Don't Absolutize the Relative

Walking in Love: Don't Absolutize the Relative

This excellent sermon really puts plainly why we are not to judge one another for our differences in how we worship God. We are all different. The world contains vastly different cultures that lend themselves to different types of worship and serving. Who are we to say someone else's service to God is being done wrong, just because our own convictions about it are different? Can't we all just get along? (click the link above to hear)

Just Hold His Hand

I am a small child. The world around me is in chaos. I cannot make sense of anything I see, because I can't see -it's so dark and void of color. Fog and dust and debris are swirling madly around me, and my hair whips about my face and eyes. What is ahead of me? What's behind? I can't tell. Frightening noises assault my ears, and I don't know where the sounds are coming from. They're like nothing I've ever heard before. I want to curl up in a ball and hide or run far away, but I can't.

I notice that a grown-up is holding my hand, high above my head. It's my Abba, and if I look at Him, I'm able to tune out the crazy scene around me. I realize that I'm oddly safe amid complete chaos. I look to my surroundings again and become gripped with fear, because I know that no one could survive in this environment. But then I feel that sure and strong hand around mine, and I know that as long as I'm walking hand in hand with Him, none of it can touch me.

Being Offended

In our world today, we increasingly see everyone up in arms over what others are doing and saying. Everywhere we go, people are shouting at one another, "I'm offended by what you said! What you are doing is wrong, and it it is my God-given duty stand in the way of your wrong actions!" Remember this: being offended is merely emotional shorthand for passing judgment on others. 

So what's the problem with that? The problem is, it is not our job to judge anyone! Let me ask all parents this question: Do you allow your children to discipline each other? We are all God's children, and His Word has plenty to say about how He feels about us judging each other:

“Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”

Colossians 3:13 NLT

“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven.”

Luke 6:37 NLT

Last but not least, my favorite passages on the subject:

“So let’s stop condemning each other. Decide instead to live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble and fall. I know and am convinced on the authority of the Lord Jesus that no food, in and of itself, is wrong to eat. But if someone believes it is wrong, then for that person it is wrong. And if another believer is distressed by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you eat it. Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died. Then you will not be criticized for doing something you believe is good. For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

Romans 14:13-17 NLT

"So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it. You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.”

Colossians 2:16-23 NLT

God's up to something...

I found myself praying an odd prayer recently. I'm certain I was in the Spirit at the moment I said it, but when I replayed the sound of the words in my head, it just sounded like a strange way to talk to God. The words came out of me almost involuntarily. I said, "Lord, whatever it is that you have for me to do, whatever you're preparing me for, or are about to put in front of me, I'm down for it. I just have one thing to ask. Can we please get this show on the road?" The moment I finished saying it, I almost felt startled, thinking, "Did that really just come out of me?" Then I was overcome with peace about it, and the distinct feeling that I had just said exactly what God wanted to hear from me. I think He's up to something...

Amy's Life Lesson

I’m riding in a car on the passenger side. My husband is driving. We’re on a heavily forested mountainside road filled with sharp turns. Each time we make it around one curve, the next one is already upon us. He is driving way too fast, and I flinch through each one. After the first couple of them, I’m no longer in the passenger seat...I’m in the back. We continue down the road. Through each turn I cringe in terror, because I know that there is no way we should be making it around any of them. Now I am no longer in the car at all, but hovering above. I am not affected by wind or speed, but I continue experiencing the fear of what I think is about to happen as each bend in the road is barely navigated...then something unexpected happens: he reaches a curve that is no more or less difficult to steer through than any of the others, but makes no attempt at all to go around it. I watch the car sail off the side of the mountain, vanishing into the trees below. I hear no sound, but know instantly that he’s gone forever...there is a sudden feeling of crushing grief in my chest. The next thing I know I’m home, but it’s not a home I remember. I’m dimly aware that it’s a couple of years or so later. I’m with a new husband, and while I know that he is good to me and my children, and that we have a happy life together, the memory of what I perceive as just having happened is too fresh. I scream out in anguish, “Noooo!” but no one can hear or see me doing it. My mind is still disturbed by the past, but my new life cannot acknowledge it or understand why.

