Look beyond the physical

Pastor Mike Bamiloye's Tribute to his wife
"MY DEAREST SINGLE SISTERS"
(Tribute to My Wife - Sister Gloria Bamiloye)
Proverbs 31:10-12, 23, 28, 30 NKJV
[10] Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above
rubies.
[11] The heart of her husband safely trusts her; So he will have
no lack of gain.
[12] She does him good and not evil All the days of her life.
[23] Her husband is known in the gates, When he sits among
the elders of the land.
[28] Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband
also, and he praises her:
[30] Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a woman
who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.
Yesterday, February 4th, 2015, was my wife's 51st Birthday.
And this year would be the 27years since 1988 the year we got
married, when she was only 24 years old and I was 28. Since
then, we have travelled through the thicks and the thins
together, we have climbed the mountains and descended into
the valleys together. We have faced adverse physical and
spiritual situations together. We have both confronted
together, daunting challenges that have stood and those that
are still standing against our lives and ministry.
Yesterday, she was 51 and she got phone calls and
congratulatory text messages on phone and on Facebook page
through out yesterday till late in the night. Our two sons
brought her gift - two digitally painted pictures of her early
years on film set. And I also bought her a small teddy bear.
The several phone calls and congratulatory messages of the
birthday made us feel a large crowd of well-wishers had
attended our birthday party. Thank you all.
But what is special about this great woman is when I
remember how we started and how we have been journeying
this journey since then. And when I recall some of the things
that happen today among our single and marriagable sisters, I
can not but give praises to the Lord God who brought this
simple and humble sister my way several years ago.
I have written this story in some of my write-ups and in one of
my books, however, there is need to recall some of it for the
benefit of some of our single sisters who might need to learn
from it. I graduated from higher institution in 1983 and served
in 1983/84. Right from the Campus days, I had been involved
in drama ministry, all through my Youth Service, I was sending
drama scripts back into the fellowship for drama presentations
and I would travel down from Plateau State to direct the
rehearsals and participate in the major drama presentation on
Drama Night.
After my Youth Service in 1984, I was involved fully in campus
drama evangelism with the fellowship drama group, travelling
to other campuses and churches outside the campus for
drama presentation. And Sister Gloria was among the new
members that joined the drama group.
In 1985, sometimes in early July, I proposed to her to marry
me and she told me she would pray over it. On August 4th,
1985, she revisited my proposal and said "Yes" to it. So, our
journey began. Now, the real issue was that, I had nothing. I
had nothing physical or material that any lady could be proud
of. I had only one single room, with one bed, one table and
chair, a standing hanger where I hanged my few fading shirts
and only one suit which I used to iron from time to time and
red tie from special occassion. Inside the single room was my
cooking stove and a dilapidated standing fan, which had lost
its foot and the head was tied facing the bed. And of course,
a precious item - my bookshelf serving as a small library.
So, when Sister Gloria visited my abode for the first time,
these were all I had and she saw. My physical and material
possessions could never be compared to what I was on the
campus. "Bro Mike" was famous among the fellowship as a
"gym-gym" brother full of zeal for drama and drama only. And
the drama group of the fellowship became the most influential
of all the sub-groups of the fellowship, because almost all the
executive officers became members of the sub-group,
including the President and the Vice-President and the
General Secretary of the Christian Fellowship. So I was so rich
in spiritual substance and full of great visons, but had no
enviable physical or material possessions any young lady could
be proud of.
But, when Sis Gloria entered my room, one afternoon, she
never saw all those things I mentioned but only one thing
arrested her attention: my bookshelf containing several
spiritual books, including the books of Kenneth Hagins, Oral
Roberts, T.L. Osborne, Osward J. Smith, etc. She hasten to the
shelf and shouted "Whao!", and she sat by the bookshelf and
began to look at those precious books she had longed to have
and read. Ah!. I was happy I had what she wanted and desired.
She wanted spiritual books that would make her grow. And I
had just that! All other things never mattered to her.
I had nothing physical, but I had a great vision of the future
and she embraced that vision with all her heart and might.
When her senior brothers and her parents were demanding
from her to know the work that her fiancee was doing that
could qualify him to marry her, she stood on my behalf to
defend me before her people that I was into drama ministry
and there was a great future ahead of us. He people could not
see what she was talking about, because I was already on full-
time drama ministry and I had no physical enviable thing they
all could hold on to. They were furious with her and thought
she must be out of her mind to have decided to marry "a man
who has no job and no physical possession and no
appreciable future". When we informed them we wanted to get
married three years down our courtship, they revolted and my
Mummy ( my elder sister), led the war to Sis Gloria's parents
to warn them never to give their daughter to me in marriage
because I had no job to take care of their daughter. She stood
by what God had told her about me, that there was a great
future ahead of us.
The Lord convinced them all and they supported us and we
married in 1988, three years after the Mount Zion ministry
launched. And our journey to that future began.
AND 27 YEARS AFTER, WE ARE STILL ON THE JOURNEY TO
THE FUTURE.
WE HAVE NOT YET ARRIVED THERE, BUT OUR STORY HAS
BEEN GETTING BETTER
THAN WHEN WE BEGAN THIS JOURNEY TOGETHER.
Now, to my Dearest Single Sisters, a lot of us are missing it
today. A lot of us have been seriously deceived and misled by
erronenous marriage teachings and lectures of confused
marriage counsellors and teachers. A woman was once
invited to one of our sisters' conference, invited to come and
minister to our single sisters. She mounted the pulpit and
shocked us by saying, no sisters should marry any brother who
is not materially capable of being a husband. She said she also
counselled her daughters to be gather as many materials as
possible before getting married; that her daughters must go
into mariage with enough self-sufficiency. She ought to have
got a lot of things like fridge, electronic gadgets, dinning sets
and other things that could make her stand tall as a self-
sufficient lady. I told my wife, that the woman would never be
invited to any of our conferences again. Her teaching was
confusing.
