Searching For A Spiritual Partner

For those of you who are currently searching for a spiritual partner, I have created a guideline to assist you and to help you go about in a Christ centered way.

1. First of all, above all else, before you even begin your search, PRAY about it. Pray and ask God if you are ready to take the next next step in looking for a spiritual partner. When you pray, ask for for God's to search YOUR heart to see what is the motivating factor for your search. Are you lonely or are you seeking someone to rescue you from a place of emotional or sexual neediness? Ask God for HIS discernment to reveal the secret motives of your heart, and ask HIM to guide you by HIS Spirit. This means not just being physically, or sexually attracted to someone (lust), or just having emotional chemistry, or any other feelings that are simply those of the flesh, rather than spirit led.
2. Secondly, PREPARE your own heart. This is huge and so critical. Many times we are searching for someone, while we ourselves are emotionally wounded; seeking another person to "save us" or complete, or to make us whole. Many people search for someone to fulfill them, when they need to seek fulfillment first from God, and realize who they are in Him. Often times, we see people seeking a mate out of their own neediness, thinking foolishly, that when they meet "Mr. or Mrs. Right;" that person will complete or fulfill them. WRONG! Two broken, fragmented people together, does not equal a whole, healthy, relationship. Whatever trauma, emotional, or physical wounds that have occurred in our past, (either from relationships or even carried over from childhood) that have not been completely healed, will become excess baggage & drama, and will eventually flair up in any future relationship in a negative way, causing heartache, pain and devastation. It is so critical for each individual to take a deep and thorough look at themselves, and search for for any areas of brokenness that has not been completely healed. Often, old wounds are so deeply hidden beneath the surface, and people never take the time to open up and examine the areas of brokenness, because they do not want to experience and face the pain associated with them. However, until we face them head on and deal with them, these old wounds will continue to fester deep within us until they create some devastating consequences. Getting to the root of our hurt, pain, and dysfunction and bringing it to the surface so that God can heal us of the pain, is the only way we will become whole enough and be spiritually healed so that we will be able to form a good, healthy, Christian relationship with someone new. If we do not address the core of our drama and excess baggage in our own individual lives, it will definitely create problems in any future relationships.
3. Thirdly, the next thing we need to do is PRIORITIZE. We cannot find the best spiritual partner until we sit down and write down what characteristics we are desiring in a partner. It's like setting off on a trip without a road map. It's very important to make a list of the characteristics and traits that you are specifically looking for in a mate. If you are not specific in the type of person you are looking for, you are more apt to quickly settle for someone out of desperation and neediness, not out of being focused on what traits God desires for someone to have in order for you to have an awesome, spiritually grounded partner. Make sure you do not settle or compromise on the most important, critical, & spiritual traits you desire in a mate, but also realize that there is no perfect human here on earth. The only perfect one, died on a cross two thousand years ago, to save us from our sins.
4. Fourthly, the next step is to PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE! If you have done the necessary work on preparing yourself, prioritizing what you are looking for, the next step is a big one; you have to make yourself available so that others will recognize that you are ready and receptive to receive love into your heart and life. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. A person of quality and of spiritual character will recognize if you are ready or not, and you will too. If you are in a constant state of prayer and spiritual discernment, it will become quite easy to weed out those people who do not meet your list of characteristics, or who are too emotionally needy or spiritually immature.
5. The fifth step is to PROTECT YOUR HEART. Be cautious, and be aware that there are many PREDATORS that will try to use, control, and manipulate you. Guard your heart and mind, and ask God for a hedge of PROTECTION to surround your heart and mind, to keep you safe.
6.  The sixth step is to PERSEVERE. Keep looking, keep networking, and let your best friends know that you are looking for someone. You never know when or where, that special someone will show up, so be ready and keep your eyes open for chance encounters that could possibly be a divine appointment, or serendipity!
7. The seventh step is PATIENCE. Anything worth having is worth waiting for. Take your time, don't give up, and let time do it's work.
8. The eighth step is to PAY ATTENTION! If you sense something is off or not right in a relationship, be able to recognize a red flag when you see it, and don't think it is a circus or a parade. Listen to your gut, your heart, and mostly to discernment from God. If your heart says no, run away and don't look back, don't second guess yourself about what you are feeling. Don't question yourself, or feeling guilty for recognizing a red flag. Just let them go, period.
9. The ninth step is PRAY again and again and again! Never underestimate the power of prayer. Seek God's will in every relationship, and line it up according to the scripture. In order to have a true spiritual, God sent relationship, put God in the direct center of all you do. Proverbs 3:5-6 says "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not unto thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." Our hearts can be fickle, our emotions and feelings can be misguided, but when we allow everything and every relationship to be filtered through the lens of God's word, HE will direct our paths, plus HE will give us the desires of our hearts. Psalms 37:4
10. The tenth step is to ask for God's Peace. If you feel that God has sent you a Godly, spiritual partner, ask HIM for peace and confirmation that you are indeed in God's will. There is nothing sweeter than walking in God's will.
11. The eleventh step is to avidly seek God for HIS PERFECT WILL IN YOUR LIFE. Too many times we settle for less than what God's perfect will has in store for us. We desire something so desperately, that we justify it into being God's will for us. When we do this, we are simply acting in God's permissive will, NOT HIS PERFECT WILL FOR US! Oh, that we never settle, or compromise for anything less than God's Perfect will for us.
12. Finally the twelfth step is once we find that special spiritual partner, we should PRAISE GOD for providing them for us! Have a heart full of love and gratitude that we have sought God's will for us, and the payback will be PRICELESS!!

