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.

Pastor Jide Ajidahun

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You are warmly welcome to the March edition of the Singles’ World. In the last edition, I concluded my discussion on demonic children as one of the foundational problems rocking families today. In this edition, I will discuss another very serious foundational and fundamental issue affecting many homes. The import of this is for the singles to avoid it and for those who are facing it to recognise the enormity of the challenges and tackle them by the wisdom of God. It is my sincere prayers that you will not enter into this debacle in the name of Jesus Christ, and if you are already into it, the Lord will deliver you. 

Demonic and Possessive Mother-in-Law: As I said in the previous editions, foundational issues in marriage are usually very difficult to resolve. Prevention, as they say is not just better than cure, it is cheaper. Proverbs 22:3 says “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.” First, God expects you to be wise. It is that wisdom, which is the principal thing, according Prov. 4:7 that will make you see evil coming and hide yourself.

When a wise man sees the evil coming and refuses to hide himself, the Bible says. He will be punished. The Bible does not say he will be pardoned or protected. Even if the Lord forgives him of his disobedience, he will still suffer the consequences. If the Lord tells you not to marry an unbeliever and you refuse and marry him, when he turns you into his punching bag; that is your punishment for your disobedience. Of course, God will forgive you if you genuinely repent. So, foundational issues are better avoided than managed.

In many cultures of the world, in-laws occupy prominent positions in the marriage institution. In Africa, for instance, you are not just married to your spouse but to the entire family of your spouse. The roles of the father-in-law and the mother-in-law are quite very cultural and traditional. Jethro was Moses’ father-in-law in the Bible; the father of Zipporah, the wife of Moses. The timely godly management skill that he gave Moses helped him greatly in his ministerial assignment.

When Isaac took Rebekah, the Bible says, he brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent-Gen. 24:67.  So, here we see that Sarah was Rebekah’s mother-in-law. In-laws can be greatly helpful, and they can be terribly nasty and irritating. The focus here is to look at the demonic and possessive in-laws who are majorly mothers-in-law, although we do have some very antagonistic fathers-in law. From research and experience, mothers-in-law can be that terrible, as they often constitute nuisance in the families of their children. We will look at a particular type of mother-in-law here now.

A.    There are women whose children are their eyes. They possess them in totality. This is not a natural but a demonic possession. Some of them believe that when their sons get married, their wives will take away their love from them. Therefore, they will not have full access to their sons anymore.  It is their husbands that will be reaping all their labours on them. They wonder why their children cannot visit them when they like. They are not always comfortable that their children want to get married. They will do everything possible to delay their marriage proposals and waste their time. In essence, such women are ‘married’ to their own children. If you want to marry the son of such a woman, it is going to be war. Be ready to marry her and her mother. There may be a soul tie between such a woman and her son.

 In most cases, it is this woman that will be running your house for you. Your husband, who is mummy’s boy, will always take to his mummy advice because of the special love that he has for her. When she comes visiting, that is the Thatcher of the house giving you orders on how she wants her son’s house to look like. If you have such a mother-in-law, you have two husbands, your mother-in-law first and then your husband. Remember, you cannot serve two masters. Some of the traits of such a mother-in-law are listed below:

1.     She wants to know your earnings and the earnings of her son.  

2.     She wants to know how much your husband is giving you on monthly basis; if it is too much, she will tell her son to reduce it. She may not talk if it is small. She has come to stop you from ‘wasting’ her son’s resources.

3.     She wants to know your menstrual cycle.

4.     She wants to know if you are pregnant or not and also your expected day of delivery (EDD) because of her curiosity. And if you are not pregnant on time, she already has her solutions whether you like it or not.

5.     She will dictate what she wants to eat and what you should cook for her son.

6.     If she is agile, she can take over your kitchen from you and begin to cook for her son.

7.     She does not need your permission to enter her son’s bedroom after all, it her son’s house. 

8.     Her son is the apple of her eye, and nothing must happen to him.  

9.     When she is not staying with you, she can summon her son to come and see her without giving him any adequate notice. You dare not oppose that lest you are in trouble. She can even ask all of you to come home and spend Christmas with her.  

10.  If you are busy or your baby is crying, she can breastfeed your baby for you without your permission and you dare not protest. There will be trouble.

When you see that your partner is mummy’s boy or mama’s boy according to the US English, please don’t wait. Run for dear life. Neither you nor your husband will be able to manage such a domineering, manipulative, oppressive, demonic and cantankerous mother-in-law. Can you imagine someone having Jezebel as mother-in-law?

 In most cases, your husband will be a yes-man to his mum. He will not like to offend her. In such homes, the wife is more or else like a housemaid or a slave. Many of such mothers-in-law are in society today, and they are posing great dangers to the families of their children. It is a fundamental issue that those who are into it may have to battle with for a very long time. If you like, be praying that they should die by fire, it may take time and the damages done to the home may be monumental, calamitous, irredeemable and irreparable. 