Upon awakening, I know that this was a dream of meaning, and I know exactly what the meaning is. I pray to God that it is just a warning of what could happen and not a foretelling of what will happen. I tell my husband about the dream (leaving out the new husband part) and he understands the meaning of it as well. He tries to assure me that it will serve as a warning, but he makes no changes in his life or to the path he is on.

We met and were married is less than a year’s time. He had a “past” and made no secret of it. He had been abused in childhood and had been in trouble with the law. He had been to treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, and was happily clean and sober for about a year and a half at the time we met. During that time of sobriety he had come to know the Lord in a very powerful way. I took this as reassurance that the things of his past would remain there. God had brought us together, there was no doubt of it. 

During our courtship he informed me that some of his past ways of thinking and relating to others might surface from time to time: that he might he might tend to try to “bulldoze” me. He told me in no uncertain terms that if this were to happen, all I would need to do would be to stand up for myself and he would come to his senses and back down. It didn’t go that way at all. When, after we had been married a few months, it happened that I needed to defend myself against being “bulldozed” it was made perfectly clear to me that I was not to defend myself in any way. I did not deserve to be defended, as this would mean that he had behaved wrongly, and how dare I insinuate he had done anything wrong by defending myself! 

I quickly became depressed...extremely so, and if he detected that I was feeling upset or depressed in any way, he would rebuke me for it, attempting to guilt me into feeling better. I couldn’t understand the logic of him trying to make me feel terrible for feeling terrible. The depression rapidly became all-consuming, and I withdrew from all other friend and family relationships with those who would truly love me.    

Drugs and alcohol had entered the picture. I was expected to partake. When a new drug was introduced, I was usually forced to participate. I hated doing it, but at the same time it served to keep some of the anguish at bay. Over time, I continued using as a way to numb myself to the pain that my life had become, despite continuing to loathe doing it.

Our son was born just over a month before our second anniversary. Upon finding out I was pregnant, I was allowed to abstain from drugs and alcohol, and did so without there being any issue with it. He was born robustly healthy and grew rapidly. He provided the only joy there was in my life at the time, and I was consciously aware that if not for him, I would have no reason to live. I did my best not to allow him to become aware of this fact as he grew, as I knew that would be way too much responsibility for my little guy to bear. 

During all of this, God would speak to me from time to time. It actually began before things went bad...quite a number of years before having the aforementioned dream. I was lying in bed awake one night. My husband was at work (one of the very few times he actually maintained gainful employment), and I heard the Lord say very clearly to me, “My dear, you’re probably not going to have him for very long.” Somehow I knew He was telling me that my husband was going to die young. “No, NO!” I pleaded, “Don’t let it be!” Then I thought to myself, “Hey, wait a minute, what does ‘probably’ mean?” To my surprise, I was provided right away with a twenty year timeline broken down into five year increments, and the probability of it happening (or not happening) within each of them. During the first five years it was possible to happen, but not likely. To be completely honest, he nearly did die of an alcohol overdose within our first year of marriage. I kept him breathing for about a half an hour until he sobered up enough to breathe on his own again, but I digress... During the second five years the probability of it happening would increase, but not be as great as it would be during the third five years. If we made it to the last five years, the likelihood of it happening would be considerably less, but not completely gone, and if we made it the full twenty years, we would be together the rest of our lives. I considered this to be a more than acceptable answer and hoped against hope that we would make it through. 

It wasn’t much longer before things went south. I could see the writing on the wall. I was continually reminded of how worthless I was: that my feelings had no value and my attempts at defending myself were meaningless. Just to make these points crystal clear, he would berate me severely if I even hinted that I might be thinking differently about something than he did. “You’re against me! You’re my wife, you’re not supposed to be against me!” he would say, among other things including name-calling, belittling and the like. By doing this he made it clear that I was not allowed to have my own opinion or thoughts on anything. He would gladly shame me in private or in public...and when he did it publicly, it was apparent that he didn’t harbor a single thought that he might be making himself look bad in front of anyone. His only aim was to completely humiliate me. It worked.  

