The Relationship is Too New to View

A good friend called me up to ask for my thoughts on a situation she encountered with a family member. She wants to make sure she’s handling it in a Godly manner. Recently, she started dating someone and things are moving along quite nicely. Because this is a new friendship, she wants to keep it quiet for a while, but her usual family obligations and activities are posing a challenge. The new guy really enjoys her company. Since he works long hours, and they don’t get to see each other during the week that much, they have made several plans for weekend outings. The issue is that her aunt called and asked if she could visit. Her aunt wants to stay with her on a weekend when she’s already made plans. My sister-friend loves her aunt dearly, but she knows that if she allows her to stay, she won’t be able to keep her new relationship under wraps.

It shouldn’t be lost on us that when someone new enters the picture, it potentially represents an increase in our territory. If we have been praying and moving according to God’s divine directive, He has helped us prepare for the increase. Family dynamics is one of the areas where this preparation will receive a workout in ways we didn’t factor. Our allegiances are very often firmly tied to our families and the responsibilities and bonds we share with them, and a new relationship can change these dynamics.

When a person that is very significant to our destinies comes into our lives, we should know very clearly that Heavenly Father is looking at how we prioritize. Some of us have had a tendency in the past to put the man before everything else, and we sometimes do the same thing with family members; we put their needs above our need to focus on God through Jesus Christ. Our Savior commands us in Matthew 6:33 to put God first, above any other thing. We can be sure that heaven’s eyes are on us to see how we will use the preparation we’ve received. The hope is that we will use it with the grace of God and with the humility and obedience that please Him.

Discretion is a covering that shields a potential destiny partner and the relationship from preventable demonic attacks, tricks, and influences. It’s not that people intentionally cause damage, but sometimes all it takes is a wrong word or attitude to set things on an accidental collision course. Remember the record of Job, in the Old Testament. He endured great loss and was so miserable. His friends were well-intentioned, but they caused him even more misery by speaking words that were discouraging and offensive. Job told them in Job 16:2(NLT) “I have heard all this before. What miserable comforters you are!”

We love our family and friends, but everyone will not understand or respond to their uniqueness the way we do. Sometimes the wrong thing is said. Our best attempts at damage control are then called to bear, when everything could have been avoided with thoughtful and mature discretion. As a mature Christian woman, you must desire to give your relationship the best possible start, and God has given us the wisdom and guidance to do this.

My sister-friend of course prayed about what to do, and this is always my recommendation. We must pray and listen for God’s answer. You might think, “Well, it’s her aunt, and the need of the aunt should come before spending time with some man.” We can’t allow personal opinions to guide our decision making. Only God’s wisdom can guide us. He considers what is best for all concerned and will provide solutions that preserve everyone and are based on His purposes. We should never assume and get ahead of the Holy Spirit. We must always follow the Spirit’s lead.

1Peter 5:8 (NLT) tells us, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” God has warned us that the enemy will make attempts to devour our blessings. Heavenly Father has told us this so we’ll be aware and take seriously our responsibility to steward and guard the beautiful gifts He gives us. Discretion is a valuable tool, especially when a relationship is too new to view. It should be used wisely and never dishonestly. We must begin our relationships by trusting and honoring God through the Lord Jesus Christ, because He will help us whenever we look to His divine guidance in this very important area of our lives. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“The Relationship is Too New to View” written for https://lonelychristianwomancom.wordpress.com Copyright©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

He Had Two Families and She Didn’t Know It

How does a woman with four children, all under the age of 12, find herself abandoned after 13 years of marriage by a man that has another family, and she knew nothing about it? Were there signs that she missed? Was she so busy with everyday life and the kids that she ignored what was happening in her marriage? Or could it be that she was so consumed with taking care of everyone else that it never dawned on her to take care of her own needs? Did she nurture her connection to God through the Lord Jesus Christ, or did she prioritize everything else ahead of it? It can be very challenging to hear and face, but there is always a reason behind every event, experience, and encounter in life. We don’t always know the reason, but God knows. If we are willing and ready, He’ll help to open our eyes, and we can begin to heal and restore our lives using these three very important guideposts.

God’s Kingdom and Righteousness
Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew 6:33(NKJV), “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” This is a piece of truth that is meant to ground us completely and thoroughly. It tells us definitively what we should place in the number one spot of every aspect and experience of our lives. God and the things of His Kingdom can never be number two. As a matter of course, every living and thinking being prioritizes. It’s something we humans do, and we prioritize beginning with what is most important to us. If at any time, we allow God and the things of His Kingdom to slip below first place, and we make other things more important to us than our relationship with Him, we will be in big trouble. We will see the opposite of what Jesus Christ has stated in Matthew 6:33. This means that instead of ‘all these things’ being added to us, they will be subtracted from us.