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.

Pastor Jide Ajidahun

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This is the last edition of the Singles’ World for the Year 2023. We are eternally grateful to God for the grace given to us to share with you. In this last edition, I will discuss with you the last behavioural trait of a spoilt brat. It is important for you to study and identify all the traits earlier discussed including this one in your partner before you decide whether you will go to the altar with him or her or not.

I have consistently warned that spoilt brats are not good materials for marriage. Spoilt brats are incredibly irredeemable liabilities, junks in marriage and rottenness in his or her partner. Unfortunately, you will continue to live with this mess till death do you part. This is a preventable and an avoidable stress. Once you build your home on this strain, it is a life trauma which will ultimately be unbearable, calamitous and catastrophic. Don’t forget the Word of God that says “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Ps. 11:3).

Foundational issues are usually difficult to resolve in marriage. A child that does not recognise English alphabets will not be able to form words with alphabets. Similarly, a child that does not recognise numbers in mathematics cannot proceed to additions or subtractions. Common complaints among couples today include; my wife is very lazy, my wife cannot cook, my wife is very stubborn, my wife is always rude, my husband is unappreciative, my husband is a bully, my husband is temperamental, etc. These are foundational issues. Check it out!  Those who have these traits were raised by indulgent and permissive parents.

Let me quickly share with you a rough translation of a poem written by Prof. Oluyemisi Adebowale titled “Bankemo.” The poem captures the essence of a spoilt brat and the indulgent parents:

Bankemo.

If a child does a good thing

Just ignore it

If a child misbehaves

Just overlook it

Don’t pay attention to the misbehaviour of a child

Just coddle my child

If a child bed wets

Just pat him on the back

If a child poops on the bed

Just ignore it

Because he is not yet wise

If a child is spoilt like the rotten plantain trunk

Just spoil him with a wild homage

Because he is still very young

Foolish women that do this are many in society  

They will say a child must be pampered

They will say it is God that gave the child for them to love

If the father scolds the child

The mother will quickly protest

If the rival wife scolds the child

The mother will tell her not to kill her child

If the neighbours beat the child

The mother will tell the neighbour to mind his business

Have you heard that beating a child can kill him?

Have you heard that mere scolding a child can kill him?

What do we do to a woman that does not want us to rebuke his child?

What do we do to a woman that glories in ignorance?

What do we do to a woman that says

She is the only woman that experiences child labour?

And does not want anybody to touch her child

What do we do to a woman that is gambling with the life of her child?

Who says she is caring for her child.

What do we do to a woman that turns her child’s life upside down?

That says it is her rival that is behind her child’s problem.

You indulgent mothers!

You permissive mothers!

We are not saying you should not care for your children

If you indulge your child, and the child rots away

You are destroying your life

You are gambling with the life of your child

If people scold your child, and you are asking them to keep quiet

Because you claim your child is not yet wise

When the child grows up spoilt, is that wisdom?

You forget that it is one person that gives birth to a child

But the child is trained by many people

You forget that dried fish cannot be bent

And if we don’t quickly cut the iroko tree when it is young

We will not be able to manage it when it grows up.

Disciplining a child does not kill a child

It only moulds a child very well

We are not asking you not to care for your child

A trained and disciplined child will be a pride to one in future

But a spoilt child is shame to one in society

If you want to indulge your child

Go on with it

And as you are coddling your child

You should also discipline the child

Care for your child and also discipline him

Indulgent parents!

Do it moderately.

There are two powerful images used in this poem. The image of an iroko tree shows that if a spoilt child is not tamed when she is young, she will become a nuisance and a deity in her husband’s house. The second image is that of a dried fish. A child is like a fresh fish that can be bent as one wills, but when it is old and has become fully formed, it is useless trying to change her just as it is impossible to straighten a dried fish without squeezing or ruining it. Don’t marry a spoilt child either as a husband or as a wife unless you are ready to deify her or make regular sacrifices to her to have peace. Why going through all this stress when you can easily avoid it now.    

• Hates Criticism: In addition to disobedience, naughtiness, attention-seeking, despondency, obstructiveness, temper and ingratitude, spoilt brats don’t want to be criticised because they were pampered and never criticised when they were young even when they misbehaved. Whoever that tried to criticise or scold them would see the wrath of their indulgent parents. Imagine you getting married to such. When she misbehaves in the house, you cannot criticise her without facing her troubles. She can cry her eyes out for being criticised. She can also fight you back.

She had grown up with that mentality that she must never be corrected for her wrongdoings. Her husband is in perpetual trouble. Somebody said if a woman is allowed to rule the house, there will be peace. The only way for peace to reign is for the husband to keep quiet and ignore all her wrongdoings without criticising her at all. That is really a very big issue. Proverbs 22:3 says “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself…” Please hide yourself away from spoilt brats. Don’t marry them. The Lord will 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. Wishing you a Prosperous 2024 in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Pastor Jide Ajidahun

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