopause and biologically incapable of having a child, trusting God through all of the above does not pass the common sense test but it made Abraham a friend of God. David was a poor but musically talented shepherd boy, who killed lions and bears that came near his herd of sheep, he sang to calm a deranged king who instead threw a spear at him, he fought a giant when no one else would and was rewarded with running from cave to cave because he became more popular than the king and was a threat to the throne. As a king, David witnessed a child rape another child; a son overthrew him from his throne and thousands of his soldiers died because of his disobedience. None of how he reacted to these situations passed the common sense test.
The disciples of Christ were not only few in number but they were illiterates, they did not study under masters of their day like Gamaliel, yet they were teaching revolutionary ideas taught to them by a carpenter that challenged what their people has known for thousands of years, a teaching that survived brutal Jew haters like Nebuchadnezzar and Antiochus Epiphanes IV. They were publicly flogged, thrown in jail and ridiculed. Apostle Paul was a little different from the other disciples, he was very educated (some account say his education is an equivalent of two PhDs) in the laws of their day and was much respected among his peers. When he joined the “Jesus Freaks group” his peers ridiculed him and even the JFG members were not too sure of him (it was Barnabas who extended an olive branch), he lost everything and many times on his journeys to proclaim Christ he almost died (once he was stoned and left for dead).
Every one of the people we mentioned above from Abraham to Paul, were people who were sold out (totally surrendered to the will of God), regardless of education, social status, or ridicule, they would rather endure pain and die than serve God half-hearted or with conditions like many of us do today. Imagine the pain Abraham felt when Sarah suggested he have sex with Haggai (even though that was the culture) or the pain he must have felt on the way to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice a promised son, especially when everyone kept asking where is the “ram”, or the pain of waiting 25 years for a promise must be very excruciating. Stoning is a pain most of us reading cannot imagine or empathize with, yet Paul got up after being left dead and believers prayed for him, he immediately went to the next place doing the will of God, Stephen prayed for those stoning him while they were doing so. Paul knew going to Rome was a death sentence, a prophet (Agabus) even said that to him, yet he wanted to go to Rome so the gospel of Christ can be preached.
I am in no way comparing my life with these people, but I draw lessons from their lives of total surrender, especially when they don’t “common sensecally” understand how they are been led by the Holy Spirit. They understood that God wants 100% total surrender at every step of our Christian journey (not King Saul kind of surrender) and not once in a while. Ola and I were both born again when we married, but we both had our own agenda, we both had areas we gave to God and the areas that we handled on our own, like most people reading this article, we trusted God for an aspect of our lives and schemed intellectually to get other things done. I knew the love of God, knew the truth of His words, but I could not get myself to follow His instructions because I feared if I did not respond to this “aggressive” woman who seeks to control me and usurp my “god” given control as the man, she’ll walk all over me, so I responded how my culture and nature (sin) taught me to respond to such a “woman” which only made the situation worse.
The romantic love stage in our (Ola and I) marriage was very short-lived for many reasons, the clash of culture, the clash of personalities, the lack of boundaries etc, our conflicts came to an anti-climax after four years or marriage, when we both felt there was no use for the misery we were enduring even as Christians. As a believer who knew God and really sought to be obedient, I went to Him [God] and said “I’ll do whatever you want me to do, even though this is how I feel at this time”, to my surprise He spoke to me, I then realized I have been dumping on God without allowing Him to get through to me.
In my spirit, I felt God say, “son you’ve done it your way, now let’s do it my way and all I want from you is hands off and follow my leading”, I did not really understand what I signed on with God until the practicum started.
I have shared many of our stories at many marriages conferences and in one-on-one counseling from my viewpoint, and some of the stories bring with it much pain to me. One of the biggest lessons of total surrender in our marriage was a trip to New Jersey in 2004 for a wedding, Ola had looked at our return boarding pass and gave a wrong (later) departure time, which affected our visitations and scheduling, we realized this mistake on our way to the airport, normally, a shouting match would have broken out right there in the car, but somehow God sealed my lips. That whole incident lasted about an hour, we both made many mistakes in that hour, that under our usual modus operandi a blaming match would have ensued and we would have lived like strangers at home for days. Instead there was no blame, we trusted God for our flight back home and miraculously the flight was delayed until I got to the terminal, in-spite of unexplainable delays along the way (dropping the rental car off, being stuck in the monorail, and my Id being in my “agbada” already checked in).
