The Secret to True Love: 2 Reasons You May Be Unhappy in Love

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Jeremiah 2:13 

There is a lot of heartache in love relationships in our world and I want to talk about today. 

Heartache springs from many different cisterns. One type of heartache, for example, is the feeling of loneliness while being in a love relationship. I never really understood how I could be in a relationship or in a crowd and feel lonely. 

Loneliness is the feeling of being a single unattached unit. It is a longing for attention or for the affection of someone who actually realizes that you exist. 

Believe me, I have been lonely and it is not a wonderful feeling. But the truth is, loneliness is what it is: a feeling; and we should not yield to our emotions. You know why... If you are like me, doing what you want to do because you feel a particular way (especially yielding to negative feelings such as anger and frustration), you would start to notice a pattern in the repercussions. That's right! Repercussions. Bad stuff usually happen when I decide to lash out because I'm angry, for example. 

Thankfully, these days I don't submit to my feelings as much as I used to because of the consequences I have experienced.

But, praise our Living Loving God who has showed me where my affection should go in order to be happy in relationships! I don't have to nurse feelings of loneliness or other emotional upset because my spouse or friends are not the first recipients of my attention. I want to share with you what I discovered about the root of

some types of heartache. I do mean some because addressing heartache can be a lengthy endeavour!

💓 Read other articles about True Love:
The Secret to True Love: The Fruit of the Spirit is Love
The Secret to True Love: Life Changing Love
3 Steps to Long and Lasting Love: Step 1
3 Steps to Long and Lasting Love: Step 2

2 Reasons You May Be Unhappy in Love

I have read many books about making marriage work. In fact, up to yesterday I was discussing love and cheating with my predominantly male classmates. Of course, my view is that cheating is wrong because it messes up the trust factor in relationships. Then, by some action permitted by Almighty God, I came home that evening to a bag of books that were being donated. I looked at the books and discovered that there were many books in the lot about fixing love relationships or how to carry on successful love relationships and so on along that line. And these books were bestsellers! Of course I will peruse them at my leisure but I must say that I have already found the perfect advice for those who are hurting in their love relationships. And it is simple! It's not even as long as a chapter in one of the thousands of books on the market about the topic!

Some years ago, I was directed to this truth in the book called Irresistible: Revitalize and Empower Your Marriage by Jim Hohnberger. I realized that the principle of 3 tiered loving given by our Saviour, Jesus Christ in Mark 12:30-31:

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

starts with the idea that we should love Almighty God first. This is also stated in many other places in scripture inclusive of Deuteronomy 6:5: 

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

It is the lack of adhering to this first step, and in taking matters into our own hands the we become like Israel in Jeremiah's day who our Father spoke about in Jeremiah 2:13:

For my people have committed two evils; 

1. they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and 

2. hewed (or dug) them out cisterns (wells or sinks), broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

This scripture shows the heart of some of the pain we experience in our love relationships so that we have to ask ourselves:

Where does our Father fit in our lives?

Is He first place, or is it self that occupies first place?

Are we more concerned with making ourselves happy than in having a relationship/friendship with our Father?

Are our jobs, our children, spouses, grades more relevant than walking with God like Enoch did?

I don't know about you but my job never brought me peace. My grades, friends, my spouse or my children never fulfilled my joy. 

Oh boy! I have a lot of stories to tell! 

I have failed in school. I've lost friends. I've been robbed. I've been depressed and on the verge of transitioning to the sleep of death. My marriage ended in divorce. I have felt the pain of rejection and I know the emptiness of loneliness. 

But I realize one thing: my heavenly Father has been constant in my life. 

Nobody and nothing can change the fact that I have experienced the power and love of Almighty God in my life. Because of this, I am mindful that my investment in loving my heavenly Father first, allowing His presence, His Word and His love to convert and heal my brokenness, is the better than waiting on someone else to love me. Therefore, I accept the truth in Word that reminds me that God places the solitary (the lonely) in families. Psalm 68:6. Isn't that amazing?! We have 2 parents and even siblings and other relatives so that we don't have to be alone!

