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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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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I am happy to welcome you to the November edition of our Singles’ World for 2022. In this edition, I will discuss with you another type of person that you must not marry. The Lord will guide you in the name of Jesus Christ.  

16

Don’t Marry a Demon-Possessed Person 4  

17. Life is deeper than what we can see with our physical eyes. That is why the unbelievers are curiously searching for the unknown rather than seeking God who knows the unknown. It is not everybody that you see on the street that is a human being, and it is not everybody that you see in church that is a human being. It is not everybody that you see in the market places, shopping malls and other public places that is a human being. Some demons come in human forms and mingle with human beings on earth in order to deceive them. There are many students in our higher institutions who are not complete human beings. We teach them as students, but they belong to the world of man and to the world of the spirits. This world is deep. 

Don’t forget that the devil has come to steal, to kill and to destroy, and one of his greatest tools is deception. If a demon asks for your hand in marriage, you will run away fearfully. A number of mysterious things are going on in the realm of the spirit; and we need to be discerning so that we will not be deceived. There are many people out there that you call sisters but who are mermaids. They are very pretty, dazzling and seductive. It will be very difficult to turn away your eyes from beholding them if you are not very spiritual. They are half human beings and half fish. They are half human beings and half snakes. Some of these beings have the ability to turn to snakes, fish, cats and other scary animals. 

Some of them come to the market on market days and when they are through with their transactions, they return to their abodes; inside the river, sea, trees or the mountains. A woman told her husband after their wedding that the husband did not know her. The husband was surprised to hear that. He insisted that he knew his wife very well. The woman yelled and told her husband that she would show him her real self. Right inside their bedroom, the wife turned to a big snake on the bed. The husband was about to shout out of fear, but the wife quickly turned to a human being back, and told him never to tell anybody what he had seen if he wanted to live. She told her husband that he had now known her. The husband knew he was married to a snake rather than to a Christian sister that he had earlier thought of. The woman was a Christian sister in church, but a snake in the realm of the spirit. 

So, the marriage that was conducted was between a man and a spirit. How do you expect that man to enjoy the marriage? The man has continued to live in fear. He could not run away neither could he tell anybody for fear of being killed by his snake wife. Demons are disembodied beings; so they are looking for human bodies to inhabit and continue their malevolent activities. One of the reasons why we have so much pollution in the world today is because many marriages are built on wrong foundations. Hence, the offspring of such marriages will be polluted. What do you expect from a marriage between a human being and a demon? This may sound like a fairy tale to you, but it is real. Such people are not to be married. 

How do you recognise them? They don’t really want to be recognised. That is their behavioural pattern. If you don’t know them, you may fall into their hands. 

• First, be born again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. 
• Live a holy and righteous life or else they will gain access into your life easily because you are a compromising believer. 
• Be watchful and prayerful. Pray more in tongues on daily basis to develop your spirit man. In your prayers, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal them to you. The Lord is faithful; He will reveal them to you. 
• Ask God to give you the gift of discerning of spirits; this will help you to discern them whenever they are around you. 
• Read and meditate on the Word of God regularly.

It is my prayer that you will not enter into their traps in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

By the grace of God, we will continue from here next month. Please, don’t forget to send me your comments and testimonies. In case, you are not born again, please, surrender your life to Jesus Christ today. Tomorrow may be too late.  Till then, stay safe and God bless you. Amen. 

Pastor Jide Ajidahun

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I am happy to welcome you to the October edition of our Singles’ World for 2022. In this edition, I will discuss with you another type of person that you must not marry. The Lord will lead and direct you appropriately in the name of Jesus Christ.  

15

Don’t Marry a Mannerless and Discourteous Person  

16.  It is one thing to claim that you are born again; it is another thing for you to have the right character. It is your character that will determine how far you will go in life. It is your character that will determine whether your marriage will succeed or not. This is because the man is married to the character of the woman, and the woman is married to the character of the man. The character of the man or the woman you want to marry must be right. There are mannerless Christians who will not make good homes. If you come across them, please don’t marry them. What are the manifestations of a mannerless person? What makes them mannerless? We will address some of them below here:

• A mannerless person is disrespectful, rude and uncouth. His or her words are usually coarse, corrosive and biting. Can you imagine your wife calling you an idiot or a stupid person? Can you imagine your husband referring to your father as a useless man or your mother as a harlot? Some men and women are naturally ill-mannered and saucy. If they are angry, they are unmanageable, and their words can be very caustic. They have no respect for anybody. Such people are cantankerous and troublemakers. You cannot easily bear such corrosive words from such people. For them, there is nothing wrong with their words. 

