Follow the long trail of rose petals, hear the heart melting laughter, feel the warm embrace, and inhale the lingering smell of scented candles and perfume: ah, it is the perfect picture of love, isn’t it? Close your eyes and imagine this beautiful imagery.. Unfortunately though, approaching love from this angle is not realistic, it is highly superficial! Those mental images we have of love are merely the tip of the iceberg, beneath the surface lays the fundamental reality.. The foundation, though unseen, is always crucial: it determines whether a relationship stands or crumbles. What is the foundation to achieving a successful relationship?
Know Thy God and know thyself. By prioritizing your relationship with God, you get to foster your spiritual growth, which makes you mature enough to stand in love. It opens your eyes and broadens your mind as to how love is to be given and received. For “we love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19, NIV) Furthermore, by investing in yourself, you build yourself up and get to understand your beliefs and actions better. In that way, you can soberly assess what you can and cannot bring to the table in your (future) relationship for it to flourish.
This personal me-time is important whether you are single, engaged, married or soon-to-be, because it helps you to identify the cracks. A crack in your relationship with God and or yourself, when left unchecked, can cause you to turn to another person for the affirmation only God can give you. See, as humans, we love to be affirmed. It is part of inherent nature and it can never be changed. However, courting is not about chasing another person in order to find your meaning and fulfillment in him or her. That is far too much weight to put on any person, because you are measuring them up against a standard only God can meet. It will soon make you feel unhappy and drained of your rivers of flowing water.
God’s Word makes it clear to understand that when you have a firm conviction of His Word, and consider it to be true above all things, His Spirit will flow from your heart. That is what Jesus told the woman at the well in John 7:38 (NLT); “Rivers of living water will flow from the heart of anyone who believes in me.” The rivers of flowing water are the Spirit of God. This Spirit manifests itself in your life as your joy, energy, and most definitely your love. However, the moment you decide to consider a person’s word to be truer than God’s Word, and have a firmer conviction in man, you will lose all of this. ‘This is what the LORD says: “Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the LORD”’ (Jeremiah 17:5, NIV).
Looking at another to confirm your greatness, beauty or worth is a distractor. Sometimes you do things for the other person to affirm or acknowledge how patient or loving you are. Worst case scenario is the moment you put in your best efforts for someone special and they do not even notice it, ouch! Focusing on making someone else happy will easily make you forget where you should be seeking affirmation from: above.
God comes in before any other person does, and when you work on plastering the cracks and reviving your relationship with Him, inexplicable joy will start to flow from within your heart irrespective of what others can do for you.
God bless,
Gifty Amokwandoh
Guest Writer
The Purpose Wife 