BeyondSeeLevel

I was talking to one of my friends the other day about men–one of my favorite topics. 🙂 She talked about a guy she dated years ago. In her opinion, they had the best relationship she had ever been in. She says that they had great communication and vibed extremely well. But there was one major problem. She was committed to the Lord, but he wasn’t. She would encourage him to attend church with her and pray with her. He resisted both. But in the meantime, he treated her well and even respected her personal vow of celibacy. After some time, she came to realize that her vow of celibacy wasn’t his vow of celibacy. He respected her choice for their relationship, but that wasn’t his choice for his life. He never committed to not having sex. He just committed to not having sex with her. Of course, this was a problem.  She broke off the relationship.

Years later, she would reminisce on her relationship with him and wonder what could have been. Recently, she was affirmed that her commitment to being obedient to God, was the best thing she could have ever done. She didn’t want to give up that relationship but made a decision based on her reality, not her fantasy. To her, this man met every relationship desire she had. He was attentive, intentional, supportive and respectful. But in her reality, she was dating a man that had no sense of urgency or priority to live for God. She did. The fact that they would vibe socially, emotionally, mentally and potentially physical wasn’t enough for her. She needed spiritual unity in her relationship. Here it is years later, she finds out that he is very vocal about his anti-organized religious perspectives. He’s still not into church or God. She thinks about how hard things could have been had she continued to pursue that relationship. Would he have eventually given his life to her God? Or would she had eventually given her life to his god?

As great as that relationship was, it wasn’t built on God. And because of that, they would have been unequally yoked, forever going in opposite directions. This is why, for children of God, vibing just ain’t enough! How much you like one another won’t be enough to sustain the relationship for the long hall. Quite honestly, neither will your love for one another be enough. Most of the time your love and like for one another is based on reciprocity. Truth be told, you won’t always like each other or feel like loving one another. You have to have a unified meeting place that’s independent of each of you. That meeting place is God. No one person can be the standard or the rule for relationship harmony. God has to be the center. And you both have to be committed to submitting to His authority and guidance–personally and collectively. This is maturing from having a mindset of just commitment to having a mindset of covenant. It’s about God’s will for your lives, not just about your desires.

So while it’s perfectly fine to consider and pray for mental, social, emotional and physical compatibility, don’t fail to keep the main the main thing.  How you come together spiritually affects every other area of your relationship — positively or negatively. My friend’s relationship with God was strong during this time. Even though she communicated well with her guy, she never ceased to pray and present him and their relationship before the Lord. Allowing God to lead you in your relationship isn’t the same as simply wanting Him to bless your relationship. Sometimes God will give us hard pills to swallow.  But in the end, they’re purposed to help us, not hurt us. God knows and sees what we can’t.

Here are just a few prayers you can pray in your singleness as you pursue yoking up to the one.

Help me stay in my lane and not move too fast.

Help me walk in Your Spirit and not my flesh.

Help me be a source in his/her life that encourages him/her in their walk with You.

Help me to not become a stumbling block or a temptress for him/her.

Purify our desires for one another.

Help us to honor one another, even in our private thoughts.

Help us purpose to glorify You, even in our courtship.

Help us be honest about where we are in our relationship with You and in our relationship with one another.

Help us not to attempt to force what doesn’t fit.
Help us to love one another the way You love us.

Help us develop a sacrificial, in spite of kind of love for one another.

Help us not be selfish or self -serving.

Help us learn one another, not just learn about one another.

Give us the ability to minister to one another.

Help me to be able to discern dishonorable intentions.
Help me to always be mindful and intentional of my influence in his/her life.

Heal me of any brokenness I may have in my spirit, so that I will be an asset to him/her and not a liability.

Help us be authentic with You first, so that we can be genuinely transparent with one another.

Help us not to hold each other’s past against each other.

Help us not to make each other pay for the pains and disappointments in our past.

Help us to see our need for one another and not be consumed with our want for one another.

Help us desire a relationship of purpose, not just pleasure and passion.

Bless him in his manhood and his desire and ability to lead a family.

Help us keep ourselves sexually pure and holy before You.

Bless his health, his heart and his finances.