Being Single Minded

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be single; especially being a  Christian Single, and the fact that I am a woman over 50. Well, THAT, narrows the odds considerably, in the "dating pool."

In all actuality, I have to admit that sometimes I am lonely, that I would like to be taken out to a movie or dinner, or just have the joy of receiving a bouquet of flowers or a sweet card; but then I look at the scripture and read the words of the Apostle Paul: "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."
                                                                      Philippians 4:11

Immediately I am convicted; why? First of all because I know where having thoughts like that can take me, and I do not want to have a pity party of one. I realize that even though, yes someday, I would like to meet a nice Christian gentleman, I have to be careful not to make that my main focus.

You see, I also realize how easily it would be for the enemy to take those simple, normal desires and spin them out of control, and get my mind completely off focusing on God and onto a desperate search for an earthly relationship. I know this because I've been there my friends, and saw how easy it was to slip into that mindset. Remember in the Bible where Jesus called Peter out of the boat, and asked Peter to walk out onto the water to him? As long as Peter kept his eyes fixed on Jesus, he was walking on the water, despite the storm and winds raging all around him!  However, immediately the moment that Peter took his eyes off Jesus, he began to sink.

I don't want to be like Peter in that respect. I recently set up profiles on some dating sites, and even paid for a month's subscription for one. Wow! What an eyeopener that was for me. First of all, it prompted me to write my previous posts about "Plenty of Fish in The Sea," and secondly, it made me realize how easy it was to lose my focus, to get "caught up" in the excitement of checking my email each day to see if I had a "wink" or a message from someone. It wasted a lot of my time, especially when the two men I eventually responded to, turned out to be not what they said they were. In fact, one was pretending to live in my city, when he was actually living thousands of miles away in another state, and everything he said to me was a lie. I believed it for a short time, but then when "red flags" showing up and I caught him in his lies and confronted him, I thought, gees, I've really been duped!

I haven't taken my profiles down from all the sites yet, ( I probably don't even remember my profile names and passwords) however, I blocked all emails from coming to my inbox, so that I would not be tempted to even go there again. Now just for the record, I have to admit that I have several friends who actually have found love on dating sites, but I have also heard numerous disaster stories as well. I have just chosen that at this time, I won't waste my time and energy going there.

I've decided that if God wants me to be in a Godly relationship with someone, that HE (God) will make it happen for me. Yeah, I know; some people think that is a totally crazy idea, as if God would literally bring somebody to my doorstep! However, I am in a place where I am choosing my focus to be totally on God, and that I am trusting him to decide if I should be in a relationship with someone. I am also reminded of these scriptures and God's promises to me.

Luke 12:31 "But rather seek ye the kingdom of God: and all these things shall be added unto you."

Psalms 37:4-5 "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass."

I am simply believing and trusting that if I put God first and foremost in my life, then he will take care of my personal needs and the desires of my heart. He created me; he knows me inside and out, and ultimately he knows what's best for me. Just like one of my favorite old hymns; "His Eye is On The Sparrow," if God's eye is on each and every sparrow, how much more is his eye on me, his daughter.

On a lighter note, maybe I should change the title of my blog, because, I am in reality, not losing sleep over being single; I rest in the peace that God is in total control of my life; even in my being single. :)