Spiritual Autonomy

My whole life, growing up in church, I've been told not to date someone who wasn't saved. As a kid I thought that was completely ridiculous, because really, there was no one in the church who was truly saved and single (in my age bracket at least), so what just be by myself forever??? NEGATIVE. It wasn't until I was older and tried by the fire so to speak, before I realized how important it was for my partner to have their own walk with God. 

It is important that the person you are dating has spiritual autonomy for the relationship to be successful.  "That is, he has his own walk with God that he pursues on a regular basis, regardless of his circumstances. Spiritual autonomy ensures that he does not look to you to provide his religious direction or motivation." [Boundaries in Dating: Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend] 

You need a person who can go to God for themselves! We, as women, need a sense of security in a relationship: physically and spiritually.  I need to know that in the time of trouble, my mate can go into spiritual warfare for us and our family. [Ecclesiastes 4:10] No one is perfect, so at some point we all fall; in a relationship your mate needs to be able to challenge you and encourage you to pick yourself up, and not to further hinder to you spiritually.  A good question to ask is: does the person your with bring out the best in you or the worst? And this not something that you put off bringing up until marriage: courtship is practice for marriage. These are the stages were you find out of the person you are dating is marriage material. 

If you find yourself continuously attracting unbelievers, and wanting to pursue something with them, you may want to take a look at yourself. "If something is broken inside, you will tend to find yourself drawn to unhealthy or absent spiritually [relationships]". This is something that, I myself experienced. I noticed that as my faith was failing, I was entertaining relationships what were spiritually dead. It wasn't until I renewed my faith in God, and trusted him fully; closing the door completely on the past and not looking back like Lot's wife, that I was able to walk into the blessing that God had tailor-made just for me. That's not just with dating, that with everything. You can't fix everything yourself. When you standstill and let God be God in your life is when he will show up and show out.

That's a whole other topic in and of it's self, but back to the point I was making, the bible says "how can two walk together less they agree?" Take it from me, holding a serious relationship with someone who doesn't know God for himself is a disaster waiting to happen. If you are saying "well there is no saved guys out there who aren't taken already", God has finely crafted someone just for you and he is preparing you and him for each other. Why would you want God to give you something that you are ready for? Just to mistreat it? NEGATIVE. A lot of time we are our on worst enemy in this area. If we would just stand still; know that God is God; be quick to listen and slow to speak, we could hear God and allow him to move in our lives. 

I'm pretty sure I've spoken on this topic before, but it was placed on my heart today, and I hope it blesses someone. 

Happy Thursday!

"I Love Their Love": Spotlight on Warryn and Erica Campbell

 You all know that I am HUGE Mary Mary Fan. And I admire the Godly marriages they have. I consider them something to look up to. Sooooooo look-ey what I found: Warryn and Erica's wedding on TLC's A Wedding Story! I know how I missed this because I use to be addicted to that show. 

 

AWWWWW I love their LOVE!

and look at them now!

I thought it was sooooo cute that she sang the same song to him on their "Baby-Moon" that she did on their wedding day. Oh on day the Lord is going to bless me with MY OWN bond like that, and it's going to be the best thing in the world because God would have created it just for me! 

Why He's NOT Asking You Out (an interesting thought)

My Boyfriend

As some of you may know, I'm currently studying Proverbs 31 and I found a study aid from Liberty Online Ministries called "Virtuous Fear". While read the 2nd chapter of the aid entitled "Behind Every Good Man...", I realized something; before we can enter in a physical relationship, we must display the traits of the virtuous woman in our relationship with God. This particular section deals with the 11th verse which reads, "The heart of her husband trusts in hear, and he will have no lack of gain". In other words, "He has absolute confidence in her faithfulness" [The Expositor's Study Bible].

I have always heard single saved women say that they were "dating" the Lord. A lot times in the past some people, including myself, would consider that statement to be sort of a cop out and that in reality the women who say that just wanted to comfort themselves from the fact that the right guy hasn't approached them. I really didn't understand the importance of "dating" the Lord until, honestly, a few weeks ago. It was like a light bulb came on and I said "ohhhhhhh, I get it now!" Not saying that I'm trying to cover up the fact that I'm not dating anyone, but how can I be in a Godly relationship if I haven't allowed the Lord to show me what responsibility I need to take on in that role? It has been said that a girl learns true love of a man from her father; that it is the first and most important encounter of love from a male that she will ever have. This is also true of the heavenly Father, especially so because of the spiritual aspect that is required for a Godly union to be successful.


"Behind every good man stands a good woman"...."He has absolute confidence in her faithfulness"......FAITHFULNESS......do we show complete faithfulness to God? Of course we know that He is always faithful to us, but are we to Him? In the physical relationship, we as women, are to have our man's back , be "down to ride" and be supportive. Are we like that in our relationship with God? Is He confident in our faithfulness? It's just food for thought. My task this week is to take time out to make sure MY BOYFRIEND [the Lord], is confident in my faithfulness.






Here's a little inspiration for today: Kierra "KiKi" Sheard - My Boyfriend

If you would like to join in the study click here for the study aid.