But, rest assured that if father and mother forsake you, Father God becomes your full fledged parent! Psalm 27:10

I rest in His love for me that will not change even in death. Romans 8:39

Also, I am aware that no friend, spouse, job, child or even a pet can complete me. Only Christ can! Colossians 2:10

The fountain of life that gives giving and keeps us in good spiritual and relationship health is God Almighty. He should be our focus. Then He fills all our needs, and teaches us how to love and forgive like He does.
Read about how you can Fix your Focus here.

We try to create our own fountain of peace, joy and love but what we end up with are a cheap version of the True Fountain of Life. Our cheap knock off are sinks that are broken. Sure, we might get some water which may seem refreshing. After all we human beings get thirsty and need something to refresh our yearning. But we become ill from the bacteria that seeps into the water source through the cracks in those man-made sinks! The Fountain of Life is God Almighty! Run to Him for a drink when you are heartbroken, lonely and depressed. Drink from the Fountain on good days. Drink regularly. It's free of cost! I promise you that the peace and the joy and the love, the wholeness you will experience as you drink from this Well will make you look and feel so much better! Go to the Fountain for healing, companionship, advice, joy, hope and love and you will receive!

When you and your spouse see Almighty God as your Fountain of Life, then you will be a well-watered couple. The closer you are to Christ, the more you will be moved by His spirit to love well, to build up each other and to treat each other well. You will live in the spirit of forgiveness without sacrificing your individuality.

Think about it: 

What is your water source? Do you drink good, clean, refreshing water from God's fountain or do you drink polluted water from the sinks you created for yourself? 

Savour this Promise:

Deuteronomy 30:6 (KJV)

And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

💓 Read other articles about True Love:
The Secret to True Love: The Fruit of the Spirit is Love
The Secret to True Love: Life Changing Love
3 Steps to Long and Lasting Love: Step 1
3 Steps to Long and Lasting Love: Step 2

3 Steps to Long and Lasting Love: Step 2

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Matthew 22:36-40  (KJV)

Before she died, I allowed Sister Sam* to cry on my shoulder as she complained about her husband's lack of attention and affection for her. She was my mother's peer but we were married women at different stages in our marriage. When I was a teenager, I observed the marriages around me and I thought they were all the most uncomfortable situations ever! In fact, my church family and even my own parents' marriage seemed like a doom and gloom. So I went to my heavenly father about it and He told me his plan for my life in terms of marriage. As an inexperienced 16-year old girl, tried to reason out what He said and went to my mother. I assumed I would never marry! What the Lord had told me never matched the reality I was seeing all around me even in the church: unhealthy, unhappy marriages.

I told Sister Sam, now that I was a woman in a rocky marriage myself, to not wait for loving from her husband but to seek such perfect loving from God and then love herself. 

So many of us women seek true love in the form of humanity only to be disappointed. But Amighty God, our Father, has given us a 3 step formula for long and lasting love relationships. 

See Step 1 here!

We don't have to suffer from 'love hunger'! Father God tells us how in the Bible. Let's look at Step 2!

💓 Read other articles about True Love:
The Secret to True Love: The Fruit of the Spirit is Love
The Secret to True Love: Life Changing Love
The Secret to True Love: 2 Reasons You May Be Unhappy in Love
3 Steps to Long and Lasting Love: Step 1

3 Steps to Long and Lasting Love: Step 2

I met a dear friend through work some time ago as I was struggling with my emotional well-being after the end of my 11 year marriage. He taught me something that was life-changing, and you know I have to share all this good stuff with y'all! He said that he realized that I was strong but that I was walking around with a victim mindset. He was right. I had survived so many things that it was time for me to realize that I am not a victim. I am so much more than a little hurt human being. I'll say it again: he was right. I was uncomfortable being a victim so I decided it was time to discover the truth about my identity. And then, I absolutely fell in love!

Jesus Christ, love in the flesh, taught that we should love others in the same way we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39). 

Step 2: Love yourself.

The second love relationship we should have is one with ourselves. I started to see myself in a new light. I realized that I woke up with myself and went to bed with myself at night. I walked with myself everyday to work. I figured that I live with myself ... all the time! I wondered at this! For over 30 years I have been living with myself and I didn't really take time out to have a real or ongoing relationship with myself. So, I started. I started talking with myself. I would pat myself on the shoulder and even hug myself! To some people, this may sound crazy but I began to see that if I don't practise loving myself, how will I really love someone else properly? 

