Knowing God in Marriage
I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect (Gen 17:1b)
The Lord Jesus did a mighty work in my life during my first year at university. He taught me many things as I was walking before Him. One of the areas was His provision of a godly wife and family.
I was convinced that since I placed my trust in Him by faith for my eternal salvation, which is such a great matter, trusting Him by faith for the lesser things of this life, is a small matter. How could I claim to believe the unseen, and then not trust Him in the seen, in His provision of a wife, as and when it is His will? That settled the matter for me. My desire was to do God’s will in all things, especially when it came to finding a partner in life. I wanted to be guided by Him, not people – even my dear friends at Kwasizabantu. The Lord placed a firm conviction in my heart that He would provide a wife for me in His own time and I was therefore content to focus on my studies and work; not chasing after girls or worrying about it. Even though I visited the mission station often during those years, I was never given any guidelines or “way” of whom to get married to and how. What I did know is that they upheld the highest standard of purity with regards to marriage, and I called out to God to grant me this in my life, and help me stand in this area of my life as a testimony of His grace. It was not easy, studying, living and working in a secular environment, being continually bombarded by temptations, but I found Jesus being the Overcomer and even experienced Him strengthening me supernaturally to say “no” or being blind to the filth around me – Jesus is Victor and makes us victorious.
One Sunday while attending a church service, I noticed a young lady and the thought occurred to me that she is the wife the Lord intends for me. I was taken by surprise as she was English, while I was Afrikaans and I assumed the Lord would give me an Afrikaans wife. However, praying about the matter and sharing it with my pastor and having him and others pray about it, I became fully convinced that this was God’s will for me.
Even though I knew God’s will in the matter, I wanted to get married in a pure way, pleasing to the Lord Jesus. That His Name would not be brought down. Kwasizabantu Mission showed us a pure way of getting married, by not visiting each other during our time of engagement. We are very thankful for this and have never had any regrets.
We have now been married for more than 20 years and the Lord has blessed us with six children and helped us through many troubles.
Deon van Tonder
I am so blessed
When Deon proposed to marry me, I was not planning to get married. I had completed my studies and was thinking of starting a business. This proposal caught me by surprise as I was not pursuing marriage at all and had determined, by God’s grace, to live a pure life and be content with God’s leading.
Did I know Deon? I knew enough about him to know that he was a godly young man, pursuing righteousness and a holy life. His smile was genuine and he had such joy!
God had clearly revealed to me that Deon was the husband He had for me but I still prayed about this and asked God to give me His peace in this matter. God then showed me, in His Word, that He required me to trust and obey Him. When I mentioned to my parents that God wanted me to marry Deon and not start a business, my dad was ecstatic. In the evening my dad said that he had had such a wonderful day as he marveled at God’s provision; and that he had perfect peace that Deon was indeed God’s husband for me. I can still remember the joyful time my family and I spent together, praising God for His leading. My parents have blessed our marriage and are very, very fond of Deon.
God leading me in such a miraculous way strengthened my faith and taught me that He has a perfect plan for my life. I am truly blessed and have no regrets! To God be the glory, great things He has done!
Kirsty van Tonder
