We do not have to fall on our wait for our mate. If we do fall, we know that God’s grace is sufficient for us meaning that God’s grace is enough to meet us where we are at and restore us to where he has called us to be.
Of course, we all fall short in our own ways. There are many of us if not all of us, who have made mistakes by dating the wrong guys just to have someone in our lives, trying to save a man who we thought was cute and had some characteristics that we liked while almost losing ourselves in the process, but God’s grace some way and some how has brought us back to a vision and a focus in him that gives us rest, peace, and clarity of mind.
Well, satan is after that clarity that rest, and peace that we have in Christ as single believers waiting on the promise of the right mate that God has for us. It’s normal when a person has been waiting on something for a long time to get tired. We all will get tired during this process at times and will need our strength to be renewed.
It’s like going to a doctor’s office and sitting in the waiting room. You can only sit there and read a magazine for so long. Imagine having to sit there for years waiting, LOL, yes pun is intended here. Even though we at times get weak and lose focus, God promises to renew our strength. (Isaiah 40:31)
However, at those times we are weak is where satan comes to tempt us to fall because satan is afraid and intimidated at the thought of two believers coming together in holy matrimony what a force to be reckoned with. Not to mention the godly children who will be brought into the world due to the godly parents. That is why satan fights us so hard.
As believers who know that we have a promise from God, many of us have been taught the story about Abraham and Sarah in the old testament who were promised a son in their old age, and how due to the strain of waiting so long Sarah tried to make the promise come to pass on her own. Through Sarah’s attempt to make the promise come to pass on her own, she opened up a whole can of warms that made her life that much more difficult. Although, she got her promise, she fell from faith regarding the promise and made things harder on herself.
We do not have to follow in her example in that situation, we can remain encouraged to know that the promise that God has given us, God is the only one who is able to bring it to pass, and that he will bring it to pass in his time and season. As people of God, we we’re born to win. We we’re born to overcome every obstacle that we could ever be faced with on our way to what God has promised us.
There was a group of people in the old testament called the children of Israel. These were people that God made and established as a nation for himself. God also made them a promise. God delivered them out of the land of Egypt where they were slaves, and promised to bring them into their own land that would be filled with everything that they could ever want or need. Everywhere the children of Israel went they stayed winning. Every army that ever came up against them was defeated because God was with them.
It is the same situation in our lives, impatience rears it’s ugly head along with loneliness, and lies like your standard is too high, you will never get married, or you are going to be waiting forever because I have never seen a godly man/woman. However, we have overcome those things and we have stayed winning against all of those obstacles that tried to make us forfeit our blessing for what was easier to attain at the time.
So, satan attempts to come at us in a different way just like he did Jesus when he was weak after fasting. Satan tried several attempts to tempt Jesus, but he stood on God’s word (Luke 4). I will share one of the ways that satan recently tried to come at me.
I had already been weak and going through some stuff, and a lady came to me calling herself prophesying saying negative things to me that insinuated that I needed to go out and get a man on my own. She encouraged me to date an unsaved man, rub his back, and hold his hand, and smell him smelling all good up against me, so I would be able to share with people how things really are because they will not listen to me if I haven’t had the experience of being with a man.
She was not hearing from God, but judging me to be inexperienced and unwise because of my youth. She encouraged me further to compromise insinuating that I was too rigid and would scare a man away through having a standard, and she said all of this in the name of the Lord.
I was floored. I could not believe what was coming out of her mouth because the Bible tells us not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, and it also tells us not to make provision for the flesh to obey it in the lusts thereof. So, if I am continuing to date a man who isn’t saved and becoming more attached to him by being physical with him then I am setting myself up to fall.
It would be a different story if God sent me a man, who he had been dealing with, but isn’t necessarily saved yet, and through an uncompromising friendship relationship in a safe environment such as a workplace, group, or social organization the man becomes saved, and I begin to see fruit that he is serious about his relationship with the Lord, then we can talk and become closer and eventually become married, but the contrary would only be compromise, and would cause me to fall.
I was reminded about the children of Israel who continued to win against their enemies and every nation that they would come up against how they would defeat those nations and God would drive those inhabitants out of the land.
There was a king named Balak in those days who heard about the children of Israel and their victorious streak, so what he did was he called a “prophet of God” named Baalam to curse God’s people. Now, Baalam was truly a prophet of God at first, but after a while the gifts and the notoriety that was offered to him by King Balak got to him. (Numbers 22-25)
Balak was concerned that the children of Israel would come up against him next and defeat him. That is why he contacted Baalam. Baalam originally responded to Balak’s request to curse the children of Israel by saying, “I cannot curse what God, has blessed.” However, after a while Baalam gave in by giving Balak counsel on how to truly defeat the children of Israel saying that in order for him to curse the children of Israel he would have to entice them to sin and to go after other gods. That is the only way that God’s covering will be removed and that they would no longer be victorious in war.