While I still clung to the love I felt God had created between us, I knew that living this way was not sustainable. I occasionally was reminded of what the Lord had told me as I laid in bed that night, and would plead anew for my husband’s life. One day He gave me an answer in the form a promise. He said to me, “I will not take him unless or until you become ready for him to be gone.”

“It’s a deal!” said I.  Little did I realize what “becoming ready for him to be gone” was going to entail.

Years went by. Nearly six years after the birth of our son, we had a daughter. The level of stress I was experiencing had become so extreme, it made my milk supply dry up so I was only able to breastfeed her for three months. I can remember noticing it beginning to happen when she was only two months old. I curled up on the bed, sobbing over not being able to be an adequate mother.  

The drug use had become rampant at this point. I can hardly think of a drug that did not enter our home at one point or another. He was pretty much always on something, and I was right there with him quite a bit of the time, once my milk was dried up once and for all, which didn’t take long.

Because of his constant drug and alcohol abuse, he became unable to have sex with me. He was not, however, unable to become initially aroused, and he regularly forced me to “service” him. I got nothing in return – this went on for years. 

I started pleading with God to make it come to an end. It had gotten to the point where I knew absolutely that God was not going to allow things to continue this way indefinitely. I prayed for my husband to be healed so I could be relieved of the hell I was experiencing. It was then that the Lord made me a new promise. He said that if I stuck it out to the end, I would not have to wait for some kind of happiness to occur in my life - that it would just be there. This promise sustained me for quite some time, but the situation continued to deteriorate. I went from praying for God to fix my husband to praying that He would either fix him or take him, I no longer cared which. I was becoming “ready for him to be gone."

I continued pleading with God, begging Him to bring this season of my life to an end. He said to me, "Please don't leave him yet." I could tell that the Lord was asking, rather than commanding me to stay with my husband. I was intrigued by this, and by His use of the word "yet." I struggled with understanding why He would use that word. My immediate reaction at the time was to ask, "Yet? What does 'yet' mean?” I was incredulous. I thought to myself, “Does this mean it's going to be okay for me to leave him in the future?” I heard no answer; He only repeated Himself, "Just please don't leave him yet." 

Despite the amount of heartache and utter discouragement I was experiencing in my marriage, I could not even begin to entertain the idea of not doing something God was directly asking me to do, so I agreed without reservation.

...you know how sometimes you get that little involuntary muscle twitch just below your eye? I developed these kinds of twitches all over my body. Both of my eyes twitched, my face twitched on either side of my nose just below my cheekbones, I had twitches on my arms, my legs and my torso. Severe stress was completely consuming me. I have this memory of lying prone in the middle of the living room floor, contemplating the absurdity of being incapable of willing myself to death...seeing as how I had come to wish for it so very intensely. 

I had reached a time of being totally overwhelmed with despair. I cried out to God, “Please, PLEASE make this end! I can’t do this anymore! I’m breaking…I'm losing myself!” He answered me in the strangest way. He said, “Alright, you got Me.” –as if I had just said, “Tag, You’re it!” I was quite startled to hear the Lord say something like that to me, and I asked, “What? I got You? …What?!”    

“You got Me.” He said again, and then He elaborated: “You have every right to leave him, and you even should, but I’m going to ask you one last time, please don’t leave him yet.” 

I was shaking, and I was really stunned by the “and you even should” part. On one hand, God had just told me something that hardly anyone who knows Him would ever believe He would say...on the other hand, I knew that He had just revealed truth directly to me, and had again asked me to do something very specific. I still found myself incapable of refusing a direct request from the Lord. I gritted my teeth. My fists were balled up, my knuckles white. I barely was able to squeak out my answer, “okay.”    