Give her a heart and desire for submission, support and servitude.

Help me honor him as my brother in Christ. Help him honor me as his sister in Christ.

Give him sincere fatherly/motherly love for my children.

Give my children genuine love for him/her…..

This is just a few.  Pursue and pray for your relationship like it’s about glorifying God; and not just about satisfying you.

*Tressa Jo

God is a God of strategy and intentions. While we desire that God rescue us out of the storms of life, God is purposing to deliver us by those exact storms. He knows that if He rescues us from the storm prematurely, we can simply come up out of the storm, but the storm can and will remain in us. It will simply manifest and perpetuate itself in other areas of our lives. God is a God of spiritual operation. This isn’t just about Him yanking us out of the storms of life to rescue us. This is about Him molding and shaping us to and for His glory; even if we put ourselves in the storm. Jonah’s fish saved him. He repented and praised God while he was still in the belly of his fish (the consequences of his own actions). After which, God delivered him from the belly of the fish that had been strategically prepared for him to be delivered from himself 1st. Some of us need to realize that we’ve been swallowed up in storms that have been divinely designed to deliver us. We need to be delivered from our own wills. And we need to be delivered from our sin. Some of us are so consumed with coming out of the belly of our fish that we failed to realize that we aren’t fish. If God had left you in the seawater of your own disobedience, you would have drowned. The fish is the consequence of your will; not God’s will. The fish is God’s mercy and plan to deliver you from you. You are not having a Job experience this time! Your righteousness didn’t qualify you to be considered for this storm. You are having a Jonah experience. It was your unrighteousness that put you in the belly of that fish. You have to be honest with where you are in your walk with the Lord. You are not a victim of happenstance. You are not being persecuted. You are not under the attack of the enemy. You are under the influence of the enemy. And because you’ve allowed yourself to be influenced by the enemy and have walked in disobedience, God has prepared a fish just for you. You are experiencing the consequences of your own sin. So you have a choice to make. Do you stay in denial about the sin in your life and keep being swallowed up fish after fish? Or do you do like Jonah did? He repented and God delivered him? He was delivered from his wayward will before he was rescued from the fish. Jonah realized the fact that the water that surrounded him and covered him was the real threat to his life; not the fish. The seawater was his consequences. The fish was his saving grace. Don’t abuse the grace.

*Tressa Jo

I woke up this morning around 3 am with tears in my eyes and grief in my spirit. I was consumed with thoughts of my mother. I lost her to cancer in March of 2008. Every now and then, she shows up in my dreams. She’s never vocal, but always visible. The last few times I dreamed about her, she was quiet but in distress from her illness. My mom was a silent sufferer. She didn’t moan about too many things in her life. She just dealt with them. In those dreams, she was silent but visibly in pain from her sickness. I’m not sure what the dream was intended to show me—if it was intended to show me anything at all. But it gave me a sense of peace knowing that, had she still been here, she probably would not have wanted to be because of the pain she would have had to endure. She would have been here but she wouldn’t have been her. She would not have been the same person. But last night’s dream was a little different. She wasn’t visible this time.  I never saw her in the dream. I was driving her car on my way to where she was, when I was abruptly reminded that she was no longer there. It was almost like I was rolling back a tomb to see her and was told “She is not here.” In my dream, I immediately started to cry. I wondered why, as I traveled to where she was, that I didn’t remember that she was no longer there. I wasn’t grieved from the shock of new news. I was grieved from the reminder of old news. Perhaps a part of me craves to be where I believe she is, in the bosom of Abraham. Perhaps a part of me still cries for what she had to endure in her last days. After I woke up and realized that I was in grief, I cried out to the Lord, “I miss her!” I gave myself time to feel that hurt and allowed the tears to flow freely. Then I smiled within my spirit and started to praise God in spite of the hurt I was feeling. I thanked Him for giving me her in the first place. I thanked Him for what she meant to me and how she helped me become the woman I am today. I thanked Him for allowing me to experience the kind of love in my lifetime that would cause me to grief even after death. That’s some deep and wonderful love right there! I don’t imagine that I will ever stop having these occasional Divine appointments with grief as long as I live. Truth be told, I don’t want to. Even in this grief, I’m able to celebrate the goodness and mercy of God. And I’m able to remember that beautiful woman I called my “Moma”. I can no longer hear her and I can no longer see her. But I’m thankful in this glorious grief, that I’m able to remember her. *Precious memories*

