Is there a better way to find Mr/Ms Right? . We
want to learn some foundational principles from scripture about how to
enter and conduct healthy romantic relationships. Some of us are already in a relationship or are
married and I pray that this will give you a great opportunity to
evaluate your relationship and learn how to grow it. Some of us are not
interested in a romantic relationship; we’ve been hurt by one or we’re
just not ready. And that’s fine too – I pray you’ll have a chance to
learn more about yourself and the type of person God wants you to be.
Read Genesis 29:31-35 [NIV]
Sometimes the bible has more drama than a Mexican soap-opera! I mean
imagine you are watching ‘Triumfo de Amor’ (the triumph of love)… this
hunk Jacobinho meets beautiful Rachelitta and falls madly in love. But
unfortunately, her dad is so obsessed with money that he sets an
impossible bride-price: ‘work 7 years for free in my company and then
you can marry my baby’ (okay, so maybe it’s not a Mexican soap, it’s a
kyuk soap!). Jacobinho is so in love that he willingly accepts the
exorbitant terms and gets to work! The years pass by slowly but he never
gives up. Seven tough years later, he shows up and reminds his boss of
his promise. To his joy, his boss says ‘yes’ and even agrees to pay for
the wedding fiesta.
The day finally comes. Now in that culture, you
don’t see the brides face because she’s in a veil the whole day. And so
you’d go into the honeymoon night without having seen her face. The
following morning, the sun comes up; our dude wakes up, reaches out to
his bride, and is shocked to discover that the woman next to him is
Rachelitta’s older sister. He screams! He’s been conned by his conniving
boss! Angrily, he storms out of his tent to confront his dad in law and
accuses him of deception.
The older man listens to him calmly and then
explains that in their custom, the younger daughter can’t be married
before her older sister. It’s just not right! Surely, he should have
known that! So he advises him to go back to his bride and finish their
honeymoon and then come back next week and do wedding #2, on condition
he’d be willing to work another 7 years for Rachelitta! And so young
Jacobinho, driven by love for Rachelitta becomes the first person in
history to have two weddings and two honeymoons back to back.
The bible clearly says that ‘
Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah’.
Can you imagine being in Leah’s shoes? She had grown up with a squint –
the bible refers to her condition as ‘weak eyes’ – and it had probably
damaged her self esteem. She had grown up seeing her younger sister
being admired by all the neighborhood boys while they treated her like
she was just one of the guys. They’d send her with love notes to her
sister! And now that she was finally married to the man she most
admired, she had to live with the knowledge that her husband felt conned
to be with her, and that his heart belonged to another woman. Not a
good start to any marriage!
Like any young lady her age, Leah had desires that she expected her
man to satisfy. She wanted a knight in shining armor, who would love
her, would be attached to her, and who would spend quality time with
her, and who would rescue her from low self esteem. She may not have
been as beautiful as her sister but she had a competitive advantage that
her sister did not have – and that was her ability to get babies. They
say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach but back then (and
in many cases even today) having a baby was a powerful way to hook a
guy. So she started having babies and named her first son Reuben or ‘he
has seen my misery’, saying, ‘
It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now’.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work; she still didn’t feel loved. And so she had
another son whom she named Simon or ‘one who hears’ – ‘
because the LORD heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too’.
Now Albert Einstein once said that ‘insanity is doing the same thing
over and over and hoping for a different result each time! Leah was
still hoping for a different result! Her insanity continued with baby
number three whom she called Levi or ‘attached’, saying, ‘
now at last my husband will become attached to me because I have borne him three sons’. What?!
Lest we wonder how crazy this lady was, I want to say that her story
is not as uncommon as we might think. As a generation, we’ve grown up
believing in the mantra ‘if it feels good, do it!’ Life is about the
pursuit of happiness. We look for a spouse who will make us happy or
feel good. I’m looking for a husband coz
I got needs! I’m looking for a wife because it’s time for
me to
settle down. And that’s why many in our generation think that you
should cohabit before you get married. Sort of like a test drive. I mean
what’s wrong with ensuring that the other person actually has what it
takes to keep you happy?
