Freedom in Romantic Relationships: Healing & Wholeness

Many of you have been in multiple failed relationships and do not understand why. With over one million single moms served, our ministry is committed to offering honest, wise insight through a biblical lens to truly help you be free, and this means we must address the hard things that could be keeping you bound, hindering you from true freedom to move into a beautiful covenant marriage in a new season. Your breakthrough could be on the other side of this article. Here are the top five reasons why you may have no freedom in a romantic relationship:  

The power of blessing and cursings flow from your lips. We underestimate this key insight from James 3. If you say things like, “There are no good Christian men left,” or “I will never marry again,” or “I will never find someone,” or “No good man would ever want me,” then do not be surprised when those things are true. You are pre-dispositioning yourself to always see men as scoundrels, always be broken and unlovable, and to never move into your new season. You are cursing yourself when you speak these words of death over yourself, so for some of you, the first thing you need to do is repent from speaking things that did line up with God’s word, then renounce them off your life. “I renounce ever saying that I would never be married again. I renounce saying there are no good Christian men. And every curse and spirit attached to those words, you must leave now in Jesus’ name.”  

Too many of you think you have to figure it out often attempting to control and manipulate your own timing instead of sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s prompting. And then…we enter into a new relationship that God did not put His stamp of approval on. However, due to loneliness or fear that you would always be alone, you jumped into something that God did not ordain. This is a faith issue. God will give you the desires of your heart, when you seek His kingdom first. The problem is that some people want the desires of their heart without seeking God’s Kingdom. In other words, you have to get to a place, where honoring God and His word and His plan for your life is far more important than whether or not He brings you a life partner. 

• But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matt. 6:33 
  
• 1 Corinthians 7:1-40 - Paul praises and recognizes committed singleness and teaches that it may be better to remain unmarried than to get married. In verse 2, Jesus says, "It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am". Singleness is not a curse. In fact, it is merely a season for almost every person in the room. The question is, “What is God teaching me in this season? How can I grow closer to Him? How can I trust Him more?”  

This time of singleness is a great time for your faith to be built. Jesus said over and again, it is faith that makes us healed, healthy, and whole. If we can shore up our faith and trust Him during singleness, we are then ready to add value to a future spouse. The first recorded instance of Jesus saying, “Your faith has made you well” is found in Matthew 9:22 (ESV) where Jesus heals the woman with the issue of blood. The KJV translates Jesus’ words as “Thy faith hath made thee whole,” and the NIV says, “Your faith has healed you.” The same incident is also recorded in Mark 5:34, where Jesus says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (ESV). 
 
Jesus also says, “Your faith has made you well,” to a leper He had healed (Luke 17:19) and a blind beggar (Luke 18:42). Other times Jesus links faith and healing without using the exact words, “Your faith has made you well,” such as in Matthew 8:13 and 15:28. 

You have not dealt with you. You have got to deal with you. You have got to deal with your poor spending habits, poor parenting techniques, weight issues, and most especially, unhealed heart wounds. Unhealed heart wounds are the biggest reason why relationships do not work out. Now, the unhealed heart wounds present themselves in many ways, including unhealthy spending habits, unhealthy ways of communication, immoral sex lives, and much, much more, but it is all due to unhealed heart wounds. Many people think they can jump into a new relationship to mask the pain of an old one. You have not taken the time to heal. You’ve rushed into the next thing – often welcoming distractions, such as new jobs, new house, new boyfriend, or new town – and you have not taken the time to sit with the Lord to ask Him what you can learn, what part you may have played in the pain (when applicable), and how to move forward. Too many women are bleeding all over everyone and some have done that for years and then jump into a relationship and wonder why it doesn’t end with a healthy marriage. Unhealed heart wounds are going to require you to: 

• Address your faith issues. Do you believe that the Great Physician can heal you? Are you close enough to Him to trust Him to heal you? Are you actively clinging to the hem of His garment with your spiritual disciplines, so that you can get to know Him? 
• Address your beliefs. There are so many women that think so poorly of themselves that is no wonder that continually you settle for less than God’s best. You don’t understand your value in Christ Jesus. 
• Assess your feelings. Don’t let them rule you, but you need to be aware of them. Are you angry? Are you depressed? Are you bitter? Are you anxious?  
• Release unforgiveness.  
• Address responsibility. Some of us refuse to take responsibility for our own pain. We blame others. We look for excuses. But we will not acknowledge our part in our pain. 
• Bask in the presence of God. Some of you haven’t been in the Secret Place. Healing is found in the Secret Place. Psalm 91:1 says, “Psalm 91:1says, “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty". This verse suggests that dwelling in God's secret place can provide protection and shelter. 

God does not bless the shack up or the hook up. There is no if’s, and’s, or but’s about it. I have heard every excuse under the sun. It makes sense financially. My lease was expiring. God told me to, so that I could introduce him to the Lord. I wanted to get to know him better before we got married. We’re already married in our hearts. There is no blessing on sin. In fact, a curse comes from your habitual, unrepentant sin. Consequences are paid for disobedience. Perhaps what that may look like for you is repeated break-ups. Or maybe it means you do move into marriage and then there is money trouble or perhaps the marriage bed is defiled, so there is no real enjoyment there. There are discontentment and boredom in the marriage. Understand that the blessing of God brings the design of God – there is unity, the two become one flesh, as submitted and surrendered to the Lord.   

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So, glorify God in your body. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 

Sadly, because of today’s culture, there is little repentance in sexual immorality. Yet, no other sin so clearly affects the body. There are many who are riddled with anxiety and depression and anger and confusion and do not understand why, because they have no idea that those spirits can be directly tied to sexual immoral relationships. Jesus offers a way out of our bondage to sin, but we must be willing to kill our flesh. We must be willing to give up our sin. He offers the way out, but He isn’t bullying us into anything. We must decide that a life in Christ and the freedom He offers is far better than stepping outside of God’s will for a temporary satisfaction. To be clear, there is never a scenario when God ordains disobedience. Never.  

Wifery requires submission. The word "submit" comes from a Latin root that means "to let down, reduce, or yield". It can also come from the Greek word hupotasso (hoop-o-tosso), which is a military term that means "to put under or arrange under". Submission can be an acknowledgment of proper order and authority. And too many single moms are looking to be boss babes and don’t want a man telling you what to do. You have fallen under the cultural guise of women’s empowerment and women’s liberation, when you do not understand that what it really was, was an attempt by the enemy to bind you. There is too much control, domination, male emasculation, and too little humility, submission, and being willing to surrender your life to serve someone else. Check out Eph. 5:25-33: 

Women of God are to serve their households, serve their husbands, enrich their husband’s lives, and submit to their husband’s authority as leader. Too many women are attempting to take the place of the male in the home and then be mad that he’s been emasculated. We must be women who know how to lead (when walking through single motherhood), but also women who know how to be led, when a godly priest of the home is sent by the Lord. Submission means to voluntarily take a position where you put your trust in someone else and heed their leadership. This is not less than. This is powerful. And in a culture that minimizes biblical wifery, we must guard our hearts against such things and be ready to be led.