The Painful Truth

In the past I have had what some people would call "bad luck". It just seemed like things never went right. I would be up one moment. Life would be going good. I seemed to accomplished every thing I set out to do. I was in college, had my own apartment, my own car, and a pretty good job with full benefits. But soon everything just went south. My hours were cut at work, I couldn't afford my apartment any more, someone hit and totaled my car. I found myself sleeping on the couch of a friend, with the worst credit ever! Now the natural side would be saying, "God why did you do this to me." And I did. I blamed God, but it was actually my fault because I was not living in His will.

As you may know, and if you don't, you will soon find out about me; I LOVE Pastor Justin and the whole P4CM. (Since I'm in school at night and can't go to bible study, I get my weekday Word from watching him on youtube), But I was watching his sermon today about pain, and it pierced me and gave me revelation about my life and my situations even now. I have found out that God allows us to go through pain for two reasons. (1) To bring us back to our senses and back to Him and (2) to give us a testimony to help others.

Pastor Justin of P4CM's Sermon "The truth behind why there may be pain and difficulties in your life"

Now, I know that things that I went through in the past (mostly through my college years) was God trying to get my attention. I was very stubborn, like most of us can be. I delighting myself in worldly things and expecting good to come from it. But the pleasures of this world are only temporary. My foolish self could not, at that time, understand why everything kept falling apart. God wanted me to come back to him, but instead I ran to fornication and alcohol to make myself feel better. Pastor Justin used a great saying in the sermon, "God sometimes has to set the building on fire to get you to come running out." It wasn't until I made a complete fool of myself and brought a stigma to my name for me to get it together.

In recent times, back in April, I started dating a guy. Now, we dated some years back, and back then I wasn't that in to him because I view him as being super clingy and it completely turned me off. Plus, at that time, I wasn't trying to settle down. Now, I'm more open to a serious relationship. So I decided to give it another chance because he was really nice guy, I truly believed that he love me and during a time were all the guys I was encountering couldn't deal with my celiebacy, it was refreshing to find a guy who was willing to DEAL with it, grew up in the church and "wanted a relation with God" (this is key. It wasn't that he was trying to celiebate on his own, he was doing it for me....red flag. He needs to do it for God and love God more than he loves me). Everything seemed to going good in the relationship, but my spirit really wasn't settled with it. I would notice that every time I invited him to church, there would be a reason why he could go. So I prayed to God, "Lord if he is not suppose to be here, please remove him." Shortly there after it came out in a very public way that he was doing dirt and appearantly not trying to live a lifestyle that was pleasing to God. 

Personally he was good a person, but we were not equally yoked. If God had not taken me through the pain of the break-up (and yes it was very painful: we were seriously talking about marriage), I would still be in that relationship and end up in a marriage which was not in the will of God. Now, all of this could have been avoided if I had trusted God and waited on Him. When we get inpatient and say "God you know what, you just taking a little too long for me, so I'm just do this right here." God takes a step back and allows you to learn the hard way. He dosen't force His will on you, but His Word will not return until him void. Now the road you take to get there depends on you and your willingness to trust and obey.

Being honest, there are times were the enemy will try to feed me negativity, making me want what's not best for me. I have my lonely moments when I think like "dang, I wish he would have done right, because things else was perfect between us before I found out." I have to fight those feeling and call the devil a lie, because I know my destiny in God and anything contrary is not of God. I have to tell myself that it was in fact a blessing, because I would have just caused myself even more heartache, staying there because we were not equally yoked. How can two walk together less they are agreed [Amos 3:3]. The man is suppose to be the head of the house and the spiritual leader of the house, how can that be if you are with someone who can't even get a prayer through? You have to look at like you dodge an unhappy bullet that could have stunted your growth in God, and that God has something better in store for you, but you have to trust Him. "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and learn not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." [Proverbs 3:5-6] What does that mean? You have to trust God, even though it may not make sense to you, you may not understand how you are going to get your blessing or fulfill your destiny, but trust that what God said is truth. For He is not a man that he should lie. "In all thy way acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths."  Make sure your ways acknowledge God; that your light is shining. That you are walking up rightly before Him, and living a life that is pleasing and acceptable in His eyes, and He will direct your path.

This is something I have to remind myself of everyday. Although I am "alone" in the natural, I am never alone in the spiritual. God is working on me, and preparing me for my blessing. How is God going to bless you with something that you are not ready to receive? How does he give you a man after His own heart, when your relationship with him, ( the one that comes first and foremost before all others) isn't together?

"Commit to having a fruit bearing relationship with Jesus Christ before dating" - Pastor Justin.

This poem by P4CM is really food for thought.

April Mason's "Is The Black Church Keeping Black Women Single?"

I ran across this video, via a post on Facebook by one of my sorority sisters, and I found it very interesting. APRIL MASON talks about how we, growing up in the church, were always told to keep busy in the church and not to look for a man, because the Lord would send one like He sent Boaz to Ruth. Here she argues that Ruth, in fact, positioned herself to be found. What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you agree with April?

Discuss this and other topics on the live chat (today only) or start an open forum.