Our marriages and significant relationships are often attacked by the enemy, because he hates God’s institutions, and the devil vehemently comes against unity. 1Corinthians 14:33 lets us know straightforwardly that God isn’t the author of confusion. Confusion and chaos belong to the devil, so when we are severely attacked and emotionally distraught, we know who to blame, but we cannot stop there. If we do, we might miss the elevation and promotion God has for us. We must have the courage to look under the hood, so we more confidently put on the weapons of spiritual warfare and therefore will not continue to be outsmarted by the devil.

Forgiveness, not condemnation
None of us are perfect. We make mistakes, and some of those mistakes are doozies. We make these mistakes sometimes because we’ve been lured into a trap. God warns us in 1Peter 5:8(NLT), “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” Just as angels see what we’re doing, demonic spirits do as well. Angels protect us according to our faith, and demons are dispatched by the enemy to identify our sin and weaknesses; they are looking for a legal way to cause chaos and confusion in our lives, because they cannot do it illegally. Our mis-prioritization of not seeking God’s Kingdom and Righteousness first, as well as any other sin we commit, gives the devil and his cohorts the legal opportunity to interrupt God’s agenda for our lives.

We are the ones to open the door. Sometimes we do it unconsciously or out of ignorance, but our failure to seek God and His Will preeminently is just the opening the devil is looking for. Heavenly Father does not want us wallowing in self-condemnation, blaming ourselves, and putting ourselves down for being blind. Romans 8:1 tells us that Jesus Christ has done away with that condemning business for those who walk after the Spirit. Through his sacrifice on the cross, he cancelled out all the charges the devil could bring against the believer. So, we shouldn’t want to minimize in any way the work of the cross. Condemnation is a tactic of the devil to keep the believer down. TRUTH will always lift us up and open our eyes to the light of Christ.

Causing emotional distress is an evil plot to keep us licking our wounds so we will not know and seek the deliverance God offers. In the case of our significant relationships, many of us get caught up in bitterness and resentment, blaming the other person for the tremendous hurt they’ve caused. We get angry and sometimes this anger turns to rage. The bitterness, resentment, anger, and rage we feel didn’t just suddenly show up on the scene. Even before the husband’s infidelity was exposed, those feelings were in us. But because the infidelity is out in the open, we can see our patterns of behavior. We can now lay bare before Heavenly Father, which is what He requires. We must seek His forgiveness for any sin we’ve committed and place our focus on our relationship with Him.

Jesus Christ is your hope
When there’s an issue in our families that critically impacts us and our children, we might feel helpless and hopeless. But we must remember that feelings and emotions cannot hold a place of governing authority in our lives. Only Jesus Christ can hold this position. He opened the door to the throne of God’s unyielding grace, love, and mercy. Our responsibility is to walk through that door, so that we might obtain God’s favor and mercy, especially in the time when we need it most. Our emotions and feelings will tell us to come apart at the seams, but Jesus Christ tells us to put our trust in God, and do not lean on our own understanding.

1Peter 1:3-4(NIV) tells us, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you…” Praise opens the door to deliverance! We should praise God with all that is within us for what He accomplished for us through Jesus Christ! Most of us haven’t understood the resurrection and all that was done through it. Because of what our Redeemer has done, God reconnected us to the brilliance of His purpose. This purpose is that we have His Spirit actually living inside of us. You cannot engage your victory in all the fullness of what God meant your life to be, unless you come out of emotional enslavement and begin to walk in the liberty of Christ. Your origin is not earth, it’s heaven, and in order to access its resources, you must grasp your completeness through Christ. He is the way! He is your hope, and he cannot fail.

Never allow anyone’s failure to honor who you are to define your identity. That man may have another family and you didn’t know it, but now that you do, refuse to be defined by the trick the enemy has played. Open your eyes, pray often, and let the Lord lead you to the victory and treasures that He desires to give you.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 “He Had Two Families and She Didn’t Know It” written for https://lonelychristianwomancom.wordpress.com Copyright©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

God’s Desire to See You Blessed

I called one of my sister-friends recently just to catch up on what’s new in her life. We don’t talk often, but when we do, the conversation can last for hours. This time things were different. We would not be chatting up a storm in our usual manner because when I reached her, she immediately told me, “Girl, I’m hanging out with my boo, so I won’t be able to talk long.” Not only was I surprised, but I was very happy for her as well. She’s a lovely woman who loves the Lord and has worn the title of “single” for a very long time. This has not been by choice, but by default. Like many single Christians, she’s wanted to be married but learned from experience that waiting on God’s presentation and greenlight is paramount. It’s truly the only option for partnering with the person that’s the right fit for your life.

Psalm 84:11(NLT) tells us “For the LORD God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The LORD will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.” Our Heavenly Father is our sun. He shines the light on our path so that we can see the true and right way forward. This is so important for us to know because many of us have tried to light our own way when it comes to the path of marriage. Because of this, we made mistakes that could have been avoided if we had used patience and endurance to wait on the Lord.