Later on in the book of Numbers, we read about how the children of Israel were tempted to go after idolatry and sexual immorality due to the counsel of Baalam. We see how God sent a plague to the children of Israel and many of them died until a young man who feared the Lord stopped the plague. (Numbers 31:6)
What I gather from this is that because satan cannot bind you, he will try to get you to bind yourself. Satan cannot defeat us, because we are already overcomers through Christ Jesus; therefore, satan will attempt to cause us to be defeated by our own actions.
As I stated earlier, God’s grace is sufficient for us or enough to meet us where we are and cover us and draw us back to our right place in God, but I believe that their are different levels of grace. I believe God’s word where it says to whom much is given much is required. You see the lady who “called herself prophesying to me, who also reminded me of Baalam” was in her flesh and looking at me as if I was a child who didn’t know or experience certain things.
However, that isn’t true. I am an adult who has already been through trying to have a relationship with a man who wasn’t saved. I’ve already experienced what it is like to have an ungodly soul-tie, and struggle with someone else’s demons in addition to my own through making the choice to allow someone close to my heart who God has not ordained to be there. And God has delivered me from that situation, and it would be foolish of me to go back to that type of a situation.
A child receives a certain amount of grace that an adult does not receive because an adult is expected to know better. (1 Corinthians 13:11) If a child runs out in the street naked people will say that it is cute. If an adult runs out in the street naked; they will get arrested for indecent exposure. This is what the Bible means when it says that to whom much is given much is required. (Luke 12:48)
Oftentimes, when people talk about grace it is in the sense of a free pass to do whatever you want, but I don’t believe that is the biblical concept of grace. I believe that satan used that woman to try to make me take God’s grace for granted in order to open up a door in my life to allow compromise and cause me to miss the promise that God has for me, which is my God-ordained relationship with the husband of God’s choosing and not my own.
I believe that when people sin. There is still grace for them, and that God will forgive them just like he forgave David in the Bible who sinned with Bathesheba. However, the judgement for someone who knows better will be harsher than for someone who doesn’t know better and is still learning in that area. Although, God forgave David who was a man who walked with God and knew better. God’s judgement for David was greater than for someone who did not have similar knowledge of God. We know that David had to deal with enemies in his own house hold because of his sin. He only made it harder on his self although he was forgiven.
We donot have to go through similiar instances of making things harder on ourselves while waiting on God for his promises. We can continue to walk in the fear of the Lord and the faith of the Lord until we reach those promises. If I feared what that woman, “prophesied” to me above what God’s word tells me, than I would find myself going through unnecessary pain and drama. Notice that the fear of the Lord is how a person overcomes what the Bible calls the error of Baalam (Baalam represents someone who knows right, but chooses to do wrong anyway). It was through a man who feared the Lord that God’s judgement was stopped upon Israel. (Numbers 25)
I used to have a job where I was the only Christian there, and I really liked this guy who was not a Christian, and at first I did not like him, but he weared me down in a sense. There would be all types of ungodly conversation going on and sexual innuendos at times that he would bring to me in conversation. So, I tried to be prayed up and strong before I went in to work.
I remember one day I was worshiping God before I went into work, and it was almost time for me to go in when I quickly grabbed my Bible to try to get a quick word from God. Before I could open up the Bible, I heard God say to me, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
At the time, I was really young, and was in a position that I had never been in before where I felt like I had to fall. So, I was kind of in this, “What do I do God?” sort of a way. God’s response was, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
To fear God means to respect above all else the commands and knowledge that we have of God or to hold in high esteem what God says so much so that what he says becomes the wisdom for that situation that we are in.
After a while, God begin to renew my strength as he promised in his word. (Isaiah 40:31) He reminded me of Matthew 6 that addresses the subject of worrying about the things that God has already promised to do in our lives. He specifically reminded me of the passage that says, “Look at the lillies of the field. They do not toil (work) nor do they spin (strive) yet I say unto you that even Solomon (who was the richest man of that time) was not dressed like one of these lillies. It goes on to say if God takes care of the lilies, the grass of the field, the birds and so forth will he not much more take care of you. You are worth more to God than these things. Therefore, don’t worry about these things, but seek first the kingdom of God (things of God), and his righteousness and all of these things will be added unto you. (Matthew 6:28-33)
Often, the last scripture has been taught in the sense of being used to get what you want from God. But I now understand, that God’s purpose in sharing that with us is so that we can rest in him and what he has promised us instead of worrying and trying to figure out how we will do it on our own like Sarah. We are to instead focus on the things that concern God’s kingdom that he is calling us to in this moment of our lives leaving tomorrow up to God to handle.
Although, I had been a little weak, confused, and discouraged from dealing with those things. Through waiting on the Lord he has restored my focus and encouraged me in prayer letting me know that it isn’t a man’s responsibility to bring my husband to me, but his responsibility. It is God that puts a man and his wife together and what God has put together no man should put apart. Lastly, he begin to deal with me about my husband showing me certain things about him and having me to pray for him. Now, I am encouraged to know that I do not have to fall in the things that I have already learned, but to continue to fear the Lord, and rest in his promises as he brings them to pass in my life.
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