Valentine’s Day is certainly a romantic holiday with high expectations. While many couples look forward to celebrating their relationship. Others sometimes breakup before or after Valentine’s Day and you may be wondering why.
Part of the reason is high expectations and a natural time for re-evaluation of the relationship. Women expect to be ‘wooed’ but sometimes their partner isn’t up to that task at the moment. Sometimes the relationship isn’t a good fit, isn’t progressing where one or both of you want to go. Sometimes relationships break up, don’t last, lose their sizzle and fizzle out. But…
Just because a relationship ends, doesn’t mean a new or better one can’t begin. Perhaps even sooner than you think. Maybe you should consider, you could be looking for love in all the wrong places. Maybe it’s time to look for a lasting love. Whether you find love, or fall out of love this Valentine’s Day, there is one important thing to remember.
God’s love is available to you right now. God’s love is always available. God’s love is an ‘unfailing’ love an ‘everlasting’ love. He will not let you down this Valentine’s Day or any day. Your relationship with God can be rock solid as soon as you begin it with Him. He’s never too busy working, too tired to go out, or too overwhelmed to make the effort to focus on you. Perhaps this Valentine’s Day, you could begin a brand new relationship with someone who’s always available to you. However, you may be wondering “how can I have a relationship with someone I can’t see or touch?”
I’m glad you asked, here’s how. Make sure you’ve actually begun this relationship. Even if you’re not so sure, sit down, alone, and talk to God. Yes, just the same way you’d talk to anyone else. It may feel weird, but trust me, just do it. Tell God you want to know him, really get to know him. Ask him to meet with you, and set aside daily time, or as often as you can, to do this more and more, meet with him.
Tell him why you want this relationship, why you’re uncertain about it, what you’re afraid of, what you hope for. Be willing to be real with God, he already knows everything and much more than you know, about you, and everything else. Nothing is hidden from him, even if you think it is. It’s not, but with him, that’s okay. He won’t use anything he knows against you. He’s kind, compassionate, and tender. He can be trusted. He’s been loving you from a distance already, why not change that now and bring him close.
Admit your wrongs, and ask him to help you with healing and overcoming them. Ask him for the gift of his spirit to come and help you everyday. If you truly accept Christ into your life, his spirit is given to you to counsel and guide you, and correct you throughout your life. You’ll never truly be alone again with God’s spirit in you. Next, in order to really get to know God, you need to be willing to spend time getting to know him and what he believes about how the Christian life is meant to be lived. He wrote 66 love letters for you to read to get to know him, they are found in your bible. Yes, your bible is a collection of love letters from God, inspired by him and written down by many of his followers, along with recorded history. Don’t have a bible?
Get one, and begin reading it. I would start reading, not at the beginning in Genesis, but instead in the book of John, in the New Testament, then complete all the other books in the New Testament, before going back to the Old Testament. Why? because the ‘New Testament’ is the New promise from God through Jesus Christ and it is about his time on this earth and his death, life, and resurrection, meant for us, so we can be saved from our own sins and self destruction. It brings us back to God, to the relationship we were meant to have with Him, if we accept it. You need to know what this really means to you to truly become a follower of Christ. The best way to do that is begin with what he has already written to us, His Word, The Bible.
The remainder of the new testament are letters from some of the disciples who lived along side Christ and the Apostles and prophets that lived and taught about him as the church began. Don’t worry about what you don’t understand at first, just read, and of course, if you want, use bible reference materials commentaries, dictionaries, etc. to help you as you read. But don’t get hung up on what you don’t know or can’t figure out right now. As with any relationship, it takes time to get to know the other person, in this case, that is God, but it works the same. The disciples spent three years with Jesus, following him, learning from him, and getting to know him. It won’t be any different for you. It takes time to get to know him. It takes effort, but it’s worth it.
During your quiet time with God, you can certainly ask him to help you figure things out, and to bring other believers into your life to help you as well. Doing a bible study wouldn’t hurt if it’s geared toward a new believer. Some bible studies can be overwhelming, sometimes in the beginning it’s more helpful to spend time with just one person who has been a believer for a while and is willing to help guide you in your study and answer your questions. If you can’t find such a person, there are books written about bible knowledge, such as “Bible Answers for 1000 difficult questions” by George Sandison & Staff, or “The Encyclopedia of bible difficulties” by Gleason Archer, as well as “Who’s who in the bible” etc. These types of resources can help you if a person isn’t available.
It’s a good idea to journal as you spend time with God, you can write down your thoughts and questions about what you’re reading so when you can meet with someone, you can ask those questions. Of course you can look them up on the
internet, but beware, you need to be using some quality sources there, for reliable true biblical knowledge. There’s a lot out there that is wrong and misleading. Now is not the time for misinformation. www.bible.org is a good place to start.
Journaling can help you record your progress and your prayers to God. Try not to treat God like a genie in a bottle, present only to say “yes” to your every need and desire. The real God of the bible is not that. God answers prayers, but the answer isn’t always “yes”. Not everything you want and desire is good for you or others. The real God of the bible, can and does say “no”, to us about many things that are not good for us. He has our best interest in mind, even when we don’t.
I hope, if you begin a relationship this Valentine’s Day, that you will begin one with God. (Even if you also find that wonderful someone you’ve been hoping for).
Your relationship with God, never has to end. It is an eternal relationship, that will last long after all other relationships end. God’s love is both unfailing and everlasting. I certainly want that kind of love, don’t you? Think on that for awhile and consider…’That’ is the kind of ‘love’ I ‘want’, ‘that’ is a relationship I ‘desire.’ Unfailing….Everlasting….Love. A Love worth Looking For!
Rest in His Love, Susan