FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES IN MARRIAGE: VOCATIONAL INCOMPATIBILITY
Compliments of the season to you all! Welcome to the first edition of Singles’ World in 2025. In the last edition, I discussed spatial incompatibility with you, which I consider an important foundational issue that can unsettle many homes if not resolved before marriage. If the man faces north and the woman faces south, they are spatially incompatible. You must resolve where both of you will settle in life, or else you may just be a nomadic or visiting couple. You will not really know each other, and your children may lack fatherly care, motherly care, or both. Besides, you may open the doors of your home to strange women and strange men. When infidelity sets in, divorce or broken home is inevitable.
In this edition, we will look at vocational or career incompatibility as another foundational issue that many intending couples often gloss over before marrying. When a marriage is built on vocational incompatibility, there will be upheavals that can be injurious to the stability of the home. You may be genetically and spatially compatible, and yet you are not vocationally compatible. In Genesis 2:18, God said he would provide Adam with an helpmeet that is suitable or compatible with him. You and your partner must be compatible physically, spiritually, intellectually, vocationally etc. or else there will be schism.
If we are honest and sincere about ourselves during courtship, our problems will be manageable, but we sometimes become desperate in getting married and overlook the weightier matters of life that can weigh down our marriages. For instance, if you are called a pastor in the future, it is not any sister that you can marry. This is because it is not every Christian sister that is wired to marry a pastor. A pastor’s wife should be godly, virtuous, humble, supportive, hospitable, prayerful, wise, faithful, teachable and loyal to her husband, family and church. A woman who is a human rights activist, feminist, or political activist will be incompatible with her husband’s pastoral ministry. This is because the core values of a pastoral ministry are radically different from those of human rights activism or feminism.
A feminist touts gender equality by compromising the biblical stand on the head position of the husband in the family. I have heard cases of women who refused to cooperate with their husbands’ pastoral ministries on the grounds that they were not called into the pastoral ministry. This can be challenging if it is not addressed before marriage. If you marry a potential pastor when you know undoubtedly that your vocation or personality is incompatible with the core values of the pastoral ministry of your husband, you are preparing for unmanageable trouble.
In addition, if you are a costumier or a professional theatre practitioner, whose vocation demands the deployment of African myths and rituals, traditional music and dance as well as the extensive use of makeups on stage, you are incompatible with a man called into the pastoral ministry. Of course, if your vocation is a Christian drama, you are compatible with a man’s pastoral ministry.
Similarly, the work of a missionary involves frequent relocation, cultural adjustments, and unpredictable living conditions. If you value a settled lifestyle, you should not marry a missionary. Some Christian missionary organisations today ensure that missionaries marry missionaries to ensure stability in families.
In addition, if you are an 8-to-4 office worker and you want to marry a military officer whose work requires frequent deployments and unpredictable schedules that can be very challenging for a spouse with a traditional office job, you may not enjoy a settled home for life. Again, if you are a politician, your life as a public officer requires transparency. Such a man is incompatible with a woman who is a private investigator, detective or investigative journalist whose job requires confidentiality.
In the Bible, Aquila and Priscilla as a married couple shared a vocational compatibility as tentmakers and ministers- Acts 18:2-3. Ruth and Boaz too were vocationally compatible as farmers and harvesters. Therefore, vocational compatibility is important in marriage relationships. If you are married to a spouse whose career is incompatible with yours, it is a terrible foundational problem that you will have to face for many years. It may be difficult to change one’s career after marriage in order to resolve the debacle. Prevention is usually cheaper, safer and more effective. May the Lord help you.
By the grace of God, we will continue from here next month. Please do not forget to send me your comments and testimonies. If you are not born again, please surrender your life to Jesus Christ today. Tomorrow may be too late. Until then, God bless you. Amen.