The problem however, is that human beings are not cars! Humans
perform differently in test conditions than they do in real life. As
long as there’s no commitment and the other person can walk out any
time, then it’s impossible to be completely vulnerable and be yourself
with them. We’ve just too much to lose! So regardless of how long you
‘test’, you’ll never really know what the drive is like until after
you’ve signed the papers and left the shop! Many marriages today are
breaking after only a few months and people say ‘we’re incompatible’
which is the same as ‘she’s not making me happy’. Even among those who
choose not to leave each other, many have given up on their marriages
when they realized they just weren’t delivering happiness.
The problem with this thinking is that it’s all about what the other person can give
to me. It’s externally focused because it’s about
waiting for the right person and not about
being the
right person. But Leah’s story teaches us that if you operate by that
external focus, then your only choice once you finally meet the person
of your dreams is manipulation. You’re going to have to keep pushing
them to get what you want. And it never ends. Over and over again Leah
tried to get satisfaction from her husband but only got disappointed.
Before she realized that only God can satisfy, her heart had been broken
into a million pieces. Many of us are moving into relationships looking
for our needs to be satisfied. We have transferred the responsibility
for our joy/significance/happiness/self esteem to another person. But
this is a burden we should never assign to another human being because
they’re bound to disappoint.
And this was Leah’s realization. She realized that it didn’t matter
how many babies she got, it wouldn’t cause husband to love her more. And
so she stopped the insanity, and named her fourth son Judah, which
means ‘praise’ saying ‘
this time I will praise the LORD’. She realized that the basis of her relationship
could not be what
she could get out of her husband. She realized he wouldn’t satisfy her
anyway; only God could. And so she shifted from trying to manipulate her
husband and she turned her focus to God.
Change your focus! It’s only when we turn to God that He helps us to
become the person we were meant to be. Sadly in the next chapter, Leah
forgot her lesson; her old insecurities crept back and she found herself
in a baby race with her only sister. She even stooped as low as paying
her sister with food to get extra nights with her husband. It’s apparent
that the demons of her past had not been exorcised.
Let me put it starkly… clingy, desperate women tend to attract
uncaring, insensitive men… and vice versa! It’s just the way it is! You
see, like attracts like. A relationship only compounds the state it
found you in. If you are lonely, you’ll marry another lonely person and
each of you will
demand that the other provide companionship that they’re incapable of giving (
that’s why they got married in the first place!) If you’re broken, you’ll marry another broken person and each will
demand that the other heal them first.
Unhealthy people attract other unhealthy people, with complimentary
dysfunctions. For example, people with addictions tend to be attracted
to people who are co-dependent i.e. rescuers who have a need to be
needed. And the worst thing is, your spouse will not only
not be able to
heal you, but they may actually oppose your healing when it starts to
happen because your remaining as you are meets their need!
Two very
dependent people each working hard to ensure that their partner never
becomes healed because then
their need might not be met. And so
you find yourself in a situation of two patients with no doctor. Or to
put it even better, TWO TICKS NO DOG. That’s a nasty place to be. So
here’s what I want to say to you, whether you’re married or single,
whether you’re searching or satisfied…
Stop searching for the One, be the One.
Are you externally focused? Are you waiting for someone else to
satisfy your need for happiness, validation, financial security? Are you
already married and praying for the day when your spouse will finally
come round and begin to meet your needs? You need to realize that no one
else can satisfy our needs except God. And it’s only as he fulfills us
and grows us to become who we were created to be, that we can attract
other whole and secure people! You need to turn that gaze inward and
work on you so that you can be the best you that God created you to be.
Stop searching for the One, be the One.
We need to shift focus and deal with our issues and not wait for a
Mr/Ms Right to make us perfect. If you don’t take time now to deal with
issues from your past, they will only reappear in your relationships at
compounded level. If you don’t resolve that issue with your mom, deal
with that distance & lack of friendship between your siblings, get
healed of that bitterness against your parents… it will only reappear
ten times bigger and devour you in your marriage.
It doesn’t matter what you put on your list; you will only attract people like you. Only a whole person will attract another whole person. Mr/Mrs Right will not fix you. Relationships are for grownups.
Stop searching for the One, be the One.
You see in dating relationships and marriage, God can allow us to meet each other’s needs.
But this is only after we have allowed him to meet our need.
Without that, you only enter into relationships not to give, but to
demand, to manipulate, to get as much from the other person as you
possibly can. So ‘
stop searching for the One, be the One’.
Courtesy of Mavuno Church