For instance: When I was sad about something I would tell myself about it and I found that I always had some good godly advice and I affirmed myself. I never saw myself as a victim. I saw myself as a beautiful, loving, talented woman. Sure, I made mistakes and have some bad habits but those things do not define who I am. My identity comes from God and I am His child. 

Here are some ways to love on yourself regardless of the season you are in:

1. Embrace who God says you are. But, you have to read the Bible to see the truth about who you are in Christ. I recommend reading John 3.

When you accept who God says you are, then when others say otherwise, you are comfortable with He says because God's word is final.

Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. Ephesians 1:5 (KJV)

2. Spend time with yourself. Spend time talking with yourself in a positive way. Schedule times for self-care and for going out on dates with yourself. Yes! Date yourself! Ask yourself questions that your partner would ask you and answer them truthfully! You will get to learn seem surprising things about yourself! Buy yourself flowers sometimes because you love YOU! Start taking care of your health. Set boundaries for yourself and others. You love you so treat yourself well, the way you would want your spouse to treat you. Treat yourself well because you know how special you are. And guess what... nobody else may do all those lovely things for you so do it for yourself. That way, if your next relationship doesn't work out or a friend lets you down, you still have you... and all those flaws that you better love and respect before you expect some stranger to do so!

3. Apply the Biblical principles of love to YOU first.

Love means being patient and kind to yourself.

Don't be envious of others but be humble; appreciate you. 

Don't disrespect yourself or your beautiful body especially because of fleshly urges. Self respect is a big deal because when you set boundaries, you will have less stress later. 

Don't harbour feelings of anger towards yourself, but be forgiving. Be gracious towards yourself. You make mistakes but don't let those mistakes define who you are. 

Expect the very best for yourself. 

Embrace the best qualities you have.

Embrace truth.

Always hope for the best, believe the best and fight for the best.

Accept that you're a Survivor in the Lord!

This is the way forward:

Recognize that you should not wait for love. Start by loving yourself because you accompany yourself everywhere and everyday. 

When you finally enter a relationship or if you are in a relationship, still adhere to that principle of self love because your spouse can leave you or die and then, who is going to be left behind? You. You are not completed by spouse. You are complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10) And Christ teaches us that we should love others as we love ourselves. 

Summary:

Self love is not a sin. It is a commandment. 

Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.

Leviticus 19:18 King James Version (KJV)

*Name changed to protect privacy.

Check out Step 1 here!

💓 Read other articles about True Love:
The Secret to True Love: The Fruit of the Spirit is Love
The Secret to True Love: Life Changing Love
The Secret to True Love: 2 Reasons You May Be Unhappy in Love
3 Steps to Long and Lasting Love: Step 1

3 Steps to Long and Lasting Love: Step 1

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Matthew 22:36-40  (KJV)

Alexia* and I stood on the corner after church. We both shared a similar pain in our love relationships. It feels good to not feel like an island in this world. Many of us don’t know the truth but when we do, the truth does a great work in setting us FREE. (John 8:32) When we experience true freedom, we should reach out to others who are suffering so that they will know they are not alone. We should comfort and encourage each other until we get over to the other side of the storm.

When it comes to our love relationships, our heavenly Father has given us the formula for successful relationships of all kinds.

💓 Read other articles about True Love:
The Secret to True Love: The Fruit of the Spirit is Love
The Secret to True Love: Life Changing Love
The Secret to True Love: 2 Reasons You May Be Unhappy in Love
3 Steps to Long and Lasting Love: Step 2

3 Steps to Long and Lasting Love: Step 1

What does society teach us about love relationships? 

In my experience, as a young unmarried female, I believed that the man I married would love me in a way that he would be kind to me, we would play and pray together and complete each other. I was a romantic according to the world’s standards. Then, after loving and losing a couple of times, I have come to cherish God’s truth about love and relationships.

Our heavenly Father has a formula that is guaranteed to make us survivors of heartache. The formula is revealed in the Bible… Like they call it: Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Yes! The Bible is the manual that God has preserved through the ages to help you and me to navigate through every aspect of life while we live here on earth.