I heard some marriage teachers taught their single sisters to
check the Bank Account statement of the man who come
proposing to them before they consider their proposals. If the
Bank Account is very lean, then, they need not bother
themselves considering the proposals. Some sisters would go
and pay visit to the houses and apartments of the men who
proposed to them, before they could begin to consider their
proposals.
A young brother who had waited for almost a year before the
sister finally said "Yes", later came back to me after almost
one year of courtship, to tell me that the lady suddenly began
to ask some strange questions about his projections for the
future and what he hopes to achieve and possess in a year's
time and what he hopes to acquire in two years' time; the
amount he hope to have saved for the wedding in two years.
And when he told the sister that he was not sure of the
amount he could save for the wedding neither does he have
any future projection, but he is a minister of God and she
could see all the works he has been doing for the Lord and he
knows the Lord has a great future for him as he keeps serving
Him. This made the sister began to reconsider the
relationship. Then, she said later, that she didn't think they
were compatible, because she thought he had no future plans.
Meanwhile, such sister would readily believe a lie. If the
brother had began to blow an invisible trumpet of himself and
began to paint an unrealistic picture of his future for this same
sister, she would have believed everything. If the brother had
said something like "making a saving that would enable him
acquire a jeep in a month to their wedding; and how he would
tender a business proposal before an oil company or come up
with a business idea that could fetch him some millions, which
would afford him an opportunity of purchasing a duplex
apartment in Lekki part of Lagos, the sister would readily
believe that he had a future plan. She would take him for a
very serious-minded marriagable brother.
We have come to a strange generation where lies sell heavily
than the truth. We are now in a season when our young sisters
believe a man by what they see of him physically or how
sweetly he could run his mouth by saying big and boastful
plans and not by what they spiritually perceive of him. This is a
season when, it is the way you package yourself that many
sisters take you, even if the fine shirts and suits with shoes
were borrowed to be returned later.
MANY, NOT ALL. MANY OF OUR SISTERS LOVE TO BELEIVE
IN LIES TODAY.
Some sisters' choice of who to marry would depend on where
the man is working: Bank?, Oil and Gas? Real Estate?
Insurance? Constructions? And some sisters' readiness to
consider a proposal rests on the family status of the man who
proposed: is the family rich and wealthy? Are they based in US
or Canada or Germany or Asian nations? Famous and
Influential?
Today, a lot of brothers love to live on lies and falsehood,
because this is what many sisters want. I once read on the
Whatsap page of a young brother in Christ whom I happened
to know. He wrote under his name, CEO of a Motivational and
Purpose Group company and under this are about two or three
website of his Motivational Purpose company. In one of his
write-ups, I read where he said: One day, as I was coming
from my office, I saw....." When I read that, I wondered which
office he was talking about, because, I knew him to be working
as a shop attendant or sales man in a shop. I look at the
picture he posted in his profile, he dressed up like a Director
of a corporate organisation, but he is a sales boy working in a
shop. These are the type of lies many of our sisters love to
hear before they could consider a proposal.
What does the Bible say about responding to marriage
proposals:
Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV
[5] Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
[6] In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
A christian lady who would have a great future and pleasant
home would commit her ways, the proposals into the Lord's
hand. I THINK THIS IS THE ACTUAL SOURCE OF THE
PROBLEM: MANY SISTERS CAN'T WAIT BEFORE THE LORD
TO KNOW THE MIND OF GOD CONCERNING WHO TO MARRY
AGAIN.
MANY SISTERS ARE GUIDED INTO MAKING THEIR MARITAL
CHOICES BASED ON THE PHYSICAL APPEARANCE OR
MATERIAL OR FINANCIAL POSSESSIONS OF THE MAN, AND
NOT ON THE LEADING AND CONVICTIONS OF THE LORD
THEIR GOD.
If Sis Gloria were to consider my physical, material and
financial possessions when I proposed to her, I would have
been outrightly disqualified, because I had nothing but the
burning visions to evangelise the world through Drama
ministry. And if She were to consider my proposal based on
my future plans or projections, she would never have
considered me, because, I had no financial, material or
physical future plan or projections at that time, but was only
armed with evangelistic visions of the work of God.
And what are the unpleasant results of all these fake future
plans and projections: because no life is secure except the
ones hidden in Christ and entrusted in His care. Many of these
future plans and projections flopped and they are castles built
with sea-sand on a sea-shore, they crumbled fast when the
foundation is not laid on the leading of Christ and the home is
set on fake foundations and false projections. The banking
industry is not what it used to be. The oil and gas industry is
no longer like before. Considerations of your response to a
proposal should never be based on anything physical or
materials, but Godly leading and convictions after a lot of
heart-searching prayers and humble waiting upon the Lord to
know His heart on the man who proposed.
ONLY THE LORD GOD KNOWS THE FUTURE. THE BROTHER
WORKING IN A BANK OR OCUPPYING A MANAGERIAL SEAT
TODAY MAY BE DEMOTED BY CIRCUMSTANCES AND
NEGATIVE SITUATIONS TOMORROW.
AND THE MAN WHO HAS NOTHING NOW MAY BE ON HIS
WAY TO THE TOP VERY SOON.
So, physical or material status should never be paramount in
considering marraige proposals, but the voice of the Lord who
knows tomorrow. If you desire a peaceful home and fruitful
marriage that will afford you the opportunity to be ministerially
fulfilled, don't let any physical, material or financial things give
you your husband, let the spirit of the Lord lead and convince
you of who to marry.
You are blessed,
MIKE BAMILOYE