My dear single ladies and gentlemen,
How did your week go?
I spent mine in great ways…
First on Monday, I had the radio interview with @wigradio which will be aired on March 1st (stick around people), then we just had 16 hours of praying in tongues at my Church last night!
Talk about a single woman revving herself up in the spirit! I am still on high from last night… twas and still is amazing!
I was surprised myself, 16hours of praying in the Spirit? It could only have been by the Spirit!
We had satan crying and power changed hands!
But that wasn’t the only thing I did this week… I also read a book “Lady In Waiting” by Jackie Kendall and Debby Jones.
The book was based on lessons from Ruth who happens to also be the second woman the ladies at “the women at the well” group have been discussing in “Becoming God’s Own Kind Of Woman” study.
I learnt A WHOLE LOT from the book but one thing that struck me deeply was the chapter that spoke about how single men defraud ladies based on their emotions and the ladies even defraud themselves by letting their emotions go too quickly.
So I sat down of course and started analyzing my past with “almost relationships”.
And God opened my eyes to show me areas where I have made mistakes.
I remember how when the last guy came, I kind of rushed things along a bit because I generally get impatient when a guy starts calling me everyday and chatting with me endlessly without telling me what he wants… and so I went point blank to ask “what do you want”.
Well…
From the lessons God taught me, I was basically already letting my emotions run wild and that was the reason why I eagerly wanted him to declare his intentions without wasting time.
This is not to say that I should let a guy hang around me without defining things but it’s basically to say that I shouldn’t take a guy as anything serious till he comes out to say what he wants with me (I don’t know if that makes sense).
We know how we ladies act when we go on a date with a “to die for guy”…
We get back home and start drooling to all our friends about how “perfect” this guy is and how he is our knight in shining armor…
Well, the principle of not letting our hearts run wild dictates that we take things cool and leave it all at God’s hands no matter how we feel.
We all know how we also have those friends who squeal along with us, look at the guy’s picture and get all excited…
And that’s all good but wrong.
It sets an expectation on a guy that hasn’t come out to say anything.
That happened to me in red lips situation and we just didn’t know any better then.
As I read “Lady in Waiting”, I paused at a point and wrote down what God was saying to my heart…
He said:
“I’m teaching you how to behave when he comes. Stay still, don’t rush. If anyone should be in a haste, let it be him.
You stay still, in tune with all I have given you to do in this season till I say you should say yes to him…
Go slowly, rest assured that you are not the one who needs the man, he is the one who needs you”.
And as soon as I wrote that down, I went back to the book and the next page in the book talked about how Naomi told Ruth to sit back and relax and let Boaz sort out the matter that day.
It was almost like Naomi was telling Ruth, “don’t get your expectations high up, let’s see what will come out of this…”
And this kind of advice protects our hearts from emotional heartbreak.
I believe we run too fast when we see a guy/woman we connect with.
I have been in such situations lots of times when I am attracted to a guy and every time I see him, my heart goes “boom boom boom!”
I have learnt something from God on a way to handle my emotions though and I would love to share it with us today…
This is what I do when I am attracted to a guy…
I place my emotions at God’s feet.
I remember last year when I was feeling M (a bit of M’s story is here) like badly feeling him.
I would talk with him on phone, do all the lovey dovey small voice talk and then drop the call and be feeling “one kain two kain”.
My saving grace was that I always made sure to talk to God about how I was feeling.
My conversations when I am attracted to a guy always goes like this…
“Lord you see how I am feeling towards this guy…
My feelings are running out of control here.
Please help me Lord.
I give you my emotions and my heart whole heartedly.
Please hold it in your hands and never let it go till the man is the one you have for me.
Please hold my emotions in your arms… keep them safe.
Don’t let me release them till you say so…”
And every time, when it has always turned out that the man isn’t God’s chosen for me, that prayer has helped to place my emotions under wraps.
It’s almost like when I give my emotions over to God over and over again, the veil that threatens to wrap my eyes becomes clearer… I can’t really explain how it works.
But the more I pray like this and instead tell God I want your will in my marital life, the more the emotions clear and I can tap into the Spirit to hear what He says.
I believe that if we would adopt this way of dealing with emotions when choosing a mate, we would be less likely to miss God’s best for us.
Why?
Because we would have wholly surrendered our hearts to Him and let Him get His answer to us without our emotions blocking our spiritual antenna.