Another memorable lesson, was when I got back home after a trans-Atlantic trip, Ola knows my love language is “acts of service” and would usually clean certain areas of the house on the day I get back home (to fill my love tank), but this particular trip she was swamped at work and tired from running the kids around. I came home after 2 days of traveling and being away from home for more than 5 days, and immediately started cleaning, ignoring her or her questions, I thought I was being “godly” by cleaning and not saying anything. When I got to bed after I satisfied myself cleaning, she made a sarcastic comment that got to me, again I did not say anything I simply turned my back to her. At that moment the Holy Spirit spoke to my spirit to get a home “pedicure set” I had bought months before and serve my wife, it was a struggle of will and very painful to my ego but I choose that night to be obedient, that night changed our marriage as well.
I have stories of pain over the two years that God took me through, a journey of total surrender to His direction in my marriage (and other aspects of my life) and not what I feel is right or makes common sense. The first lesson was renewing in my mind the traditions of men I have been thought all my life and truly hear “Him”, that included studying the bible, rather than just reading it or quoting other good people, it included waiting to hear (a lesson I learnt from a Catholic prayer community) Him, and a lesson in boldness and being fearless.
God finally taught me that He made my wife with her personality and He matched us (this is another story) so we can complement each other and not be at each other’s throat, I was able to see her zeal to correct my grammar (anywhere) as a good thing, rather than the negative I’ve always seen in her nature, I saw for the first time how her personality could be harnessed to benefit our marriage, I realized that I cannot recreate her in my image or make her fit into a cultural box for women and more importantly I clearly understood my role of serving her regardless (agapao – unconditional love).
God then showed me my role as a head, with the life of Christ as described in the bible, Christ led people with free will and never forced them, in-fact in most cases He gave them options, many chose life and some (like the rich man) chose death (eternal and otherwise). It worked like magic when I applied the principle in our home, especially as it relates to things I cannot control such as her behavior, what I did was to suggest my opinion to her and let her make the final decisions, when it pertains to the house or the children, we talk and she differs the final option to my call believing that God would lead me.
Those years of renewal of my mind with the TRUTH (person and word of Christ) and transformation of my character through total surrender of my will, were painful and are still painful, the irony of this period was that I thought as a Christian I had everything covered, it became apparent that knowing Him as a Savior is different from surrendering to Him as Lord. The pain I felt were emotional and I discovered later that it was really my ego that was hurt, how would people perceive me? If she gets away with that, what others things would she get away with? the pressure of the cultures (African and Western) and even expectations from the church (denominational traditions) or faith community exerted pressure. These lessons became very useful when I resigned from corporate and went into full time ministry; it was easy for me to let people know that I’m the marriage guy and not my wife. When she travels with me (which is rarely) she is Mrs. Femi and when I’m on her turf (with medical people) I’m Mr. Ola and I’m very okay with that role as a husband.
God helped me to understand that my positions (husband, author, speaker, writer, community organizer etc) does not define me, the character I exhibit by my obedience to His words is what defines me, not only did I start to see my marriage differently, I saw my wife differently. I went to God asking Him to change my wife, instead He was interested in me being Christ-like after which I’ll become a better husband, dad, speaker, writer etc. The process of total surrender is a painful process by every human standard but the reward is amazing spiritually, emotionally and mentally. I discovered that when I take life’s pressure off myself and just follow His set of principles and the leading of the Holy Spirit even when I don’t get what’s going on with my intellect, that Romans 8: 28 is still true.
In whatever conflict you are facing in your position as a husband, wife, pastor, minster, etc are you still blaming others around you, are you still blaming your wife or your husband for the near demise of your marriage, are you blaming others because no one can get along with you? The process of transformation into His image is painful (just ask Abraham, David and Paul) but it is rewarding at the end of the day, not only does He take the burden of life off of your shoulder, you’ll have peace of mind even as you walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
Oh, one final thing, the process of becoming Christ-like and total surrender, as painful as it might be for human flesh is not a one-time deal, it will occur from time to time in our life time, as my friend Pastor Sayo Ajiboye wrote on my FB recently, there might be “lull in between battles”
It is my prayer that God gives us all the strength to totally surrender and the grace to crucify our flesh and bring our will under the will of the Father, the teachings of Christ and leading of the Holy Spirit.
Remain Blessed
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