*Tressa Jo

I believed that any sin we struggle with is a result of demonic influence. But not demonic possession. The “succubus demon” is said to possess a man to fulfill it’s desires; not the man’s desires. However, the bible teaches that we are drawn away by our OWN lust (not by the lust of a demon). The demons tempt us with the desires that we already possess; not possess us with it’s desires. The bondage or being controlled by that sin, comes into play in what we chose to feed on, obey and walk in…..the Spirit or the flesh? If we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Neither will we do those things that our sinful nature craves. Whatever feeds you will lead you. We need to be proactive and not reactive when it comes to the development of our personal desires. Too often, we allow things of the world to develop our appetites because we feed on them; instead of allowing the Word of God to develop them by feeding on It. Evil communication (spiritual intercourse) will always corrupt good morals. Garbage in–garbage out. We need to be more diligent in guarding what we allow into our spirits/hearts. All things are spiritual. Out of the heart, flows the issues of life. If it’s not in you, it won’t come out of you. If carnal seed is planted in your spirit, you will bear the fruit of that seed….sexual or otherwise. This is why God instructs us to deny ourselves, resist the devil and flee from evil. The flesh (your own desires) is a beast and will take you places that will shame you, isolate you, condemn you and enslave you. But more than that, the enemy uses YOU against YOU by way of your own desires. And he’s not just trying to mess you up or get you entangled in a sinful habit. He’s actually trying to destroy your very soul. The bible does give us examples of individuals that were possessed by demons. It also shows us God’s power to cast them out and destroy them. But have we actually been overtaken by a demon that we had absolutely no control over? Or did our desires invite them into our spirits and give them permission to do what they do? Pay attention!  Your desires can become your demons.

*Tressa Jo

There is absolutely no place you can find yourself in during your life that God didn’t already know about before you experienced it. This includes every hilltop experience and every valley experience. Particularly, the valley experiences are the ones we seem to forget this. God can’t be surprised by the events of your life. He’s never shocked. As a matter of fact, if you can manage to maintain a right/godly perspective, you’d actually be able to see how, when and where God was strategically preparing and positioning you for the valleys you (will) find yourself in. Unfortunately, many of us will miss out on this Divine preparation because we’re disobedient, unfaithful, slothful and lack commitment to our godly calling and purpose in life. We attended church, but we failed to BE the Church–preparation. We read our bibles but we didn’t study our bibles- -preparation. We vented to the Lord in frustration, fear and disappointment, but we didn’t pray to the Lord in faith–preparation. We learned about God in our religion but we never came to know Him in a relationship–preparation. There’s power in preparation. Valleys will come.

God won’t do for you in miracle what you can do for yourself in muscle. He prepares us. But we have to prepare. Religion doesn’t prepare you; relationship with God does!

*Tressa Jo

Consider those undesirable circumstances you’re dealing with. Very often, life will cause us to be consumed with those things that we’d much rather not have to deal with. The Holy Spirit will work to point us inward, when we’re trying to use all of our energy to focus on the outward to make things better. We consume ourselves with the situations surrounding us. But the Holy Spirit reveals clarity by directing us away from what’s consuming us on the outside, to what’s (Who’s) sustaining us on the inside. It’s not about the situation you’re in. It’s about the you that’s in your situation. God uses life’s circumstances to divinely and strategically expose us to what is or what is not on the inside of us. God won’t manipulate the situation you’re in to your liking. But He will manage it to your making. He is the potter. We are the clay. As we struggle trying to manipulate our lives,  God wants us to position ourselves so that He can master our lives. God uses what we deal with on the outside to shape us on the inside. He turns pain into purpose; test into testimonies; and misery into ministries. When what’s on the outside tries to get on the inside, what’s been developed on the inside will come out. If we want to be vessels for God’s glory,  we must be filled with what glorifies God. Our input will determine our output.

*Tressa Jo