THE year has gone by and congratulations to all couples and families who made it through 2014. May the name of the Lord be blessed in your families forever more.
We praise God with you for your successes and failures. Life is largely defined by success and failure and all winners in the race of life go through these. May your 2014 failures sharpen your passion for victory and breakthroughs in the coming year?
I am not sure if at the beginning of 2014 we had plans as couples on what we wanted to achieve. I notice that many of us as couples do not have the discipline and patience to sit down plan and evaluate our progress together.
Marriages and families suffer a serious lack of planning and evaluation in this part of the world. Never mind for now if you had no plan, you can get started now by simply evaluating your progress so you can plan for the New Year.
An evaluation will show you where you are as a couple in terms of your marriage and desires and will help you plan and channel your energies towards a common goal.
This will bring discipline and unity of purpose. The overwhelming lack of progress in many marriages and families can be traced back to lack of planning and evaluation.
This is one reason why many couples though living together, work against each other and fight over priorities and achieve very little as a couple.
My little challenge to you today is that you give yourselves time to sit back, relax and think together, through your life as a couple. Get papers and pens and begin to work. You can ask yourselves questions like;
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Where are we as a couple? Is this the kind of life or marriage we really desire? Where do you want to be? Without vision marriages fail.
What have we done well or not well that has brought us here? Be sincere and face up with some brutal facts here. These will help you as you plan for the New Year. List your achievements and failures. You are not blaming any one. Learn to laugh at yourselves.
Where are you as individuals in terms of your feelings, emotions and intimacy with one another? Are you loving or resenting? Are you supporting or dragging your feet? Are you encouraging or blaming? Are you pulling together or pulling apart?
You might be together physically, but so apart emotionally and spiritually. I suggest that you be very truthful here with each other. It is always difficult at first, but with practice it is helpful.
If you cannot talk directly like that, you can write on a paper and then let your spouse read. Perfect love casts out fear and brings about a sense of honesty and frankness.
Be frank with your spouse when it comes to your feelings, thoughts and emotions concerning your relationship. This is time to confess, encourage and bond and this brings healing.
This is a simple exercise. Any couple can do it to prepare themselves for success. There are many questions you can ask yourselves as couples, but I just chose three to give you a framework. You can look at the performance of your children, your finances and even your relationships with your neighbours and relatives.
Success in marriage will not come by miracles, laying on of hands, anointing, money and many other things. It comes by working and planning together, having a vision and flowing together as a couple.
Success in marriage is inside of you and you can take it out and enjoy it in the physical by being united and focused as a couple and working together towards one goal.
As a couple, you occupy a position of dominion and you can only exercise this dominion when you are loving each other, valuing each other and united as one.
Your marriage life can change for the better by a simple exercise called planning together and evaluating ourselves. I shall return with a little planning exercise. In the meantime, take stock and know where you are and where you want to be as a couple.
Kilton Moyo is a pastor, guidance and counseling consultant and author of Celebrating My Africanness. You can call or whatsapp on +263 775 337 207 or +263 712 384 841.
