Three years ago when I foolishly went ahead of God and chose my own Future Husband, I could not have imagined ending up here with you. In the delivery of my message – The Reality of Love – as guest speaker at a cocktail recently, I highlighted my dating journey, the mistakes made and lessons learned. I was inspired by the Holy Spirit to share with my readers this season so here goes…

What is Godly Dating?

In my opinion, Godly Dating is the process of getting to know someone with the intention to marry them. This process is mandatory, purposeful, holy and should be experienced carefully, as the main aim is to establish a strong, Godly marriage.

The Reality of Love

Before I met him, I couldn’t stand him. He was annoying to me and didn’t seem like someone I would be interested in on any level. So, I ignored him. But somehow I kept running into him. He was always in my network of friends and associates – even before I had given my life to God. I just couldn’t shake the guy but he was never etched in my mind as someone of importance.

How we got here…

I gave my life to God in March 2014 and I remember vividly that God laid down the plans for my life to me and marriage was one of them. At the time, I had no real hopes of getting married. Coming out of an emotionally abusive dysfunctional relationship for five years, dealing with depression when that ended, getting into an empty rebound ‘relationship’, experiencing same-sex relationships and having no true example of marriage left me with no desire to get married. But God had other plans. I ran with the idea…literally…because my desire was always to please God. Even if I didn’t understand how to do that just yet. So I ran with the word.

The Fall

I went ahead and hand-picked someone who could possibly be my future husband and I initiated the entire process. Being so full of zeal, I befriended him, I initiated conversation, I orchestrated meet-ups. An image was cemented in my head of what the future would be like with him and I did everything for that to happen. I prayed and included God in a process that He had nothing to do with initially. And, as expected, the entire process came crashing down. His discernment kicked in after he took advantage of my naivety so he ended it; whatever it was. And it hurt me spiritually and emotionally. I wasn’t hurt by the fact that it ended, I was hurt because a dream I held on to was not going to be a reality. A man that I saw to be an authentic man of God took advantage of a young woman’s vulnerability and that hurt me as I thought of all the other possible instances within the church. That and more sent me into emotional isolation. I became closed off to the idea of dating to marry and I was determined that any man God was sending to me had to come with a clear sign. I had to let go of the ideas I had in my head and trust God with the process.

My Preparation Process

I was focused on God and rebuilt my trust and relationship with Him. God revealed to me that I should be in a process of waiting and preparing for marriage and I just wasn’t having it. The first thing that he did was to send my best friend with a book for me to read. The book was Praying For Your Future Husband: Preparing Your Heart For His” By Robin Jones Gunn And Tricia Goyer. Reluctantly, I read and that book walked me through how my heart should be in waiting. It taught me how to pray for his heart, pray for trust, pray for strength, pray for contentment and other areas. God was stripping away all the preconceived notions I had of this future spouse and was preparing my heart to receive what He had prepared for me. I would write these letters daily according to the area I was praying for.

One of the things that stood out to me from this book was that it prompted me to prayerfully make a list of the characteristics that I needed in a spouse. It made sure to highlight that these characteristics had nothing to do with the physical. My list included traits such as he had to be understanding, loyal, purposed, and obedient, he had to value his relationship with God, and so on. In all caps, I had that he had to be PATIENT! And I can say that he embodies everything on my list and so much more. Every now and then I check to make sure that he does indeed fit this list.

Lesson: It is important to focus on the Godly characteristics of  an individual when dating to marry.

He Came…

In my period of waiting I was spiritually expectant. I knew something was coming but I was focused on God and focused on being obedient to Him. I knew God was going to do something but I didn’t know when, what, who or how. And I remember the day Chris initiated conversation. I knew in my heart that it was coming but I had no expectation that it would have been him and that it would lead to a relationship. I remember he sent me a message on Facebook (yes Facebook) and my initial reaction was: “ah wa him ah come wid now”. For the non-Jamaicans among us: “what could he possibly want now?” But to my surprise, he made me laugh and the conversation was good. He didn’t annoy me and that’s major! I still didn’t think anything of it. Our minds never thought about a relationship. But we talked on numerous occasions before officially meeting physically.

Lesson: God initiated and was building a friendship – it is important to be friends first! Very important!

Now we’re here…

I remember God began to reveal to me situations that were happening in his life spiritually and God said to me: “invite him to crusade!” I did. He came. And when we saw each other that night something clicked! We both felt the nudge in the spirit but thought nothing of it. We continued to talk and just be friends. I would invite him out with me completely as friends and thought nothing of it. On one outing I caught him looking dazed and in deep thought staring at me. Little did I know that that was the day he truly knew that I would be something special and important to him and a few days later the same thing started to happen to me. I remember missing this man and being worried whenever I wouldn’t see him on social media or talk to him for long periods.

Lesson: You both should connect on a spiritual level.

He wasn’t what I wanted

Physically, he was NOT what I wanted and my mind could not process dating him so I asked my friends to confirm if my mind was playing tricks on me.  There was something I could not see but I felt it in my heart. One thing I did was to pray about these emotions before doing anything else. And I remember God confirmed him in one of my letters to “my future husband”. I mustered up the courage to tell him not knowing that he was there struggling to tell me the same thing. But even then we didn’t jump into a relationship. We were clear about how we felt and allowed God to do the rest. Chris and I continued to be friends and everything literally fell into place. We were just friends for an entire year and about two months then we had the conversation and officially began dating February 14, 2016 – Valentine’s day. (corny right?)

Lesson: Don’t allow the physical expectation to discredit a potentially beautiful union. Let God lead.

A Message to Singles

The bible is clear on the type of person we should be waiting to marry:

One of the main pointers the Bible gives about relationships is found in 2nd Corinthians 6:14 which says “do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?”

But many persons tweak this scripture to suit them. Who told persons that being unequally yoked had anything to do with the physical?

What does it mean to be unequally yoked?

A yoke is a wooden bar that joins two oxen to each other and to the burden they pull. An “unequally yoked” team has one stronger ox and one weaker ox, or one taller and one shorter. The weaker or shorter ox would walk more slowly than the taller, stronger one, causing the load to go around in circles. When oxen are unequally yoked, they cannot perform the task set before them. Instead of working together, they are at odds with one another.

Paul was making it clear to the people of Corinth that this will happen to Christians if they go into a union with unbelievers. He didn’t say “if you go into a union with an usher if you are a pastor” this will happen.

Many Christians are using the term “unequally yoked” to justify the list of self-centered traits that we have developed in our minds. So, if the man doesn’t have a PhD and you do you say you are unequally yoked. If you work at the Bank of Jamaica and the man is a plumber for Jamaica Plumbing Suppliers, you say that you are unequally yoked.

God told me to tell you that: “earthly qualifications and money have nothing to do with godly, purposeful marriages!” You can marry a man who has it all today and he loses it all tomorrow. What are you going to do then? Forsake the union? We need to have a kingdom perspective when it comes to dating to marry. What is your purpose? What is their purpose? How will this union be purposeful? Do we complement each other in a Godly way? These are the important questions.

Lesson: Many have turned down their potential spouse because he/she doesn’t fit the earthly criteria.

Confession: The man I met and was led to build 2 years ago wasn’t half the man he is today. He wasn’t as spiritually mature. He didn’t have all the money in the world. But we were compatible and we connected on a spiritual level! God ordained it and God has been showing up and showing off ever since. So many doors have opened and we have been gratefully walking together according to God’s plan and structure for us.

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