Happy Valentine’s day! I wanted to write this blog for my fellow singles in waiting to help them decipher when God is really in the heart of a relationship. Most single people want to get married. We don’t want to end up alone and married to ourselves, like some are doing these days, even if we’re content in our singleness. Being content and enjoying life as a single person shouldn’t be a signal that we don’t want to couple up. It should signal wholeness and who better to be in a relationship than one who is whole and complete in themselves?
If as a single person, you haven’t achieved wholeness, then this is something you need to work on. Some people are afraid to be alone because they don’t want to deal with themselves. You will never be a good partner to someone else if you don’t learn to deal with yourself first. Another human being can’t complete you in terms of making you whole. Only God can do that. Two becoming one symbolizes a joining of and if one of those sides isn’t whole in themselves, the joining of won’t be balanced and it will cause problems later.
Contrary to man’s believe, the idea of love and coupling up didn’t start with us. It was God’s idea. Marriage is God’s idea. We see this in Genesis 2:18.
Genesis 2:18 New International Version (NIV)
18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
The solution of coupling was an idea from God born out of Adam’s need for a helpmate. In short, Adam was alone or lonely if you like, but if you notice it wasn’t just any helpmate that he needed. He needed someone that had the same DNA as him.
Genesis 2:19-20 tells us how God went about creating living creatures for Adam but still none of them were suitable as a helpmate for him.
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam[f] no suitable helper was found.
Isn’t that what we as human beings do especially when we’re lonely? We look in all the wrong places trying to find the one God has for us and some of us even end up settling only to find that what we’ve joined ourselves to was never God’s will in the first place but ours. Notice what God does for Adam, He puts him to sleep and forms Eve from a part of him. Sometimes God has to arrest our senses for him to create what we need so we can recognize it when he brings it to us.
21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs[g] and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[h] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
The next verse talks about intimacy (into me see). It says they were naked and not ashamed. This goes beyond being physically naked. I believe it depicts the fact that they were spiritually and emotional naked with each other and were not ashamed (and didn’t try to use what was revealed against each other.).
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Shame usually comes when that which is revealed intimately is put on public display for the whole world to see.
As single people, our natural desire is to find love and couple up because that’s how God designed it. Our lives were meant to be shared, that’s why no matter how much you love to be alone, doing things by yourself, it’s always fun when you get together with people. The only problem is you can’t be intimate (I’m not talking about sex) with everyone. What I’m able to tell who I marry, I can’t tell everyone.
Most people get stuck in Genesis 2:19. They surround themselves with chickens, goats and whatever else and even end up with them and then wonder why they’re shamed after the relationship. It’s usually not until after the relationship is done that they realize they didn’t have the same DNA spiritually and emotionally. Everyone you meet isn’t meant for you to form an intimate relationship with. Some people God just wants you to name (Help them define themselves and identify their purpose.) but a lot of people get caught up emotionally and before you know it you’re involved in something God never intended for you to be involved in and you wonder why your heart is broken and the chicken of a person you were with has no clue what you’re going through. What do you expect from a chicken? They’re born to peck and that’s what they did.
When it comes to finding love, the Bible gives us as believer’s specific instructions.
2 Corinthians 6:14New International Version (NIV)
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.
For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
We often equate this scripture with warning against idolatry which it is but it speaks to relationships and particularly to intimate relationships. when you’re yoked together with someone, you’ll either pull them in your direction or they’ll pull you in theirs. The direction of the pull will influence your thinking and ultimately your decisions.
Intimate relationships are more spiritual than most people realize. Your soul makes an impression of who you’ve been intimately involved with and forms a soul tie. This impression is why some people keep going back to the same types of people and end up getting hurt over and over again because there is a familiarity with your soul and spirit. This is were sex is dangerous because it was designed to create this bond in a marriage relationship, but when you give yourself to everyone you meet and form soul ties with them, it causes confusion in your spirit so that you’re continually attracted to what your soul knows and makes it difficult for you to see who you’re meant to be with because of all the soul ties in the way. Soul ties definitely contributes to what people call chemistry. you will always be attracted to what your soul is familiar with.
The thing with chemistry is that it follows the laws of physical attraction and that magnetic field created by your soul tie is what fuels it. It’s not enough to hold a relationship together. Love is more than a feeling of attraction. It’s a daily decision. Most people usually leave when the chemistry is gone. Healing must take place in the spirit and soul of an individual in order for one to move forward into the relationship God wants for you. Old flesh induced chemistry baggage must be dealt with in order for real God given spiritual chemistry to work.
How do you know if a relationship is meant to be an intimate one that God has for you? It takes discernment revealed through prayer. You have to bathe your relationships in prayer. This will help you determine if God just sent them into your life for you to name them or if this person has the same DNA as you and is really bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. Praying continuously will also go a long way in preserving your relationship so it doesn’t fail and leave you empty and broken hearted in the end.
Here are a few practical things to help determine when you’ve met the right one:
Do they make you want to be a better person? Notice I didn’t ask if they made you a better person . Contrary to popular belief, we can’t change anybody. True change in order for it to occur and be effective has to come from within. The one God has for us will propel us to be the best person we can be because they’re living this truth themselves.
Is there more than physical attraction between the two of you? Like I’ve said before, physical chemistry will only take you so far. At the end of the day, there has to be more than sex to look forward to. Can you have an amicable conversation with one another even if you don’t agree on the subject? Are you able to just sit and enjoy each other’s company? Do you enjoy being around them for no reason with no expectation of what they’re going to give you materially?
Are they stirring you to destiny? Who God has for you will be just as excited about you fulfilling your destiny as they are about fulfilling theirs because ultimately your destinies are intertwined.
Are your beliefs in life similar? Amos 3:3 in the Bible says “How can 2 walk together except they agree?” Sure opposites attract but it will take some agreement to be able to walk together for a lifetime.
If you were nobody and had nothing, would they still want to be with you and vice versa?
Relationships take sacrifice. Are they willing to give up part of themselves to be with you and are you willing to do the same for them?
I could go on and on but I think I’ve made my point. We all get lonely because we weren’t created to live this life alone. My prayer is that in those times we don’t make decisions that will affect and ruin what God has destined for us.