In my previous post, I promised to make a post on the fact that you do not or can not change your partner. Here is the fulfilment.
Often, I hear many youth in their conversations advise that make sure you change him or her before the marriage. Many believe that before you will be with someone in a marriage, you must have him or her changed during your dating, courtship or relationship. [I actually do not know their difference].
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This has become what many look for when they start a relationship, thereof. Their aim is to change him or her. And they spend every second and breadth of their lives monitoring their partners only to make corrections from their mistakes.
This is funny anyway. But I must say it is also pitiful. In life, you get what you concentrate on. If you concentrate on seeing his or her mistakes in order to correct him or her, in the name of changing your partner, trust me, you will see countless mistakes and give up eventually. The reverse is also true.
Life is not smooth and straightforward. So are we humans, many times, I hear parents and the elderly give word of advice during marriage ceremonies. As you are entering this marriage, forgo all your old lifestyle and live a new life with your partner. Allow yourself to be changed for better.
To weigh this matter on another scale, relationship or dating or courtship is or should be a platform or a place where you get it know yourselves. Knowing yourselves is not checking for mistakes. It has nothing closer to change.
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It is not about setting traps or testing him or her to see. When you are open to each other, where is the importance of these series of tests? It has no place in your relationship. Openness brings trust but the mother of test is doubt and their grandmother is secrecy.
Love is a decision you make. And decision is firmness in choosing something. Thus, somebody that you choose or make up your mind about, after considering him or her and other possible choices (people). This means that it is not a day activity, but something you have thought over and over.
During the process of thinking about this, you must have come across the fact he or she has weakness and yet you came up with the beautiful three words “I love you”.
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My beloved this statement simply means that the weaknesses, the faults, the past and the present, the likes and the dislikes that hoof others away, rather invite you. Why then go and check for his or her mistakes?
Do not henceforth spend your time monitoring for mistakes, flaws, and incompetence.
Notwithstanding, encourage each other especially when faulty. Words of encouragement builds up but words of condemnation tear apart. Nothing breaks a man than lovingly criticize him or her. Tell him or her you are not this type when he or she falls below standard.
I end with this. The phrase of changing your partner is not your responsibility. It is not and should not be your aim in a relationship.
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However, it rests with the the Holy Spirit to mould your partner in the manner that pleases you. All you do is to pray for him or her because the labor would be in vain if the LORD did not build the city.
Thanks to Emilie Barnes for her book "What Makes a Woman Feel Loved". And thanks to Gertrude Ahenewaa who made this book available for me.
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For further studies, real Colossians 1:9-12 and Proverbs 24:3-4