Here we go with Step 1!

(See Step 2 here!)

Step 1: Love God first.

Jesus Christ, love in the flesh, taught that we should love our Father with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind (Matthew 22:37). Let’s examine the teaching in this verse of scripture.

The word heart is from the Greek kardia which means with our thoughts and feelings.

The word soul is from the Greek psuche which means with our spirit, the breath from God Almighty which caused us to become a living soul (Genesis 2:7). We are spiritual beings who travel in bodies which house our spirit. (Matthew 10:28)

Note well that if we are living souls because God breathed His breath into us, it means we are from one God. We are His children. He is our Father.

The word mind is from the Greek dianoia which means with our imagination, intelligence and understanding, our thought processes.

Therefore, we ought to develop affection for God in our essence. He should be the One our souls long for in those stressful seasons. He should be the one that we consult first about our ideas and about plans. He should be the one we go to bed with and wake up with every single day because He is both the first object and the origin of love for us. And it makes sense! God is not like our fellow human beings. He never leaves us. He is patient, kind and gentle or stern when He needs to be. He extends grace to us which is favour undeserved. he always has time for you and His attention is constant. The love we have for or Father should be a profound respect for Him, the One Who does ALL things well! (Genesis 1:31; Mark 7:37)

Additionally, this is one key to unlocking and understanding scripture: God is love (1 John 4:8). This never changes. Some occurrences will seem unfair but if we would acknowledge and trust in His love, He will start to reveal to us sometimes the reasons behind unfortunate experiences and how He works out the worst of situations for the profound good of many afterwards. When we only see God our Father as a punitive God, we don’t get to enjoy all that He really is which is a Father who cares about your uncertainties, your habits that are hurting you and your relationship with Him, your heartaches, even the shoes that you choose to wear today! I know a lady who didn’t listen to our Father’s voice when she was told in her spirit not to wear those shoes that day. She ended up walking barefoot in her diva outfit much to her embarrassment. He cares! And it is this Father who wants to have an intimate relationship with you and me where we come to know Him and love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).

How can we get to know and love Him?

We can get to know more about Almighty God and grow in love with Him by doing the following:

1. Read the Word (the Bible) everyday because it is a priority. We should read the Bible with the aim to learn more about the Lord. (John 17:3)

2. Mediate on the scriptures (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2). By mediation we do not mean to empty the mind but to constantly fill the mind with passages of scripture that we recite  over and over and by reflecting on each line in the selected scripture. We will start to see the connections between our daily life and activities in light of what the scriptures teach and/or reveal.

3. Obey God's commands out of love and respect for Him (John 14:15; John 15:10; Romans 13:10). His commands may seem unconventional and inconvenient in our era but they are protection for us. They are a way that we do not expose ourselves unnecessarily to certain ills. His commandments are not to be considered as restrictions but as secure fences of protection and moral standards that were given out of love from our heavenly Father who knows more than we do about this world. 

4. Have conversations with Father regularly. A fancy word for conversations with God is 'prayer'. Talk with Him as you would talk with a friend who cares and who is listening... because He does! Sometimes I set my timer to 1 hour and talk to my Friend. And at intervals I stop and listen. At the end of those sessions I feel much lighter. 
Matthew 6:9-13

And in all of this, it is His love for us that gives us the gift of choice. He doesn’t force anything on us. That is not love. Love doesn’t argue or abuse. Love encourages growth, purity, peace, kindness and more love. Love makes us better people. 

This is the way forward: 
We will love first the most important, unchanging Lover of our souls, God our Father because He will still be there when everyone else disappoints us.
His grace is extended to you right now. Won't you accept it?

Summary:

First John 4:8 tells us that God is love.  But how do we love God?

But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the Lord charged you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. 
Joshua 22:5 (KJV)

*Name changed to protect privacy.

Click here to read Step 2!

💓 Read other articles about True Love:
The Secret to True Love: The Fruit of the Spirit is Love
The Secret to True Love: Life Changing Love
The Secret to True Love: 2 Reasons You May Be Unhappy in Love

3 Steps to Long and Lasting Love: Step 2