I have run ahead of God in my head too many times in past times.
I see a guy and start fantasizing on whether he is the one or not.
Add his fine physique to that and my attraction to him and it’s almost like “yes, it’s him!”.
But that only leads to emotional heart break because the lines are not clear cut, the guy hasn’t said anything yet.
We must learn to take our emotions to God, slow down our roll and allow God work His way in our relationships.
And for the guys, we plead with you to stop with the “words that infer something more” when you have nothing in mind.
Guys… even christian guys these days defraud ladies in the area of their emotions a lot.
You haven’t proposed to her but keep giving the “what if we were married scenarios”.
She goes home and builds a castle in her head when you haven’t even come out to say you wanna court her.
This deal with emotions goes both ways.
Yes, a lady can learn to slow her roll and calm her heart while waiting on God for her spouse…
But the men can also learn to relate with ladies as sisters only first and not infer more than friendship when they aren’t even certain of what they want from her.
Inferring more than friendship can even mean your calling her a pet name like “sweetheart” all the time.
Yes!
The way a lady’s mind works is amazing!
You call her everyday and night before you go to bed and she already thinks you are the one.
Basically both sexes need to help each other keep their emotions in check while waiting for God’s best for them.
For the ladies, remember, Boaz did the running around to get married to Ruth.
Ruth simply “waited” in peace (not in worries) to get feedback from Boaz.
If anyone should be in haste to get married to anyone, let it be the man.
You maintain your being the cool, calm and calculated lady that you are.
When he is certain of what he wants, let him come then and not before.
If he comes before then, tamper your expectations with the God factor.
Slow your roll and even if your emotions are threatening to drown you in “what if” questions… you can borrow my prayer above and learn to give your heart over to the Lord as many times as you need to do so.
Even when he comes after he’s certain of what he wants, don’t run ahead of God and give your heart to him without getting approval from God on whether he is the man for you.
It would save us the trouble of getting into a lot of unnecessary heartaches.
So let’s learn to let God rule even in the area of our oh so fickle emotions and feelings.
Till our next love letter,
Keep letting God write your love story,
Love,
Frances.
PS: Yes, I know that i’m supposed to write on the Ephesians 5:25 man like I mentioned here last week…
I haven’t forgotten.
There’s a long story about where the journal where I jotted down my notes is… but that love letter will be up soonest.
Please bear with me 🙂
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8 Comments
Princess Okechukwu
March 2, 2016 at 2:37 amI cannot overemphasize on the blessing of telling your feelings to God, it’s an integral activity that reflects how well we’ve really surrendered our lives to Him. A surrendered life is one that is transparent before God; no taking ownership of a facet, and choosing which part of our lives God should handle.
I love this post so much, because it resonates with me, and I can testify to the pleasure of peace and order that comes with God being Lord over my emotions. It is bliss!
Frances Okoro
March 10, 2016 at 7:16 pmTruly pure bliss sis!
An immediate “peace be still upon the heart and it’s emotions…” letting God rule even in the places where we are tempted to hide from Him…
*love and lots of love Princess! Always amazing to see you here even though I know “seeing you here” transcends just seeing you on the blog.
*hugs*
Cynthia Chinazor
March 16, 2016 at 8:39 pmLady in waiting!! *squeals in delight* Got the book from a sister and read it. Been looking for it in bookshops. Wanted to have my own copy. A must have for every single lady who is believing God for her Boaz. Really, emotions can be misleading. That is why it is very important we lift those emotions before God. Keep the good job of letting God use you to bless lives through this blog. May your feet be firmly planted in Him and may you continue to walk in the centre of His will. Lots of love
Frances Okoro
March 20, 2016 at 5:18 pmAmen and amen and amen to your prayers Cynthia!
Lovely book eh? 🙂
And yes oh, we have to keep bringing those emotions under God!
Temi
May 20, 2017 at 10:21 pmHmm… I am blessed.
Frances Okoro
June 5, 2017 at 9:09 pmThank God Temi..Thank God
Amaka
April 8, 2018 at 5:49 pm“Relax, everything’s going to be all right; rest, everything’s coming together; open your hearts, love is on the way!” (Jude 1:2, MSG)
Thanks for sharing this with me today ?
Frances Okoro
April 19, 2018 at 3:53 pmOh wow. Because I still read this some days back and it soooo helped and blessed me. Thank God oh Amaka. We are gleaning too 🙂