Fix Your Eyes On Jesus... Not Your Date

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…" -Hebrews 12:2

Something that I have felt passionate about since growing in my walk with Christ is the topic of dating. Not just anything about dating or how to get a date, but how to have a Christ-centered relationship. Many of you who know me, know that my past does not consist of relationships that was God glorifying. It was rather a selfish pursuit of trying to fill voids and insecurities. I praise God everyday that He has delivered me from my past of codependency. Since being single, He has continuously revealed to me that my hope, my identity, my significance and worth is not found in a relationship with an earthly man, it's in Christ! In mid-March of this year, it was as if a lightbulb switched on over my head when it came to realizing that the reason why I was always left disappointed and feeling empty was because I was looking to ALL the wrong things for happiness. That was a beautiful day that I remember as if it was yesterday. As I sat on my living room couch crying at how thankful I was that God revealed that to me and how grateful I was that His grace saved me from so much, I immediately felt the joy! Yes, something WAY better than happiness! A joy that only comes from being filled with Christ and being secure in His love for me and seeing that I am significant, I am significant because He loves me and because He died for me! 

Guess what? YOU are significant too! He loves you beyond what you could EVER imagine! Don't ever settle for less! God has so many beautiful plans for you and I PROMISE you this, when you are patiently waiting on His perfect timing, it will be beyond your wildest dreams! 

So, I wanted to share some things that God has revealed to me during my season of singleness, I hope this encourages you as it definitely encouraged me! 

Letting Go…

Yes, those words are scary! Trust me, they are just as scary for me as I'm sure they are for you. To lose control and to surrender is such a terrifying thought, yet the moment that I let go (which I can tell you was definitely against my will; God was prying my tightly gripped hands from it and I fought with all my might) of my dreams and began to truly trust that God is taking care of me and ONLY wants the best for me, I experienced freedom! Now, I can definitely say that it has been a roller coaster ride for sure! Many ups and downs and many emotions, BUT I wouldn't trade it for ANYTHING because as He slowly unveils His beautiful plans for me, they are far better than anything I had planned for myself! He truly is a GOOD God!! He isn't trying to keep you from something good, He is protecting you because He sees the bigger picture while we can only see the present. 

During my season of singleness, Christ taught me something extremely valuable… patience! Something that will also be very important to have once you are married. 

So then, what does it mean to honor God in a relationship?

-It means to pursue God first! If God is the center of the relationship, you then grow closer together with your significant other. We must live by His standards that He outlined in Scripture for our own good, rather than by what we think we can handle.

-It also means setting forth biblical boundaries and standards from the very beginning of the relationship. That way when temptation arises there is already a clear line established. You honor God by being pure because your body is His temple. You must be careful because if the physical attraction takes over the core, then God is no longer the core of the relationship. 

-You honor God by the way you treat each other - with honor, dignity, and respect! 

-You have to keep God in the center of it by being more intentional in prayer about the relationship. At every step we must pray to make sure it is from God. God will guide you according to His will if you will pray for His will. 

-Have someone in your life that you're accountable to (other than the person you are dating) who can tell you when your focus has shifted from God to the other person. God should ALWAYS be number one! 

-Put trust in God, NOT in the person you're dating. If your value is only in the guy/girl, you are setting yourself up to be crushed (and trust me, from experience, that WILL happen if you aren't finding your worth and value in Christ!)

-Be in the Word - have something you can discuss together that God is teaching you. 

-Learn from each other - one way that you can do that is by serving together. You learn a whole lot about a person by serving together. Attend church together, but also give each other the space to pursue the Lord individually. 

-Your focus in the relationship should be on encouraging each other in life and in one another's walk with God. Our purpose in dating and in marriage should be about how you can help each other grow more in their walk with Jesus, how you each can help further in growth and pursuit of holiness. How can you bless, serve, and give?

You cannot get from someone else what you can get from God! Look for your security from God alone! He alone provides true security, a positive self-identity, and unconditional love! We must all remember (I speak to myself as well) that we can't love our neighbors as ourselves until we love God first! 

*Ask yourself: If I were to start a relationship with this guy/girl, would it lead me closer to God or would it cause me to drift farther away from Him?

I leave you all with this quote that I read in a book that I thought explains it all perfectly! 