About a week later, I was working an extra shift on a Friday night. I got “the phone call." It was just over two months before our twelfth anniversary. Our son was less than a month from turning ten, and our daughter had recently turned four. The police were at my house. “Come home immediately.” they told me.

“He did something, didn’t he?” I asked rhetorically. I knew they would say nothing anyway. 

As I drove home, I began to open my mouth to pray aloud, “Please let him be alive!" but in my heart I somehow knew what was really going on. Still, a small part of me hoped that this might be his final wake-up call. Interestingly, my planned words were not the words that came out. I felt a mild shock as the phrase formed in my mouth, “Lord, Your will be done," I said instead. 

My husband had passed away of a drug overdose. I can’t say that I was terribly surprised...I took vague notice that it had happened during the “third five years” - the period of time when God had told me it was most likely to happen. It was, however, an astoundingly shocking experience. I awoke the next two mornings to find myself already screaming as I entered into consciousness.   

Soon thereafter, God granted me the ability to understand that despite the fact that He had asked me to stay, I would have been within my rights to remove myself from the “marriage” at almost any time, not just at the end. God had only asked me to stay, He hadn’t commanded it. There is a reason for that. You see, my husband had abandoned me by failing miserably at holding up his end of the marriage vows. He had, in fact, refused to keep them, effectively divorcing me in every way except on paper. I have heard it said that there is no loneliness greater than that caused by being with someone who makes you feel alone. I can attest to that being the absolute truth.

There is a pervasive belief among Christians that the one and only legitimate reason to leave a marriage is when sexual infidelity occurs. This is a backward way to view the situation. When a spouse has been unfaithful, it is they who have already left the marriage. It has become clear to me, however, that there are more ways than just sexual infidelity by which a person can “cheat” on their spouse. Marriage vows include the promises to “love, honor and cherish." Persistent failure or refusal to keep these promises is also cheating. I do not recall ever attending any wedding ceremony where the vows were: “I promise to avoid having sex with other people, but that’s the only promise I’m going to make," and then someone says, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

Yes, I am aware that there is also a vow that says “for better or worse." I think a more accurate wording of that vow should be: “through better and worse."  

Marriage is supposed to be filled with ups and downs, not just downs. God has not called us to be dragged through the mud throughout the duration of our lives. He did not create the institution of marriage to be used as a torture chamber by those who would wield it in that way. Let me be clear: we, as women, are not biblically called to submit ourselves to abuse. 

I have come to understand that He has allowed an out for those who have found themselves abandoned or in marriages that were entered into in bad faith by a spouse who lords the marriage license over them like it’s a certificate of ownership. 

I do not wish what I have written here to be an endorsement for divorce. I do not want to see marriages end if it's possible for those marital ends to be avoided in any way. I absolutely believe marriage should be held in the very highest regard, and that marriages should be supported and held together whenever possible...but we live in a fallen world here, folks. This is the very reason Jesus was sent to die in our place. 

Human beings make mistakes, sometimes grave mistakes (also known as sin). In marriage, some may have married the wrong person in the first place. Some spouses may have turned from God and allowed themselves to take a path that they never would have had they stayed with Him. Whatever the mistake is, Jesus’ death and resurrection have covered it completely. God did this in order to perfect all things and provide healing in all situations. All. Situations. 

It can be a very trying thing to do, but we must have faith that He will give us the wisdom and strength to endure through difficult circumstances as we wait on His perfect timing. His answer will come. If we have done this, we will see that He has chosen to take the slow (and often surprising) route to perfection, but as humans (who don’t always pay attention to such things) we often try to tell God what we think the perfect thing to do is, and when and how we think it should be done. We often don’t realize that what we might regard as being perfect in the here and now may not be so in the long haul. Only God knows. We have to trust in Him alone and be open to the idea that He might teach us something different about Himself and His kingdom than what we have been taught by this world - even by Christians of this world. 

