How to Avoid Being Manipulated While Choosing a Life Partner 

Dear waiting singles, manipulation is real, don't fall for it.

One thing that I have discovered recently is that when God has great plans for your life, the devil is also not sleeping. You need to be very careful, patient, and prayerful to avoid becoming its victim.

Manipulation is the process of planning out usually with subtle skill, deceit or care so that your choice of who to marry is influenced by the manipulator, to their own advantage.

A manipulator would influence you emotionally to do their bidding. They will tell you, "Marry this person," or "This is the person I want you to marry," please be careful.

The devil also manipulates through the agency of his representatives disguised as men or women of God, or some spiritual fathers or mothers, or counselors.

Be careful of making anyone an assistant to God in your life.

How can I escape being a victim of manipulation?

1. Be spiritually sensitive

Becoming spiritually alert is not by going to church or praying once in a while, it is by having a functional prayer altar, and becoming so addicted to the word of God that you study and meditate in it as commanded.

You will fall into satanic manipulation when you make marital decision during the prayerless season of your life.

If the iron be blunt, then you do well to sharpen it. If your spirit man can't clearly discern God's voice above the storms of passion, and the murmurs of self-will, it's advisable to sharpen up your inner man.

Take time to develop your prayer life, pray always and don't faint. Spend quality time with God, not just when you need Him urgently.

2. Don't let anyone influence your choice on whom to marry

Whether good decision or bad is what you ended up making, you will face the consequence. Don't let anyone influence you on who to marry.

You might be told she has money, he's working in a bank, he or she is romantic, he's nice, she's humble, and so on; until you clearly hear God, don't make any move.

Be it a man of God, prophet or seer, let no one be the final influence on who you marry, else you'd discover later in marriage that you have married the wrong person.

It's better to be very slow and get it right than to hurriedly make decisions, and regret it afterwards.

3. Don't get so involved with anyone that you would swallow everything they tell you, hook, line, and sinker without vetting it.

Similarly to point 2, don't make anyone in your life infallible, the only person that can't make error is God.

Do you know that some men or women of God are not in their best state spiritually to guide you?

A man of God is first a man before the grace of God comes upon his life.

No marriage counselor or relationship coach knows it all or understand God's will for you.

The crux of this matter is to never make anyone an idol in your life that you worship or treasure their counsel above that of God and His word.

4. Never be in haste or under pressure to get married

One of the greatest strategies that make singles manipulated is when they see themselves as getting old or late to be married.

If it would cost you more than a month to propose or accept a proposal, while prayerfully seeking His face for direction, please do, and take your time.

A genuine brother won't hurry you to accept his proposal, and a sincere sister won't delay your proposal for ages.

5. Invoke the mercy of God

I have come to believe that those who marry right do not do so, because they can pray or fast very well, it's a token of God's mercy.

Let God take away His mercy, they'll miss it just as a person misses his or her last opportunity in life.

Inasmuch as you would pray, don't fail to invoke His mercy so that when every other things seems to be right or perfect, His mercy would prevail and you would see clearly.

Dear reader, manipulation is real. One major reasons why serious and firebrand brothers and sisters misses it in their choice of who to marry is because they became a victim of satanic deception and manipulation.

Deception and manipulation goes side by side, and Satan is often the instigator. He provoked David, and made him to number the children of Israel. Subtly, the old prophet deceived the young prophet while thinking it was the will of God for him to do his bidding.

Don't make any decision when you are confused or uncertain. Let no one rush you!

Do not forget that the angel of darkness also transforms as an angel of light to deceive the saints. Prayerfully test all spirits.

Test all "God says," vet all dreams and revelations prayerfully and with time. If you don't understand your dreams or vision, spend time with the  Holy Spirit to guide you through its understanding.

Not all men or women of God have the spiritual intelligence to accurately interpret your revelations.

I pray for every single trusting God on who to marry, and for myself that the mercy of God will exempt us from becoming a victim of manipulation in life and in marriage in Jesus name.