It's not how you look or how smart you are, not anything that the world says. It's who you are in the mirror of the Word. If you are grounded and rooted in the character of God, then you become like-minded with Christ. Your self-respect comes from knowing who you are in Christ and honoring Him. Every breath that you breathe is a gift. Respect yourself to the point that you don't need to change one thing. You are not your own, you belong to God.

Is Physical Purity Our Only Concern?

Our generation lives in a culture that doesn't give us 20 & 30-somethings a good example of how to be in a healthy relationship, much less a God-honoring one. 


Leaving behind the old me & my worldly-praised relationship patterns, and being surrounded by amazing brothers and sisters in Christ that model what a God-honoring relationship/marriage looks like has opened my eyes to a world of dating I NEVER knew was possible. Now, by no means am I an expert in this department, but I honestly believe that God is teaching me daily what its suppose to look like vs. how the world says it should be. 


Now it just makes sense and it's because of the growth I have experienced in my walk with Christ and yearning to know more about His word. Seriously, I now view the Bible as my "handbook" for how to handle life, whereas before I never even cared to open it, or maybe it was just something about this big book that had the words "Holy Bible" on it that just intimidated me. Whatever the reason was, the Bible that I owned since I was 12 looked brand new with crisp pages and all when I found it a couple months ago. Now I crave to learn more about what God desires for His children and the life we live on this earth. There is just something about an intimate and deep relationship with Christ that just brings the Word of God to life. In fact, I know what that something is… it's the Holy Spirit! 


Okay, I'm going into a tangent that isn't particularly meant for this blog… so I digress and move on to my main topic… :) 


Emotional Purity…


We, especially those in the church, are all too familiar with the topic of physical purity, but something that I come across time and time again as I interact with young adults is this whole getting your heart broken by someone that you were only friends with, but maybe didn't necessarily act like friends with. Hearing it so often, I felt led to dedicate this post to the topic of emotional purity and how beneficial it is for men and women to be just as careful in this area as they would in the area of physical boundaries. 


I'll rewind with a story from my past that maybe some of you will be able to identify with. When I was a sophomore in college, there was a guy I became really close friends with. We really enjoyed each others company and it was just really easy to talk with him about everything and anything. We pretty much hung out all the time and went to Rangers games together, took road trips, danced out on the parking lot during a full moon, phone conversations till late at night, coffee, movies, basketball, etc., etc., etc. Now, it never went beyond that. I honestly did not like him as anything more than friends, but the more we became vulnerable with each other by sharing our past stories or just hanging out all the time, the more I began to notice that he was acting like he was interested in something more than just a friendship. Even though I began to notice this, I still continued to hang out with him for several reasons and even though I'm not proud of those reasons, I will honestly share with you all exactly why I continued hanging out with him all the time...

1. Because I liked the attention I was getting, and
2. Because I was lonely and enjoyed the company

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like I couldn't stand the guy and was just solely using him. I really liked his personality and he had a lot of the qualities I wanted in a boyfriend, I just couldn't view him as anything more than a friend. We literally continued this "friendship" for almost a year! He didn't tell me the truth about his feelings towards me until I began opening up to him about a guy I was interested in that was actually one of his closest friends. Yeah… talk about complicated! I had to be upfront at this point about the fact that I did not see him as anything more than just friends. Needless to say, one walked away that day with a broken heart and the other walked away with a broken friendship beyond repair. 

I don't like sharing that story because it makes me feel like such a jerk. Even though he was never upfront about his feelings until almost a year later, I still feel like I was careless in how I handled the situation because I did begin to notice earlier on that he was acting like he was interested in more than just being friends (not to mention, I had friends telling me that he liked me). I continued hanging out with him for selfish reasons and was reckless with the heart of my brother in Christ. 

The reason I share that story is because I'm not the only one that this happens to, in fact, it happens ALL the time! At one point in my life, a similar scenario as described above happened to me but with me being left with the broken heart. 

"Emotional intimacy is the kind of closeness and familiarity that stirs feelings and senses that promote a bond, a union that God reserves for the marriage relationship." - Heather Arnel Paulsen

Here's my point: friendship with the opposite sex is a delicate matter and should not be taken lightly because you may be playing with the heart of another person. 

Friends, guard your heart! When you play with the emotions and expectations of someone without expecting to satisfy them in a righteous way, you are defrauding them. You CANNOT righteously satisfy another person until you make a commitment. You need to consider that you are dealing with another person's future husband or wife. 

Would you like knowing that your future spouse is giving himself/herself emotionally and spiritually to another?? 

