if you're feeling like god has you know withheld love from you or whatever it might be trust him
not him for what you want trust him and entrusting him
you trust his timing you trust his character you trust his heart
no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly if you're walking uprightly if
it's good for you he's not going to withhold it and when it is good for you you will reveal it
you know it's so funny because a lot of single women are told you know lower your standards
your standards are too high uh but you know what i had a friend who told me something that i believe
is the truth that trumps those statements and she said to me she said and she had
gone through hardship like i had in the past and she said i'm telling you this is the mark of you
knowing that it is the lord the bible says that god is able to do exceedingly abundantly above
all we could ever ask think or imagine and she began to brag about the relationship that god
had sent her away that she was currently in and she said i'm telling you this is exceedingly
abundantly above like i had my list they had the things that i wanted but god superseded it
and so i think honestly and i'm not saying that we're just called to look at somebody unless and
go god i want that i want him you know in that way no but god i want great i want what you have for
me and what he has is above that and i think at the same time we are called to keep our standards
up when it comes to how we live the morals that we adhere to my husband and i we were very
intentional about making sure that we remain sexually pure throughout our courtship our dating
you know so that we could make sure that hey we have the stamina to go through the test of sexual
temptation on the front end and after we say i do so my husband didn't touch me in ways that he
wasn't allowed to we did not sleep together my husband did not spend the night at my house you
know while we were dating and there were nights that we were talking for a long time and maybe
one o'clock and he's like i'm not spending the night on the couch i'm going away so that i can
say and you can say that i presented you to the lord like the lord presents his bride you know
without spot or blemish so you know he honored me in that and i'm saying my standards were high his
standards were high when it came to that and not that they were just man standards but they were
god's standards and we were like lord you said that we can do every season we could do all things
because you would give us strength and he gave us the strength to do that i just got to tell you
my husband is fi fine he is fine so temptation was real okay but greater is he that was in me than he
that's in the world greater is he that's in me and in you than our flesh and our temptations okay so
make sure that your morals are high your standards are high and at the same time that you're
expecting for god to do exceedingly abundantly above all you could ask think or imagine
i think you know we have to trust god period i think sometimes we're wanting to trust
uh the answer that we want and so we're believing god for something instead of believing god
and so i think when i start believing god and his character that he is good even when bad
things happen um the fact that i can trust even his no sometimes i can trust his no more than his
yes and i'll explain that in a minute but when i begin to to trust him then it's easier for me to
receive the things that happen in the middle and in between even when he says ah that's not right
for you and i'll say this too when i was saying about sometimes we can trust his no a little
bit more than his yes i'll explain because i know it kind of sounds like a contradiction
but as a parent you know i have kids and there are times that my kids would ask me for something
and if i were to say no to them my no was like no i'm protecting you it's not the right time it
could really harm you it's not good for you i know you're sick and you really want to drive the car
no you can't trust my no it is for your own good but there were times when you know i gave them a
no and they kept pushing and kept pushing and kept pushing and asking to where eventually i was like
i've told you what the consequence would be if i give you a yes are you sure you want to deal with
that consequence are you positive yes ma'am yes ma'am yes ma'am that i gave into something that
they were safer with my no than with my yes just like the children of israel when you know they
asked for a king and god was like it's not a good idea not a good idea they're pressing for a king
give them a king it was not for their betterment so my point is there are times god will close
the door he will close the relationship he'll make sure he doesn't call you back
he'll make sure that that you're saying god if this is not you then god's like
okay you can fast and pray but every time you fast and pray you're gonna break up
you know that we can trust god to know and that that no comes with protection it comes with
his favor it comes with you can rest in my timing and sometimes we want things ahead of time but
it's not the fullness of time again if i give my child a car at the age of six i can say i love my
child all i want but that's not good for him but if i say okay you can wait for the appointed time
at the appointed time what was not good for you back then may be great for you at the other time
so god is good for that he's good in those relationships so if you're feeling like god
has you know withheld love from you or whatever it might be trust him not him for what you want trust
him and entrusting him you trust his timing you trust his character you trust his heart
no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly if you're walking uprightly if
it's good for you he's not going to withhold it and when it is good for you he will reveal it
i remember we had had a season and um well some of it was distance dating because he was in another
state and i was two and so we would facetime every day and that's a whole nother other story but this
is one of those things that really let me know that he was a man of god and god had put his seal
of approval on him we were things were going well everything was great and i was like lord i thank
you because i finally feel like i'm experiencing love redemption this is what i've been praying
for this is what i've been believing for after decades of of hardship and relationships you know
i know what it's like to be abused and betrayed and so i've experienced that for just a long time
and so now is in a new season and i'm like lord this is a brand new relationship this is godly
i feel your presence i feel your pleasure and the lord told me he said i remember hearing uh
inside my heart are you willing to lay it on the altar and that was so hard for me because
i remember wrestling with god for just it was probably a span of a few minutes actually but
it just felt like an eternity and i was like lord like for real like after all of these years
of being in a loveless relationship and all these years of having the struggle in all these years of
having somebody who's finally honoring me in a way that i know you to prove in a way that
i know my dad had prayed for and all of a sudden i started hearing reminders from what i had read
in the scripture of you know abraham when god had asked him to sacrifice isaac and he was like oh
i'm willing to do it because i know what god has promised me and i know that even if i sacrifice
my son god will raise him from the dead because god had not yet fulfilled what he had promised
and so i said okay lord like with tears i choose to lay it down not because my hope
is in this relationship but because my hope is in you and so remember going back to my
husband who wasn't my husband at the time and telling him saying you know what the lord told
me that right now i need to lay us down and we hadn't had a fight he didn't do anything out of
character he was being as godly as godly could be and i said the lord has asked me to lay it
down and his response was i've been praying for a woman who would love god more than she loves me
so you do whatever god tells you to do and i'll be here like i'll be waiting for whatever god says
and in that response alone like it gave me the peace to know this is a man who is not
just after me he's after the heart of the lord he's after the approval of the lord he's after
the ways of the lord and even in that him you know and so it was like about a three-day span
we both fasted and we prayed i cried and cried and cried honestly the first day i was just
you know the the to worship god we had spoken about before is oftentimes accompanied by
sacrifice and the sacrifice is giving of something that is costly something that hurts something that
is valuable to you and at this point it was a culmination of years of what i had desired
years of what i had prayed for from for god from god years of what i had been singing about
and declaring and now god said sacrifice it and when i did god eventually said now you call him
now it's time and just knowing that i had his soul of approval and he was right there and
every single night without fail every single day he has prayed over me my husband he has covered
me from the time we dated until even now he still prays and covers me and he is a man of god
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