God is our shield because through the wisdom of His Word and the guidance of His Spirit, He will protect us and keep our feet from falling into traps. But this is only if we allow Him to do so. Intimacy is deepened in our relationship with God as we lean on Him and trust Him wholeheartedly. This means that we must invest the time to walk with Him and learn what He wants to teach us. It’s a process and it takes time, but many of us are very impatient. We rush into relationships that set us further behind rather than propel us forward.

Many single women have given up on the whole idea of marriage and opted to accept whatever a man is willing to give them. The whole idea of marriage is about trusting God; therefore, we must never give up on it. Marriage is God’s institution, and it helps us learn more about Jesus Christ so that we can express his love to our spouses, and they will in turn express it to us. This creates the bond of unity in Christ that pleases God. If our motivations are wrong, and our desire to be married is more about our own personal agenda, then our motive will need to be overhauled, because the wrong motivation will lead to the wrong results.

Through James, the apostle and son of Alphaeus, God rebuked those with the wrong motivation. James 4:2-3(NIV) says, “2 You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.”

To have a man in our lives, some of us will wage war against our own souls and fight against the sanctity of our body temples. We rob God of a pure heart with righteous intent in order to satisfy the flesh. We cannot rightly pray in faith when our hearts are in this condition. Heavenly Father doesn’t punish us for this, He helps us! He opens our eyes to what we’re doing so that He can correct our paths. Then we can love a spouse from a heart filled with the love of Christ. Know that this is God’s desire for you. He desires to see you blessed more than you can ever desire it for yourself.

Our Heavenly Father doesn’t withhold any good things from those who are motivated and are committed to operate out of what is right. We must remember that we do not belong to ourselves, we belong to Him. In John 15:16, Jesus Christ affirms our purpose and the promise attached to it. He said, “You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.” Fruit is produced out of a heart that is overflowing with the love of Christ. Part of the reward for producing fruit is the confidence that God will present the right fit for your life. So, our agenda cannot replace God’s agenda. His Will is that we grow and abound in Christ. When this is our motivation, the change in our lives will be pleasing to God and pleasing to us as well.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“God’s Desire to See You Blessed”, written for https://lonelychristianwomancom.wordpress.com Copyright©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Where Were the Signs?

“He was a man that I trusted – he was someone that I thought would have my back for the rest of my life. How did I miss the signs?” Many women have asked themselves this question. Some of my dearest friends have posed it to me about the relationships they’ve had and have ended badly. They say the men who were once the center of their existences abruptly changed, and that these men demonstrated behaviors that came out of nowhere. In some instances, the men completely lost interest and wanted no further involvement with the relationship whatsoever. They either chose to be unfaithful to their commitment or began to display attitudes and behaviors that were downright hurtful. When all of this seems to come out of nowhere, and you’re caught off guard, you might feel as though you don’t have a clue about how or if the relationship can ever be repaired.

Were there signs? And if there were, why didn’t you recognize them? 2Corinthians 4:4(NLT) provides a clue that helps to answer this question. It says, “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.” This is what the enemy does to those that don’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Blinding the minds of individuals is one of the enemy’s methods, and he can also do this to believers if they are not suited up in God’s armor.

The tactic behind the devil’s plot is to get our attention diverted so we’re focused on something else besides the light of Christ. Through every relationship that the Lord puts together, He desires to form a strong cord through the marriage of this couple. Unity through the love of Christ strengthens this cord, and it will wrap around generations to come. We know that the devil despises unity and will do anything to tear a marriage apart. God doesn’t want us to ever be ignorant about this.

Our Heavenly Father never changes, and His standards never fluctuate. He has designed everything within the universe according to His Word, and everything in the universe responds favorably to His Word, so when we take our eyes off Jesus Christ, we must allow for the possibility that things can go sour very quickly. Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew 6:33 to seek the righteousness of God and His Kingdom above all other things, and blessings will be added to us. When we put anything else ahead of this, blessings will begin to subtract.

Knowing this should not place us in condemnation by no means. What it should do is show us how diligent we must be to cling to our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. If you’re not married, but in a relationship that you hope will lead to marriage, sometimes the person you love will walk away because they were not meant to journey any further with you. He’s not your destiny partner. This can be a very hurtful thing, but you must never place your love for this person above your commitment to God and your destiny in His Will. He has a wonderful plan for your life, and forever and always, you must trust this more than the disappointment you might feel.

In a marriage, we miss the signs sometimes because our radar isn’t in alignment with the destiny of our spiritual growth in Christ. So, it is possible that your spouse is responding to the reality that you have changed and didn’t realize it. We can become too comfortable and begin to spend less time in prayer, meditation, and communion with God. It isn’t always the case, but there are times that we neglect our relationship with Heavenly Father, and our spouses will begin to mirror this neglect. They unravel because we are unraveling what is meant to be a strong cord. The solution is in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we must refocus, and seek God diligently in prayer. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Where Were the Signs?” written for https://lonelychristianwomancom.wordpress.com Copyright©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!