The truth of the matter is, marriage is supposed to be about love. More specifically, it should be a reflection of the love Christ has for the church; and the Bible is very clear on the subject of love. It provides unmistakable instructions on how husbands and wives are to show love to one another. Ephesians 5:21-29 states: “For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord, for a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of His body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up His life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to Himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies, for a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body, but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church.”

There are many who interpret the phrase, “wives should submit to your husbands in everything” as giving husbands free reign as to how they are allowed to treat their wives, and saying that wives have no choice but to take any treatment that might be dished out, but if you look at the passage as a whole, wives are called to submit to husbands who treat them as Christ treats the church: with loving leadership. Colossians 3:19 spells it out explicitly for husbands: “Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.” 

To sum this all up, a very specific inventory of how to identify love, stating exactly what love is and what it isn’t, can be found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."

I have come to know that the Lord used my circumstance to teach me a truth that is not well known: that continual failure to adhere to any and/or all the vows of marriage with no effort to remedy the situation is tantamount to leaving (or divorcing) one’s spouse, and the one who has been abandoned...in whatever way the abandonment occurs...may no longer be bound by their vows. 

As 1 Corinthians 7:15 states: “but if the husband or wife who isn’t a believer insists on leaving, let them go. In such cases the Christian husband or wife is no longer bound to the other, for God has called you to live in peace." I personally like that last part, “for God has called you to live in peace.” It makes it pretty clear, doesn’t it? God does not want us to continue living in a tortured relationship! This may be a difficult pill for some to swallow, as it may mean having to realize that a spouse they were sure was saved may actually not be. 1 John 4:7-8 has something very straightforward to say on that subject: “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God; but anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love”

For whatever reason, I had to stay until the bitter end in order to learn the lessons God wanted me to learn. By doing this, I have realized that one reason the Lord asked me to stay in my marriage, rather than ordering me to stay in it, was so I would understand that probably within the first year of my marriage, my husband had already failed so abysmally at being a husband, I was no longer bound to the vows I had taken. I now know that He said, "Please don't leave him 'yet'" because, by all rights, I already could have, and the end of the marriage would not have been my doing. I have slowly come to understand that whatever “salvation experience” occurred in my husband’s life might not have been the real thing. His seed may have fallen among the rocky soil, sprouted quickly and then died (see Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23). I don’t say this to pass judgment on him, as that is not my job. It has just become more clearly a possibility as time has gone by, and I am gradually learning to be at peace with it. It’s all in God’s hands.

There is more to why God personally asked me to stay in my marriage. He wanted me to come out of the experience knowing this truth absolutely: there is such a thing as being “spiritually divorced” from one's spouse. There are those whose spouses have divorced them in spirit, yet they cling with all their might to their marriage vows, and to that legal paper that declares them married, in many cases believing that they will be punished by God for not clinging to it. 

Certainly the Lord appreciates this kind of dedication to one’s vows, and He may (and sometimes does) choose to use such dedication to affect a miraculous change in a faltering marriage, but when a person has been wholly abandoned by a spouse who has utterly failed to keep the promises of marriage, or if a person has been physically abandoned by their spouse entirely, that individual may no longer be required to stay in the marriage, as it may no longer be a marriage at all. 

Care must be taken with how to interpret the meaning of this. This does not mean that any and every time you get into a fight with your spouse you have the right to say, “You’re not showing me love according to our marriage vows! You’re failing at keeping your vows! I deserve a divorce!” May that never be! I’m talking about continuous actions-speak-louder-than-words refusal to keep the promises that were made at the wedding ceremony.          

There are many people who have found themselves in this situation: people whose spouses have already divorced them in every way except on paper. I wish to pray effectively not only for people who are trying to save their struggling marriages, but for those who are in marriages that have reached the point of complete hopelessness. I wish to counsel husbands and wives who are having a hard time in their marriages to learn how to come together in Christ. I do not, however, wish to counsel people to stay in marriages that are unsalvageable, or where spiritual divorce has occurred. I pray that people will realize when they have been spiritually divorced, so they can move into the next phase of life God has for them unhindered by the feeling that they have failed Him or anyone else, because they are not the ones who have failed in this circumstance. 