© Adeniyi Tim Oluwamayowa

             INVOLVE GOD IN IT

 

"In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths" (Proverbs 3:6 KJV)

The ways of man are numerous since his life is multifaceted. There is the way of man when it comes to marriage: making marital choice, courtship, wedding and how the marriage is lived out.

The ways of man are the manner or method by which he does things or make things happen in his life. A man's way can be evil or good. But to enjoy the best of God in life, you must acknowledge God in all your ways, not some or few, but in all.

God's ways are not your ways, and your ways doesn't mean you are doing it in His way.

To acknowledge God in all your ways, think about what He wants before you take any step. Put Him first, not the opinion of men or you lean onto your own understanding (ways).

However, acknowledging God in all your ways would be impossible if you're not God-conscious and God-pleasing (God fearing). Many who indulge in wicked and immoral vices do so because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge (Rom. 1:28).

You cannot do it in your own way and expect God to bless it. God blesses and endorse those things that are done in His own ways.

If you are going to involve God in your life or relationship, seek to listen to His voice in all you do. Do not allow the voice of passion, the murmurs of self will or the opinions of man to take preeminence in whatever you do.

If God will be involved, aside making your ways known to Him in the place of prayer, you must also wait patiently for His response and timing. It may take you days or weeks to hear a word from Him on that matter, don't rush or be in haste.

It is better to be slow or late and get a word from Him than to act swiftly without getting any word from Him. Never forget king Saul who did not wait for Samuel to come before he acted.

God still direct those who involve Him in all their affairs.

            God's Definition of Marriage 

God in His sovereignty can do all things without man's help, but because man was created on earth as His representative, He needed man to legislate on earth by giving him a body. Even Jesus, the Son of God was given a body to carry out His assignment on earth.

More than having a body, man was created to help God on earth.

Why was man kept in Eden? Why couldn't He have allowed man to become a wanderer?

God has a purpose for every of His creature. Even you, you were created by Him for a purpose.

Prior to the creation of the institution of marriage, Adam was saddled with the responsibility of tending and cultivating the garden. And in addition, he helped God to name all the animals.

On this premise, man was helping God to carry out what He needed man to do on earth.

How can God have dominion on earth without His cooperation with man? How can His kingdom come without man praying His descent?

Before you nurse the idea of marriage, what are you helping God to do on earth? To populate His kingdom or to increase the number of those going to hell?

It is very crucial that you discover your divine purpose and be occupied with its fulfillment.

God cannot make a help meet for a man who is not helping Him on earth. And a helper can't be given to a woman who lacks the capacity to become a help meet.

Mind you, because you are made in His image and likeness, you can go on to find a wife or husband for yourself, but not a help meet or helper.

Hear this beloved, not all women are wives, and not all wives are help meet. If you want a wife that is a help meet for your life and destiny, now and in the future, you must live for His purpose on earth.

Who is a help meet for a man?

It is God that makes a woman to be a help meet for a man who's helping Him.

Dear sisters, a man can make you his wife by marrying you through whichever means his unregenerate mind can conceive.

Because he wants to make you his wife, he'll tell you to be pregnant before marriage or test your fertility so he can be sure you're a woman indeed. If he doesn't want to do that, he will tell you to come and spend every weekend in his house to see how 'wifely' you'd become.

Will you allow a man to make you his wife or you'd allow God to make you a help meet for the man He has prepared for you?

God's definition of marriage is the coming together of a man who's helping God to fulfill His purpose on earth and a woman who is a help meet for him, alongside their godly understanding of marriage so they can both achieve His purpose on earth.

It's on this premise that one will chase a thousand and two would chase ten thousand to flight.

A man becomes God's helper, and a woman becomes man's help meet because they have an understanding of their divine purpose and its fulfillment.

Dear single and waiting brothers and sisters, I know how uneasy it is to wait before you find someone who you can call your would-be spouse, but trust me, the process will be less cumbersome when you are occupied with the fulfillment of your divine purpose on earth.

Dear brother, are you a helper to God? And my dear sister, will you allow God to make you a help meet for the right man or you'd cast your pearls before swines?

Let God make you!

© Adeniyi Tim Oluwamayowa 2020