So, is the point of this whole post just to tell you all that you shouldn't be friends with the opposite sex?? ABSOLUTELY NOT! 

What I am trying to say is: don't become emotionally involved to every guy/girl that comes your way. Be careful to not spend so much one-on-one time alone with the opposite sex. Set boundaries! 

Word of advice for guys…

1) Women are emotional! Most of you may have already figured that one out, but just in case… we are  e-m-o-t-i-o-n-a-l  !! And it's not a bad thing, women's ability to emotionally connect is the "superglue" for her marriage, BUT not for all her male friendships! 

2) The female heart should be protected! Ask yourself what you can do to help the women in your life protect and save their hearts for their future mates. 

3) If you tell a woman you just want to "be friends" then you better treat her like you would any of your other friends (male or female) because I promise you she will believe your behavior more than your words! Guys, unfortunately, we tend to overanalyze every little thing you guys do. 

4) Talk to all girls equally. The more you share with a woman, the more you may be causing her to draw closer to you. 

Word of advice for girls…

1) Treat the men in your life the way you would any of your other friends (male or female)! Do not pay special attention to them. Keep your thoughts captive to Jesus Christ! Control your actions and thoughts because there is no commitment of a lifelong partnership with any one of them. 

2) Girls, it's not always the guys fault. You must observe how he treats all girls because if you are reading into his actions and he treats everyone the same way, then you have no reason at that time to think that he is pursuing you. 

3) Don't share intimate details of your life or intimate parts of your testimony with them. Save that for the one you are committed to. 

4) View your guy friends as a brother relationship. Don't focus on the what-ifs but rather on the now! 

Stop focusing on the guy/girl and start focusing on God!

When It Ends... Be Thankful

The moment you first lay eyes on that guy/girl that you like... ahh, the feelings! The jumble of emotions that hit you - excitement, nervousness, butterflies in the tummy, the voices in your head about whether he/she notices you or if they have the same feelings for you... 


Yes, those moments are great. Those feelings are the cloud 9 that I could live on forever! You know what is an even more amazing feeling? When the guy/girl you are so totally smitten over thinks your pretty amazing as well. It's that feeling like "Oh my gosh! I can't believe he/she feels the same way!! [Insert name here] LIKES ME!! WOOHOO!" At that very moment, you suddenly feel like you could conquer the world or, with a huge smile on your face, hug everyone that passes by, even if the stranger you randomly hug pushes you away and calls you a "freak" - that smile ain't going anywhere! You just can't wait to get home so you can update your 'relationship status' on Facebook! 


Let's fast forward to several months later. Lets look at the girls perspective (because obviously that's all I know). She begins thinking this guy is "the one" and starts looking for wedding dresses/wedding ideas online for hours beyond hours! She even makes a Pinterest board with all her wonderful wedding plans (word of honesty here: I'm guilty of this!). While "Mr. Man Of My Dreams" is beginning to think he needs space or worse yet, he is thinking that you both should "just be friends." Grr.. those words... "just be friends" still makes me cringe! The next thing you know, your heartbroken! All your dreams come crashing before you!


I've been there. To be honest, quite recently. You see, shortly after, ahh.. I'll be honest, about a couple weeks after I broke up with DMB, I began talking to another guy, I'll refer to him as WLG (Worship Leader Guy). WLG and I had SO very many things in common! I loved that he was involved in his faith and was so knowledgable about the Bible. He was funny, smart, witty, nice, etc., etc., etc. Not to mention, we had so much in common that you could have almost called us "twinkles!" We hit it off so well that we began dating shortly after our first date. He had A LOT of the qualities that I was looking for in a future spouse, the many qualities that were lacking in my previous relationship. I began to think that this must be a sign from God to meet someone, especially so soon after my breakup, with all the qualities I was looking for. Yes, as much as I tried to tell myself to not start getting carried away... yeah... I went beyond carried away in my thoughts and WAY to soon into the relationship. One night, about a month later, we were talking on the phone and everything was going smoothly... UNTIL... he mentioned the dreaded words... "we should be friends." Yes... and well, I haven't heard from him since! You can imagine my distress and heartbreak when I heard those words, especially since I was on a completely different page in regards to where I thought we stood.  


Your probably wondering where I'm going with this - I promise, I have a point! 