We must never forget: God loves us all so very much, and He makes all things new, often in unexpected ways. May God bless you as you seek to find His will in your life and marriage. ~Amy Rippee ©2013

Don't Be Deceived

Have you been lured into loving someone who had anything but your best interests at heart? Did they say all the right things, making you think that they desired you and needed you in their life, but never consistently back it up with their actions? Did they only ever show you affection when they knew it was necessary to keep you "on the hook?" Some of you have been deceived in love and cannot reconcile your own feelings of love for the one who tricked you. Love trickery is one of the worst kinds of deception, because your most intimate and dearly held feelings are being manipulated. It feels like it's coming from yourself...in fact, you are completely convinced that it is coming from you, but it isn't.

You felt all the "love feelings" you've always been taught you were supposed to feel, but the only time your feelings were returned is when there was something in it for them, and you've been so injured by this confusion, you are struggling to learn that there is a very simple principle that must be applied here: love cannot come from deception. 

...Just like a cherry tree can't grow from a maple seed, or like an orchid can't grow on the stalk of a dandelion. It's simply not possible. Period. 

Were you deceived into loving someone? Do you still pine for that person at times, considering that the feelings you held for them were true? Are you currently being deceived in love? If you are or have been deceived in this way, you may want to revisit where your feelings are really coming from and consider altering what you think it feels like to be in love. God does not create confusion. 

Remember this well: the swooning feelings you had toward this confusion-creating person can't have been real love, because they grew directly out of a deception that was craftily fashioned to pull those feelings out of you against your will. 

Love is a choice, and love deception takes away the opportunity to choose. It takes control of the situation, puts you on marionette strings, and you lose yourself to it.

Think of Eve when she took that first bite of the forbidden fruit. She did not immediately feel ashamed, did she? No, she excitedly shared it with Adam. She was deceived into thinking it was harmless to eat it, and when she took that bite, it was temporary bliss. She felt powerful, as if she had taken control of her own destiny. It smelled good, it tasted good, it was beautiful to look at, and for a moment, she was pleased that the serpent had convinced her to go ahead and try it -so much so that she felt compelled to share it with her husband. She may even have, just for a moment, thought to herself, "That serpent really does care for me! I am so thankful that he got me to try that delicious fruit, and I love him for doing it!" 

Do you think a feeling like that could possibly have been real love? No way, because true love is not temporary! It cannot come from deception, and it is not temporary! Eve soon discovered that she had been deceived, and any thought she may have had that the devil had her good in mind was quickly squashed.

How is it possible for such seemingly strong and lasting heartfelt emotions come from a deception? Well, that's the nature of deception. When a person is deceived, they don't know they're being deceived. Lies become the truth in the mind of a deceived person, and the love feelings that grow out of emotional trickery are just that -lies. That's what makes this kind of deception so difficult to overcome. You are not only being lied to by another person, but the lies they are feeding you cause your own emotions to become untrustworthy.

All I can say is: pray, pray, pray. Pray that you will not only be delivered from the deception of a false lover, but also from the feelings you have developed for them that are nothing more than lies themselves. What a horrible betrayal of trust, to be tricked in a way that causes your own feelings to lie to you! Pray for your emotional healing to be complete in every way. Pray that you will find the truth in every aspect of your situation. Pray that God will show you where to go for help if you need it. Sometimes we need to lean on others for the support we need, and He will bring the right person into your life who can help you to heal if you need it -a mentor, pastor, even a therapist. There will be those times when He quietly whispers truth to your heart. Don't be closed off to those moments. Pray that you will not be afraid to trust yourself and therefore become unable to notice when The Lord is speaking directly to you, because sometimes He does. Most of all, pray that He will show you what it truly is to love and be loved by another, and that He will make you truly ready for it by releasing you from old feelings that cannot be trusted. 

Ephesians 5:6 "Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." 1 John 3:7 "Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;"