For a single lady seeking a relationship, the key is to investigate before fully committing to it. This involves understanding oneself, the other person, and the potential dynamics of the relationship to ensure a healthy and compatible match, counsels servant of God and General Overseer of the Omega Fire Ministries (OFM) worldwide, Apostle Johnson Suleman.
The revered Christian leader says it is crucial to assess the compatibility before making a serious commitment.
“Be careful of uninvestigated relationships,” Suleman warns. “Be careful of red flags. Somebody says I like you and both of you just started dating. Before you know it, it develops; you rush in and rush out. Investigate. There are some questions you need to ask.”
Apostle Suleman counsels that singles seeking life partnership must focus on self-love, personal growth, and building strong foundations in advance. This, he suggests, includes understanding self needs, values, and desires.
“Embrace your individuality, spend time getting to know yourself, and exploring your passions. Anybody you try to impress you lose. Be yourself. Be yourself and be happy. A man has been married, he has got kids and the woman passed away and he wishes to remarry. Under the Scripture, you are very free to marry him if you like him. He’s a widower. But investigate what killed his wife, not what he told you about her fate. Go behind him and investigate.”
Referencing the relationships of olden days, Apostle Suleman posits that marriages in the past often lasted longer due to factors like strong family values and a greater emphasis on commitment. Divorce was less common, he says, because potential couples sought to know each other’s families’ stories before committing themselves.
“Are you aware that our parents’ marriages lasted longer? Do you know why the marriages lasted? It is because in those days, once you brought a lady home to your parents, they would go and investigate her family. But many of you are in a relationship, planning for marriage but you do not know the parents. All you do is just say this is my mother, this is my father. Whether they rented them you’re not aware. And you take it like that. You don’t understand how many of them are married, how many of them still have their marriages standing. You don’t investigate what rules in the family, what reigns in the family, what is common in the family. You have to investigate.”
Speaking from the Scripture, Judges 14; from Verse 5, the cleric says when Samson was ready to get married, his parents went to the family of the spouse. Also, in Genesis 24; 13, 14, 15; he says “when Abraham’s servant met Rebecca, he asked her ‘whose daughter are you?’ They said bring him home. And when he got to their house, she began to ask questions from everyone; she said ‘this person who is he? Please tell me about their family’. So investigate because once you’ve entered, it is for life. When there’s a crisis in your marriage they will never tell you to leave, they will only tell you to pray. Whether he breaks your leg, pray. He’s not giving you food, pray. He has another lady that he’s going out with, pray. He’s not taking care of the children, pray. To avoid ‘pray’, this is the time to make a decision.”
Concluding, Apostle Suleman stated that, “as a man, to avoid the complications of your woman, investigate in order to avoid ‘hmm it is well’. “There are two types of ‘it is well’. There’s ‘it is well’ and there’s ‘hmm it is well’. Citing an encounter, the seasoned preacher spoke of a young man who approached him and said that his wife told him that ‘it is well’ and he didn’t understand and he was scared. The man of God said he asked the man which of the ‘it is well’ did the wife say to him and he said it was ‘hmm it is well’. “I told him instantly that there was a problem! So, if it is just ‘it is well’, there’s no problem. But if it’s ‘hmm it is well’, just start begging, don’t say any other thing.
