What's Love Got to Do With It?

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor:

 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. 

Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? 
Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

See, another King Solomon gem from the book of Ecclesiastes! I've heard verse 12 quoted a few times but I never knew it came from this book. This scripture is usually read at weddings and I believe it's befitting. 

Though, I absolutely love and admire romantic covenant relationships, I personally don't  like talking about them. Needless to say, today, I've been moved to go here for some reason. 

Plus, I noticed an odd influx of relationship posts and meme's floating around these parts too. Some of them good. Others...meh. Giving me fuel for this unction.

I think if I were to hand you my report card for my relationship history it would be riddled with D's and F's. Ha! I'm just not good with them. I was never good with them while I was in the world nor was I good with them when I was lukewarm. Part due to not having been a witness of any palpable representations of them engaged correctly. I basically mimicked what I was accustomed to.

Since taking myself off of the dating scene indefinitely 5 and a half years ago to pursue a life of abstinence and purity, honestly as of late, I have not been the least bit eager to join this current frantic and frenzied quest for romantic "love".  

While crowds of people are succumbing to baby fever, harassed by biological clocks, life calendars, and vision boards, I'm literally pressed for nothing. It reminds me of when I was a Sunday school teacher and would instruct my babies to clean up at the end of class. They would be so thirsty to clean up because they knew they'd be rewarded for following instructions.  However in their frenzy, they made more of a mess of things than anything. I would just stand off in the corner shaking my head and laughing.
I'm seeing the sane thing, people running around trying to follow a myriad of man made directives and making an absolute mess as they go.

I've also gained a strong distaste for these idolatrous hashtags for relationship/marriage goals and the insurmountable relationship advice coming from people all over of which those who claim to be followers of Christ are ironically eating up and adopting, without Christ checking any of it first. 

I don't think many single believers are actually interested in going about romantic relationships seriously from a biblical perspective. To many, this route is too hard, too antiquated, or too boring. If this were contrary, people would not be so quick to idolize popular couples or copy and paste worldly standards to their ideals for covenant relationships. 

I say let the world keep its relationship rules! 

We as the sons and daughters of God have a different addendum to follow. 

If God is love, what's LOVE got to do with it? 

    Ephesians 5:30-32

 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

It's fine to keep in mind the healthy Godly relationships out here as your evidence that they
do exist. It's cool to glean from those who have relationship advice but if all of this trumps 

the greatest truest relationship goal which is Christ's relationship with you; the Church, then is it really worth it? 

This might not appeal to you, but your first desire should be to continuously maintain your relationship with Jesus and then let this relationship be the model to which you use to govern a potential romantic relationship. 

I've been angry to tears watching believers debate with other believers about how a kingdom household should be set up, whether the husband should be the head of the household, and whether a woman should submit to her husband and what this actually means. I've been made even more uncomfortable by this 50/50 if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours trend that people are applauding. Try to digest this one, "A man should love the woman more than the woman should love him in order for the relationship to work." This saddens me because everything has been so perfectly laid out in God's word for us yet we overlook or even worst reject it.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that we should have everlasting life. John 3:16 told us this. Does that sound like a 50/50 deal to you? Does that sound like someone who was keeping tabs? Does that sound like a love than can be measured? NO! God so LOVED. Therefore God LOVES. And this is why He IS LOVE! 

In our human futility, we complicate love. We desecrate it. So it is to be expected that we screw up romantic relationships. I admitted earlier that I mimicked what I was accustomed to. Why/How? Because I didn't know God and when I did know Him, I was still trying to go at my relationships the same way that I was when I didn't know Him. 

Inevitably, they all fell apart. I was running to my popped idea of love but I wasn't running to the cross! Does this make any sense? The cross represents true love. This means true love is sacrifice and I'm afraid that the world and all of it's cute and fancy love cliches or whatnot is mainly revolving around a minimal denial of self. The world's parliaments of love not surprisingly contains the absence of death.  

The world says, "You don't have to give up your whole selves to call it love." 

LIES! 

If we don't want to die in our romantic partnerships then love can not exist. When love does not exist, positions are confused. The head no longer will be the head but the tail! The rib will be the backbone trying to hold everything together. When God is not the third strand, you will have two people dying to the demands of a faulty foundation instead of dying to themselves. This is why you will find people getting married to medicate their self esteem issues, getting married to cure their loneliness, getting married to boost their social or financial status. #Tragic

I don't know about you all, but I've gotten it wrong so many times, I would like to finally get it right one time! And if I'm going to be in it, I want to be in it all the way! But I first want to keep it right with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ first! I've reached a confident resolve to where I'm willing to reject any promise of a romantic love if it would balk at the cross. If it would thumb its finger and stick its tongue out at the One who traveled to some very dark and dirty places to get to me! 

Because at the end of the day, Christ coming for His bride without spot, wrinkle, or blemish, is my #RelationshipGoal.