NEVER-RELEASED: How God Prepared Me To Start Dating Again
This is a never-released article written by Nyorh Agwe. We hope this raw and authentic reflection of the fears some of us face dating as Christians and how we can overcome them encourages you and inspires you in your journey of faith in relationships.
DIARY ENTRY DATE: July 8th, 2021
“It’s usually when you're just minding your own dang business, maybe having a good ole’ time scrolling through Instagram, that a conviction you never asked for comes out of nowhere. Let’s start the story here on @arielfitz.patrick’s delightfully hilarious page:
After a couple of chuckles and watching it a few more times, I felt a pause and asked, “Now, Holy Spirit, I know you’re here to mature me and make me a vessel for great things, but what are you saying right now? That God is NOT just going to drop off my husband at my front porch?!
Dating is ghetto. And on top of that, your girl has been out of the game for a while. The last “relationship” I had (if you would even call it that), had red flashing lights all over it. But God in His mercy and goodness redeemed me from yet another set of mistakes and loved me through it all. Most importantly, He taught me how to love, care for, and forgive myself and I loved who I was becoming! My relationship with God was so much stronger, I had peace overflowing, and I was doing all the things- serving at my church, loving on people, growing emotionally & spiritually healthy, exercising generosity, I mean all the things! I was even crushing my reading goals and next on the list was... “30 Prayer for My Future Husband”.
*sigh*
You see, I don’t like reading my book list out of order so I guess it was meant to be. I honestly blame (and graciously thank) the authors of that book for planting the seed because before reading it, I wasn’t even thinking of a man. “A man?! For what, so he can come in and mess up the groove God and I have going on???” - That was the response I had to even the thought of it. But not because I didn’t want one in the future but mainly because I didn’t even know what to pray for, think about, or consider. I had had so many wrong men in my life that I didn’t know what a good man looked like. So instead of exploring that area of my life, I avoided it and covered it up with “God, I just want what you want for me,” and kept it pushing.
That is until this moment that the Holy Spirit snatched me up while watching Ariel’s video and I was reminded of a question my Pastor asked our church once- “What if God came down right now and asked you, what do you want me to do for you?” Like He did with King Solomon, or with the blind man. If God would ever give me a blank check, I wouldn’t want to be the one caught speechless. I would want to know exactly what to ask for.
The truth is that having no expectation is not faith, and masking it with “God, I just want what you want for me,” isn’t faith either. Oftentimes, we refrain from placing expectations on God because we don’t want to run into disappointment. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’d admit that there were times we felt like God disappointed us. Maybe He didn’t come at the time we wanted Him to come, or do what we wanted Him to do. So instead of trusting and hoping in Him again, we pray with many words and little faith.
But if we truly believe God to be who He is and that we can live out all of the promises He spoke over us then we have no choice but to have faith! “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Yes, faith is hard because you’re literally believing for something you haven’t seen happen yet. But we have to have something to hope for in order for us to have faith.
I had to start asking myself, Nyorh, what do you really hope for? In your career, in your life, AND in your husband? At least I had a pretty good idea of what I hoped for in the first two areas, but since I had no idea what I really hoped for in a husband I went ahead and picked up “30 Prayers for My Future Husband” and read that thing cover to cover! I began listening to podcasts led by Christian men to get a godly man’s perspective on relationships, dating, and marriage (shout out to Dear Future Wifey podcast!). I went to a small group at my church called “Dear Future Husbands” and joined my faith with 50+ amazing women all believing God to move in magnificent ways for our future marriages. Finally, I felt like I had a hope for my future husband which was great! Because it was definitely a necessary first step.
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But it wasn’t until I watched Ariet Fitz's video that I realized it wasn’t enough just to hope. Faith without works is dead (James 2:17).
*sigh again and cue conviction!*
So God, are you trying to tell me that my “Lord, please let the next man I meet be my husband. Let it just be a one and done situation” prayer, isn’t enough?! You’re saying I actually have to go out and talk to multiple men?!
Ya’ll, this video had me feeling some type of way! I had to go back and do some more deep diving to ask God why I felt the way I felt. I realized that just the idea of dating again was giving me anxiety because I was scared of who I might become in my next relationship based on who I was in the past- blunt, jealous, and seductive.
I didn’t want to shatter all the wins we’ve had up to this point! I was scared that I would fall and fail again and I didn’t know if I could trust myself. What I didn’t realize was that when I was asking God to drop my husband at my doorstep I was actually saying, “God, I’m not sure if I trust the work that You’ve done in me. I believe that You who is in me is greater than he who is in the world, but maybe not in this area of my life. Maybe You aren’t stronger than my flesh and maybe I’m not the new creation You say I am.”
At the end of the day, any decision we make that’s rooted in fear (even if we sprinkle a little church on it) is not one of God. Because His word says that “He has not given us the spirit of fear but of love, power and a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). That video convicted me because I realized that I wasn’t fully leading this area of my life with God’s Spirit.
Whenever I discover that I’m afraid of doing something, I position myself to do the complete opposite. I don’t ever want fear to lead my life. If my mind is saying no, I open my mouth and say yes. If my mind tells me I can’t do something, I set my feet to run towards doing it. I am a child of God and fear is not of my Father. So, whenever the Holy Spirit drags me like He just did throughout this reflection, I take some time to digest it, but I move even quicker to apply it. I never want to sit in fear for too long. I won’t give it that satisfaction. So I did the most logical next step I could think of- I hit up my girls in our “Dear Future Husband” group, let them know what the deal was, and asked them to drop in the chat their favorite dating apps.
Your girl is putting herself back on the market!
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So I’ll end our story time with this; there is a season for everything- there is a season when God will hide you under His wing, calling you into the cave to protect you, to mold and shape you in private, to affirm you and equip you. Then there is a season where He will call you out of the cave (like He did Elijah in 1 Kings 19:9-11) so that you can exercise what He’s equipped you with and make His glory known to others. Here’s something that I had to remind myself when coming out of my cave- I’m not in this alone. God didn’t build me up so that I could trust in myself more but so that I could trust in Him more. Therefore, I choose not to hide from life but to live every aspect of life empowered by and through Him. If I fall, His love for me won’t waiver because He loved me just the same yesterday as He does today and will tomorrow. And He loves you the same too.
If for any reason you needed a sign to get back out there, whether in dating after a long-term relationship or picking up that dream you left behind, here it is! A SIGN!
God is with you always. Don’t forget that. Go out there and do your thing!”