A pastor was trying to settle a quarrel between a husband and his wife. When he was about to talk to the wife, the woman stretched her right hand towards him and warned him not to talk. She further said that she would insult him if he didn’t keep quiet. And the pastor kept quiet. Do you want to marry such a woman? You are inviting stress and death. An African proverb says, “A contemptuous word will come from a contemptuous person.” Another one says, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger” (Proverbs 15:1). 

• A discourteous person does not defer to anybody, and that is a serious thing. In life, there will be times when you will have some serious disagreements and unresolved conflicts with your spouse, and you will need some kind of intervention from some people. There should be at least one person that should be able to calm the aggrieved person down. There should be one person in life that should be able to call you to order when you are going wild. A discourteous person cannot be called to order by anybody, I mean by anybody. Can you imagine if you have an issue with your spouse, and your pastor, parents, uncles, husband, boss, family members etc. cannot call you or your spouse to order? 

We are designed by God to be regulated and controlled by some people so that we will not be destroyed by the devil. In Exodus 18: 17 &19, Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law said “The thing that thou doest is not good. I will give thee counsel…” In verse 24, the Bible says “So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law.” Moses was getting leadership wrong, and it was telling on him seriously. His father-in-law had to call him to order, and he obeyed him. With the anointing of God upon Moses, he was doing the wrong thing, and his father-in-law called him to order. The Bible says that he obeyed. In John18:10 & 11, the Bible says that Peter cut off the right ear of the high priest’s servant and Jesus said unto Peter, “Put up thy sword into the sheath.” Here, when Peter was misbehaving, Jesus called him to order. Imagine if he had continued to attack the servant of the high priest, he could have killed him. Most probably, he could have lost his apostleship. Those who have no respect for anybody cannot go far in life. 

Some people cannot be called to order when they are misbehaving. Those who disrespect their parents, their pastors, their bosses, their close friends, their lawyers etc. cannot become good spouses. If you are a great threat to your husband, and your husband has nobody to report you to, it is a big issue. If you are a threat to your wife, and there is nobody that your wife can report you to, it is a big problem. The common thing in life is that we bow and restrain ourselves when we are told that we will be reported to someone that we hold in high esteem. 

If you threaten a little child with a cane and denial of food, he will cooperate with you. If you threaten someone that you will tell his/her father, he/she will be begging you not to do so. If you threaten to report somebody to his or her boss in the office, you will see him or her appealing to you not to do so in the name of the Lord. But when you have someone who does not fear anybody, and who tells you to report him or her to anybody, it is a serious one. Even when a dog is mad, it can still recognise fire. It is not the same thing with a discourteous person. Somebody who cannot be called to order by anybody when he/she is misbehaving is not a marriage material. Don’t marry such a person. It is either he kills you or you kill her through provocation. 

• A discourteous person will be very vulgar and unrefined when talking. There was a misunderstanding between a husband and his wife. The wife said publicly sneeringly and contemptuously that her husband’s penis had shrunk to provoke the husband. She told the husband to go out and see big penis and stop boasting about his shrunken penis. It was a way of ridiculing her husband. When the husband accuses his wife of infidelity, the wife replied publicly and loudly and said that if she likes, she can give her private parts to anybody that she likes. She called the sexual organs their real names loudly without any restraint. Such a woman will be a big embarrassment to her husband and also to the neighbourhood.  The children can also become polluted and defiled by listening regularly to vulgar words.      

If the Lord helps you to identify mannerless and discourteous brethren in society and even in the church, don’t marry them. If they want to be your friends, turn down their proposals. Just as the Bible says that you should not make friends with an angry man (Proverbs 22:24), you must not make friends with a mannerless, ill-mannered and discourteous person if you want to enjoy your marriage. If you fall into this class of people, you need to work on yourself before the devil walks you away from your destiny. Remember the proverb that says, “A woman who is morally bankrupt says she does not have a husband, and a husband who is morally bankrupt says he does not have a wife.”

By the grace of God, we will continue from here next month. Please, don’t forget to send me your comments and testimonies. In case, you are not born again, please, surrender your life to Jesus Christ today. Tomorrow may be too late.  Till then, stay safe and God bless you. Amen. 

Pastor Jide Ajidahun

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