God Help Me! I Want Romance! Part I

Hello everybody and welcome to the Help My Unbelief podcast.

My name is Jamila Perry and welcome to today's episode.

So for those of you who are not familiar with Help My Unbelief,

This is a podcast that I've created that helps Christians address difficult topics within Christianity,

Some of the hurdles and challenges we may face as Christians.

Now even though this is a Christian-based broadcast,

Anyone is welcome to listen and hopefully draw some inspiration from the topics.

So let's jump into today's topic.

So today's topic is centered around a listener's question regarding romantic relationships.

And before I read the email,

I do want to encourage that if there's anyone who has questions or has a topic idea that they'd like for me to discuss,

I can be emailed at helpmyunbelief19 at gmail.

Com.

That's helpmyunbelief19 at gmail.

Com.

Okay,

So here's the email that I received from the listener.

I've been single for three years now.

I've put my trust in God and I believe I'm a good person with a few flaws that I'm trying to work on.

I can't help but wonder how or why those around me who do not have any faith at all have been successful in finding love.

I surrendered to God a few months ago and met an amazing person.

I was giving all the glory to God.

Then this person began irritating me and I realized that we were highly incompatible as they were bringing out emotions in me that I've worked so hard to suppress.

I don't know where I'm going wrong.

Okay,

So that is the email.

So to the listener,

I do want to say thank you so much for the email.

Thank you so much for bringing this up because I know that there are many people who are experiencing this or some version of this.

As Christians,

It is difficult to be single and to resist the temptation to follow society's standards or follow society's rules when it comes to dating and finding a mate.

So this is definitely an area of frustration,

I understand.

So I think what I want to do here is break down the email that I received and then we can expand into a larger conversation about how to manage ourselves when we are desiring a romantic relationship.

So in this email,

One of the first things that I picked up on was this idea of being worthy of a blessing.

The listener wrote,

I put my trust in God and I believe I'm a good person with a few flaws that I'm trying to work on.

So to me,

That sends a message of I'm trying to make myself good enough to be worthy enough of a blessing,

Of being blessed with a relationship.

And so I want to address that first.

So the first thing I want to say here is that blessings cannot be earned like that.

You know,

God loves us unconditionally.

There's absolutely nothing that we did to earn God's love.

God created us.

God knows who we are,

Who we were,

Who we're going to be,

And he loves us fully,

100 percent,

No strings,

No conditions.

And so when it comes to asking God to bless or open doors or bring clarity,

Sometimes,

And sometimes this message gets perpetuated in the church,

We feel like or we're told that we need to be shined up a bit before we can go to God with what we want.

So we need to be extra good or however people think that this can be achieved.

And maybe if I've had a good week,

Then I can ask God for X,

Y,

And Z blessing.

And the fact of the matter is that we're human beings.

We are flawed by nature.

There is no way that we can shine ourselves up enough to quote unquote qualify for a blessing.

And if it was even possible for us to improve ourselves and stay improved and have a positive outcome as a result of that improvement and then remain on that level,

If we could do that by ourselves,

Then what is God for?

So we have to take into consideration that yes,

We have flaws,

But we also have our relationship with God.

And we are working with God,

We're aligning with God,

We're growing in God to better ourselves.

We will never be 100 percent perfect,

But we can at least better ourselves through the understanding of our relationship with God.

And that's something that's lifelong.

So don't feel like in order to be blessed in a particular area,

In this case,

Romantic relationships,

That you have to go and do some measure of cleaning up.

That's not really how this works.

I mean,

If you want a relationship,

It's a very simple matter of saying,

Lord,

I want a relationship.

I really desire to be in a romantic relationship.

I really desire to have a partner right now.

It's as simple as that.

It's not about,

Should I run down this checklist of am I good enough?

Have I done enough?

Oh,

There was that one argument that I had,

Or I did get angry with this person over here.

Maybe I should let some time go by.

Maybe I should apologize to them first and then come back and ask for this.

That's a lot.

Now,

Yes,

Of course,

If apologies are owed,

Please apologize.

I mean,

Always strive for your best in your actions,

But know that you're doing that because that is the right thing to do,

Not because you're trying to earn reward points and earn enough reward points to qualify for a blessing.

This isn't Starbucks.

That's not how it works with God.

We're not working on reward points.

God loves us unconditionally.

God wants the best for us always,

Right now.

God knows what we can and can't handle for wherever we are in life.

It's not a matter of earning or being worthy of a blessing.

You're already worthy.

As the scripture says,

We all sin and fall short of the glory of God.

Therefore,

We are all qualified for God's grace and mercy.

That's something to keep in mind,

That your blessings,

You cannot earn your blessings.

You should not feel unworthy of blessings.

