‘No matter the prayer that led you to a wedding or marriage, if you don’t have grace it won’t work’

Joseph Ojo, presiding bishop, Calvary Kingdom Church (CKC) and his wife (Reverend Esther Ojo), recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of their wedding. Ojo spoke to select journalists on the essence of a fruitful and lasting marital life for ministers of the gospel. JOHN SALAU who was there, brings the excerpts:

In this time and age when people are talking about divorcé here and there; you are celebrating your 50th wedding anniversary. How has it been for you in the last 50 years?

You know, 50 years to some people is like eternity, especially some people that are not maximizing or enjoying their moment. One day can be like 50 years, but when you have grace and you know how to maximize and enjoy your moment, 50 years will be like one day or one month. What these 50 years have taught us is the grace to enjoy today without bothering ourselves for tomorrow. Tomorrow will eventually come. I’m not the creator of 50 years. God created 50 years for us to walk into. And we have just live our life simple as it is – enjoying ourselves, trusting ourselves, loving ourselves; and that’s what brought us today. When you want to embark on a journey that is far, don’t calculate the kilometers before you depart, it will look so far. All you need to do is to look, maybe not in Nigeria now, in a developed society and economy. Every kilometer, there’s a milestone. Had that grace to be looking at, I’ve passed two, I’ve passed three, I’ve passed four. If you are a beginner, you are looking at 50, it looks so far. What has helped us is we have enjoyed every moment of it.

Whether rough or smooth, we just look on to God. So that has been the secret.

Like the preacher said, some marriages end up before even taking off. What do you think about young couples, and also how can the church help young couples to stay and enjoy marriages?

The church can’t help. But the minister can help. But you can only help with what you have. If you are in a church, I’m not saying this to undermine any person or any pastor. But the truth is, if you are in a church of thieves, let me use thief, not marriage now. If you are in a church of a thief, the thief will have the know-how to justify stealing so that it will look biblical, and it will look acceptable. You understand what I’m saying? It will look justifiable. So, if you are in church, when somebody doesn’t follow marriage, he has many scriptures to tell you why divorcé should be the way out. He will begin by telling you divorcé is not the same as unpardonable sin. It’s true. He will go ahead and tell you, God didn’t make one man for one wife. When you go through the scriptures, there will be one, two, three scriptures to back it up. Everything I do, I do it to please God, not to please man. And I pray people learn from the simple lesson and message we are passing on in our life. One of the things that kept us is not being rigid. It’s just being liberal. By liberality, I mean, maybe not to everybody, but especially to your wife and to your husband. The Bible said the liberal soul shall be made fat. That liberality is not talking about only giving cash. No. If you want peace in your life, in your home, give peace to your wife. Be liberal in it. If you want her to stay healthy, do everything to make your spouse healthy. That’s been the secret.

How did you meet her?

Like I said; after I spoke to two sisters in the church because I was an usher. First I was known as a taxi driver. Are you getting what I’m saying? I was a taxi driver in 1968 – that’s 66 years ago. I was a taxi driver until I got saved in 1972. Most of our leaders in the church – I taught them driving. Many of our brothers, our sisters; I taught them driving. I’m a giver. Not only a giver of money; a giver of gifts and whatever I had. So, when I became born again in 1972, I began to take on other roles in the church. That 1972, late Archbishop Idahosa just appointed me the leader of the usher, and around November of that year they made me the head Usher. They saw my level of commitment and everything – and that’s how I grew in the church. So, when some years later I needed to marry – I spoke to one sister. She said no. I spoke to another one; she said no. They are using their taxi driver to look at me. It’s not just people, but who they are now. If God gives you an insight into their life to see their future – you will be the one even begging. So, after that I decided not to even approach anybody in the church. I went fishing. I went to the fish, preached to my fish, and caught my fish. I converted my fish. I led many people to Christ; very many worldwide – the bishop of the Church of God Mission in North America is my convert.

Read also: Nigeria will develop only when leaders begin to rule with the fear of God – Archbishop Ojo

Some churches will say pray for the will of God and until you see that will of God; you can’t go ahead. Is there a single pathway to knowing the will of God in marriage?

They don’t understand the Bible. Both those who wait and those who didn’t wait; those who pray for longer, fasted – the one factor that should be sorted is grace. No matter the prayer that led you to a wedding or marriage, if you don’t have grace it won’t work. You have pain, if you don’t know how to walk out – marriage is like salvation. Walk out your salvation with fear and trembling. You are all married. If you can’t walk it out, it will walk you over. It will overwhelm you and when it gets to that stage – you are discouraged, you pack up. You need to pray. I prayed as a Christian. If you don’t pray, then you are blind. When you pray you need to know what the will of God is. What is the will of God? If I approach somebody and he said let me pray about it. I go back home and give thanks to God. He said in everything give thanks. For this is the will of God. So, if somebody has approached somebody and said: wait for me, and you are still desperate – you are not sure. Then you have cancelled it. Well you begin to give thanks to God. This is the will of God. I have prayed also, and God has told me you are the right person. Then in the mouth of two or three, every word shall be established. That’s how it is.

We find a lot of young men who are not willing to marry; how can the church help such people?

They are married. I’m telling you they are married. Yes they are married. It depends on whom and who, and what they are married to. Some are married to their phone. Some are married to pornography; I’m not joking. They are indulging in things that they can’t do when they are with somebody. They don’t want to enter any other Prison; they don’t want another eye looking into what they are doing.

How can the church really help this new group of young men?

The only way we can help is by example. The pastors for long have led people by prescription when people want an example. When we were in school, including you, you and you – when the lecturer or teacher had finished teaching; he would go to the board and give an example. These days, we have teachers that don’t give examples by way of marriage or ministry because they have none to give. But by God’s grace I’m an example – myself and my wife. I’m not trying to run down anybody. Somebody whose marriage has a question mark can’t talk about marriage with the negative form, and when that negative form spread people will take it to be the truth. If you have marital problems I can only put options before you. Why not choose between this and that; because if I choose for you and it doesn’t work – the problem will be more compounded. So, a good counselor presents people with options. I’ve heard you, I will pray for you; but this is what I think you should do. In other words, if you don’t want to do it this way; do it this way, and pray with him. But, if you say – I’m telling you that man will kill you, leave his house. You have not counselled the person. That’s not canceling; instead you have contributed to the divorce. However, if the pastor decided to say: look, I’m a man of God. I’m telling you. I’ve seen men kill their wives. If you want to stay down, lock your door – you are compounding the issue, just give options.

Finally, there are cases of marital challenges and violence, with more spouses dying within the Christian community. Don’t you think it’s time for PFN or CAN to have professional counselors to help young couples?

It’s left for different denominations and churches. For example, I can’t subject myself to a professional counselor if I don’t understand the doctrinal background. For any of my members, if it’s coming within the church; we have people before they get married that we assign for counseling. What we are doing is; husband and wife – you’ll be counseled by pastor and Mrs. Not only the biblical but testimonies and examples. Well if you are subjecting somebody to a counselor who believes everything the more; when you get married you may not eat her first food because the counselor has created fear in you. So, I think marital counseling should be practiced by different churches. They should have counselors on whether the PFN should be the one promoting it in churches: I think it would be wise. It’s advisable. I think I would maybe push it to our president and see what we can do about it. At least it’s the safest thing to do. I think it would be good.