After going through many tissue boxes, eating gallons of ice cream, and listening to depressing breakup songs, I somehow got the strength to begin reading in order to take my mind off of the whole situation. One particular book that I read is called What To Do Until Love Finds You by Michelle Hammond. I must say, that book was a blessing during this time. Something that really just switched on the lightbulb above my head was when the writer said that the key to finding out if a guy is really "your" man is in being willing and able to completely let go. If the man doesn't come back, he isn't God's choice for you and if that's the case, breathe a sigh of relief and say, "Thank you, Lord" because you have just been saved from a world of trouble! 


Now, I've heard many people tell me something to that extent whenever I was depressed and heartbroken over a guy that dumped me, BUT for some reason, this time, it just really clicked that I should be thankful for the outcome. I know that sounds strange, but if you really think about it, would you want to spend more and more time getting to know this person and getting that much more emotionally attached and then it end, or worse yet, end in divorce? If that door was closed, God was protecting you from worse heartaches and it's better to find out earlier in the game so that you can be free to receive the person God has chosen for you. 


You must remember, God allowed this situation to bring about changes in you (I'm continuously reminding myself of this!). God doesn't waste anyone's time! It's also extremely important to not start holding in anger towards the guy/girl that left you, but rather, turn to God and ask Him what He wants to work out in you! 

"God, why are you punishing and teasing me by allowing such a great guy into my life and then suddenly saying, 'NOPE! You can't have it!'" 

That's the words of a girl who is angry with God for the way things are going in her life... those words came from me! 

Even though those words came out of my mouth just about a month ago, I'm not that girl anymore! You see, I'm beginning to realize that God is not out to punish me! He's trying to show me something! He's saying that I need this time of singleness because I have some serious spiritual surgery to go through. He is trying to show me that I need to learn to put my faith in Him. During this specific season in my life, God is pointing out old wounds and wrong ways of thinking that would affect my marriage one day. I didn't realize any of this until I stopped being angry with God and stopped thinking only about what I wanted.


A couple days ago, I woke up really early in the morning, and suddenly felt the need to get down on my knees and pray. As I was on the floor in my dark room, I began talking aloud to God. Suddenly, I began crying, not tears of sadness, but rather tears of overwhelming joy! At that very moment, all I could do was be so extremely thankful to God that He is allowing me this season in my life to grow and to see the unhealthy patterns that were occurring in all my past relationships with men. Now, if you know me, you would know that I never would have thought I would be writing a post on my blog about how thankful I am for being single at the age of 27! BUT it's true! I am beyond thankful that God is revealing Himself to me daily, that I am beginning to open my heart to Him in ways I never have before in my walk with Christ. I am truly beginning to surrender everything I held such a tight grip on and just fully trusting in Him! 


I don't know how many people have told me that I must surrender to Him and have faith in Him. I've heard it all my life! But it took a lot of painful relationships and bad choices to realize it! I'm there... I'm beginning to see how truly wonderful it is to just let it go to God! It's beyond wonderful, it brings such relief and overwhelming joy that is difficult for me to even describe in words! 


Remember the guy/girl that felt like he/she could hug every person that passes them by? Yeah! That's me! That's me today WITHOUT my relationship status going from 'single' to 'in a relationship'! I'm single and can't seem to stop smiling, can't seem to keep myself from wanting to break into song at random times! I never EVER thought I could feel this way without a guy in my life. The amazing thing about it is that this feeling goes beyond what I have ever felt when with a guy! This isn't just happiness, this is joy! An overwhelming joy that I can't seem to hold back! A joy that remains even on those days when I'm kind of bummed out that I'm not married or have a boyfriend. You guys, it's real! It's GOD! 


Trust in Him! Do not for a second think that you can't feel this way, whether single or married! You can definitely feel this way! The solution is simple... trust God with your life! Love Him with every thought, word, and action! Don't do these things in hopes that He will give you something in return. No! Love Him unconditionally like He loves us because ultimately, it's not at all about us, it's about Him! 

"If you're ready for an unforgettable earthly romance, start by discovering the joy of an intimate, daily romance with the King of kings."

That quote came from the book I'm currently reading called When God Writes Your Love Story: The Ultimate Guide To Guy/Girl Relationships by Eric & Leslie Ludy. I completely recommend this book!! 


Well, it's midnight and I'm wiped out. I will leave you bloggers with an amazing song that I think we should remind ourselves of daily. Please listen to it and carefully listen to the words. Goodnight lovelys! :)