You are worthy.

That's the first thing.

I do want to add,

Before I go on to my next point,

That the idea of worthiness and being blessed and earning a certain level of faith through our own efforts,

That does kind of have an origin point.

It was a belief at one point,

And I think there's still evidence of this belief,

That your physical prosperity is equated with your level of faith.

That if you have this great and wonderful marriage,

If you have money,

If you have a nice home,

If you have a nice vehicle,

That that is the testament of your level of faith in God.

That is erroneous thinking,

Quite honestly.

That is erroneous thinking.

Now,

This is just my perspective,

But I believe that when God talks about prospering us,

That he's not talking about these tangible things because money can burn,

Money can be gained and lost,

Houses can be built and destroyed,

Cars can be new and rusted in a junkyard.

These are all such temporary things that I seriously doubt that God went through the trouble of creating us,

Of creating a whole world,

Of creating a whole spiritual system,

Of creating an opportunity for us to develop this full and thriving relationship with him just for the evidence of our faith to be in these temporary things.

I just can't believe that.

I just can't believe that.

Again,

This is my perspective.

I know that people have different viewpoints,

But my perspective is I can't believe that God's definition of prosperity is equated with these temporary things.

I think that God prospers us in strength,

Prospers us in clarity,

In wisdom.

Wisdom is a big deal with God.

So we prosper in those intangible ways because those are the things that hold us.

Because,

Okay,

Let's say that you get this X amount of dollars and you're praising God and you're really excited because you've got this level of comfort.

Okay.

And then the comfort gets taken away.

Do you still have your faith in God?

Do you still believe that God will help you weather the storm?

Do you still believe that even as you are in this adverse,

Uncomfortable,

Challenging situation,

Do you still believe that God is going to lead you,

That God is teaching you something,

That God is still good to you?

Do you still believe that?

I think that the idea of physical prosperity or material prosperity being linked to faith is also correlated with the whole idea that God is only in the good stuff and that only the devil is in the adverse situations.

Even though the Bible clearly says we grow in adversity.

So God is in the challenge,

But people don't want to believe that.

That's not the fun thing to believe.

So we put God in only the good stuff and since money and comfort and a stable home and a stable vehicle,

Those are all affiliated with the good stuff.

So then it makes sense that people would believe that having comfort and stability materially means that they're exhibiting a strong faith in God or means that God is pleased with them because of this faith and now they've got this grand favor.

I understand why people think that because they want to cluster God only into these good things that we like.

Well the reality is that God is in everything that happens to us and through us.

God is with us because in order to have a stronger relationship with God,

There's got to be some trials.

I mean think about it.

You don't know how strong your friendships are until you go through something difficult.

Whether it's an argument with that person,

Whether you or the other person go through a devastating time and you find out just how loyal your friend is or just how helpful and compassionate your friends are,

There has to be trials along the way.

Otherwise,

You know,

Yeah,

We all love God when things are good.

How strong is our relationship with God when things get challenging?

So that's why I'm hard-pressed to believe that the prosperity that God blesses us with is only linked to these temporary situations like money and homes and cars.

So I say all of that to say that if you are single right now and you're seeing all of these relationships and you're seeing everybody seems to be coupled up except for you,

It is not a punishment to you.

It is not because you don't have enough faith.

So I really want to emphasize that.

That just because we're going through challenging situations or we're in uncomfortable situations,

It does not mean that you don't have faith or that you don't have enough faith.

This is the faith-building time for you.

This is the opportunity for you to do a self-assessment and determine how much you trust God and how much you're going to trust God.

But it's not a punishment and it's not a manifestation of a lack of faith.

So let's get away from that level of thinking,

Which feeds into my next point about what happens when you see other people.

The listener's email indicated that she can't understand how it is that she's lacking in having this relationship,

But it seems like people who don't have a relationship with God have all the best relationships or they're in relationships and they appear to be happy.

And so with that,

I understand why people feel that way.

It makes us vulnerable to a level of bitterness because as Christians living in this world and the way that this world is organized,

The world has a lot of allowances,

A lot of flexibility.

Anything and everything goes in this society,

In this world.

And so when you are trying to walk the straight and narrow,

You're trying to walk the godly path,

You're trying to walk the Christian path.

Obviously there are more boundaries and there's less flexibility.

And so I can understand a lot of people feeling like they're being punished or they're being slighted for trying to stay on this path.

Whereas the people who are living very flexible lives,

I'll phrase it that way,

They're leading very flexible lives seem to be getting all the great stuff,

Right?

I understand that thought pattern.

So here's what I say about that.

First,

We have to remember that Christian or not,

We are all children of God.

Whether a person,

I don't care if you're an atheist,

I don't care what religion or.

.

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