THE MAKING OF A WIFE 9
Welcome back again to our February edition of this column. In the last edition, I shared with you one of the essential and indispensable ingredients that a Christian wife needs to become the wife of a man of God, and that is the call of God and passion for the ministry work. I say it again; if you are not wired for the ministry stuff, please, don’t marry a man of God for whatever reason. If you need fame, money, position, protection, you can have them elsewhere without marrying a man of God. We will now look at the next attribute.
An Intercessor: The assignments that God has given to men of God are very tasking, time-consuming, enervating and very provoking to the kingdom of darkness that such a man of God will require intercessors around him. Recall, that I said in my last edition that the man of God wears so many caps. He is a husband, a father, a pastor, and maybe a career man. To discharge these responsibilities faithfully, diligently and successfully, he needs a lot of prayers as back up to succeed.
The man of God is daily exposed to temptations and demonic attacks. The demonic world is always there to ensure that he does not succeed. Thank God for the prayer band members in his ministry who are always there to pray for him, but the wife of the man of God is his best and most intercessor. She knows his heartbeat, his heartache, his moments of trials, his travails, his perils, his challenges, his weaknesses, his strengths. His wife also knows his fears, his worries, his sexual needs, his temperament, his emotions, his passions, his tasks with his nuclear and extended families, his relationship with his in laws.
The wife knows his moments of despair, moments of joy, his personal itinerary, his personal infirmities and thorns in the flesh, his marriage challenges and challenges in his career apart from the demonic attacks that he is constantly exposed to. The list is endless. How many of these can the man of God share with the prayer band members? How many of these can the man of God share with other ministers in the ministry? The wife of the man of God has the privilege to know all these so that she can help him in prayers.
Recall, that you are given to him as his helpmeet- Gen. 2:18. You are to help him as an intercessor just as you help him in all other areas. The home of the man of God is the first target of the devil. If the devil succeeds in getting his home, he has already captured his ministry. The devil targets his wife, and also targets his children to make them miserable and wayward. The devil will do everything possible to scatter his home and bring discouragement to the man of God. It is your duty to stand in the gap for the man of God, your husband and hold his hands from going weary just as Aaron and Hur stayed up the hands of Moses in Ex. 17:12 until his hands were steady to fight and win the battle against the Amalekites.
Unfortunately, we live in a generation where our Christian sisters are given more to pleasure than to prayers. They are given to worldliness rather than to godliness. They are playing rather than praying. They are dancers, pleasure seekers, fame seekers, fashion seekers, money chasers. They visit shopping malls more than prayer altars. They are chatters, gossips and tattlers and not intercessors. Your prayers at your altar will alter your home and your husband’s life in conformity with the counsels of the Lord. Paul in II Cor. 4:8-9 says “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” Every man of God will experience all these, but he needs a prayer warrior as wife to stand in the place of prayers for him at all times.
If the wife of Job had been an intercessor, Job would not have experienced such turmoil that he went through after his losses. Her prayers would have mitigated his loneliness, disenchantment and sorrow. When a man of God suffers some losses physically and spiritually, he needs a wife to intercede for him.
If not for the intercession of Abigail, Nabal’s wife in I Sam. 25:23-28, Nabal would have been destroyed by David for his foolishness and wickedness. Zipporah, the wife of Moses in Exodus 4:24 interceded for Moses when God was angry with him for his resistance against God’s divine call- Exodus 4:14.
You will need regular time of prayers to intercede for your husband-man of God and for the entire family. You will need vigils and time to fast and pray in order to seek God’s face concerning some issues. He will need your prayers when he is on the mission field, during his crusades, special programmes like deliverance and anointing services etc. When he travels for outreaches, he needs your prayers for God’s protection, provisions and open heavens. If you cannot pray for him, you will make him an easy prey for the devil. There are some situations in the ministry that will require you to pray and fast on his behalf. Are you ready? If you cannot, please, you are simply not a wife material for a man of God. You can be a good wife for another man, but definitely not for a man of God.
Intercessors are disciplined people. They have no time for frivolities and gossips. They are filled with the Holy Ghost, and they pray in tongues regularly. How many of our sisters today are filled with Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues? How many can pray for one to two hours in tongues? If you are not a woman of prayers or Mrs. Red eyes, marrying a man of God is a taboo for you. Neither of you will enjoy the relationship. So, to be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Till next edition, stay blessed in the name of Jesus.
Pastor Jide Ajidahun.
