Relationship: "I Don't Wants To Fall Prey!"
Sis. Ella: "Bro Oleka, good morning Sir. It's been a long time. I trust you are fine and still moving in the Faith. Sir please I want to confide in you on something very serious and important. I believe you can help me in the place of prayer and advice too. I got into a relationship with a brother friend of mine. He is born again and very spiritual. Everything have been o.k, but we are having emotional problems presently. We know it's a plot from Satan, so I need your prayers and words from you. I don't want to fall prey!"
This was a text message that greeted my phone one morning before a call from the dear sister woke me up. Below are the conversation that we had based on the text, later on, when I was ready to counsel:
Ride The Tide: "Hi Sis. Ella, tell me more about your relationship. First of all, is it God that is bringing you guys together?"
Sis. Ella: "Yes!" (with explanations to long to be posted here)
Ride The Tide: "O.K. Tell me, when do you two want to get married and how close are you guys? Do you two live too close to each other?
Sis. Ella: "We planned getting married in two years time. We are close to each other. In fact, we work in the same department in church and am his assistant. We also live in the same house, because, our pastor is responsible for us. But, my friend is planning to move out soon because he has found a house of his own. His business is still in the process of taking shape..."
Ride The Tide: "Wait. Does your Pastor or rather Mentor know that his son and daughter are aspiring marriage?
Sis. Ella: "No, for a reason. My Pastor was aware of my guy's former relationship with another lady, who is also my friend. The way it happened, we thought it best to keep this one away from him.
Ride The Tide: "Dear Sister Ella, to tell you the whole truth, am not comfortable with this relationship. Firstly, you and your guy are not laying the right foundation for yourselves in this relationship. How can you two be in love and you are living in the same house, working in the same department in church, and you are assisting him in the work; how can you survive the urge and emotional entanglement.....
Sis. Ella: (cuts in) "My guy has found an apartment of his own and he is planning to move out in few weeks; only that our pastor is telling him to take it easy, to relax until he is in a better position to handle the financial challenges involved.
Ride The Tide: "That's the point am driving. Your pastor is trying to slow your guy's relocation plans because he doesn't know something is boiling under his roof. You two are keeping the secrete from him and technically speaking, it's not safe, seeing it from the angle that he's responsible for you too. What if something happens? What if you two finally do something really bad and you are pregnant? Now, you know that sin thrives under secrecy. You can easily be blinded by emotion. But when you bring your relationship under a higher authority, there is every tendency that what you have been blinded from can be revealed to the person. It is somewhat irresponsible to be in a Christian relationship without submitting it to a higher authority, someone who can call you to order if something goes wrong.
Bible said that in the multitude of counsel there is safety (Proverbs11:14). You and your guy are now struggling emotionally because you have long stirred the embers of emotion by your "over closeness". And let me shock you: love is never "over closeness". You have known so much about each other that the next thing left is sex, and I assure you that if you two don't distance yourselves a little, before long you would start messing up. I bet you that if your pastor knows that something is going on between the two of you, his good sense of judgement will make him curtail your closeness to each other. Personally, I sense that something might be wrong somewhere: you two fear that your pastor may not give his consent based on your guy's former relationship with your own friend. So let me ask you, what really happened in the guy's former relationship?
Sis. Ella:"What happened is that my guy had irreconcilable differences with his former girl, my friend also. I tried everything to get the two of them to reconcile but it just couldn't work. Then, after their break up, I was praying with the guy in the house for our church and when we had shared the prayer points and separated to go and pray on our own, it was revealed to me that we two have something together. From that day, we began to get close."
Ride The Tide: "Sister Ella, to tell you the truth, am not comfortable. You guys are not doing this on good foundation. Even if God is in this relationship, the approach is wrong. First of all, the former girl is your own good friend; you were involved in their relationship trying to offer advice and help to the guy for them to keep moving on, but it didn't work. Now, their relationship broke, you and the guy did not even wait, you did not give the guy room to first recover from what happened, and you two began a new relationship. Don't you think that the guy could have made wrong judgements seeing your good qualities, which probably, was lacking in his former girl? Don't you think that someone who just broke out from a relationship is not in good shape, emotionally speaking, to jump into another relationship immediately? He could be using you to fill an emotional void that loosing a girl he once loved caused. And I bet, it may be lust. That's why you need the scrutiny of a higher authority like your pastor, who can see what you may not be seeing because you have been blinded by emotion.
If you two give yourself some distance, he may discover he doesn't really love you, that it is emotion that has been the driving force. Every relationship should be subjected to some tests. Experts call it test of time. If you are in a relationship and you two cannot do without talking, seeing or calling each other every other minute, it's a sign that insecurity is staring you in the face. There is no trust. That relationship will definitely crash. You two have drank each others presence so much that it would be hard to get what God is saying to you about each other with clarity, because, Bible says that dream comes by multitude of activity (Eclesiastis5:3).
Ride The Tide: "Dear Sister Ella, to tell you the whole truth, am not comfortable with this relationship. Firstly, you and your guy are not laying the right foundation for yourselves in this relationship. How can you two be in love and you are living in the same house, working in the same department in church, and you are assisting him in the work; how can you survive the urge and emotional entanglement.....
Sis. Ella: (cuts in) "My guy has found an apartment of his own and he is planning to move out in few weeks; only that our pastor is telling him to take it easy, to relax until he is in a better position to handle the financial challenges involved.
Ride The Tide: "That's the point am driving. Your pastor is trying to slow your guy's relocation plans because he doesn't know something is boiling under his roof. You two are keeping the secrete from him and technically speaking, it's not safe, seeing it from the angle that he's responsible for you too. What if something happens? What if you two finally do something really bad and you are pregnant? Now, you know that sin thrives under secrecy. You can easily be blinded by emotion. But when you bring your relationship under a higher authority, there is every tendency that what you have been blinded from can be revealed to the person. It is somewhat irresponsible to be in a Christian relationship without submitting it to a higher authority, someone who can call you to order if something goes wrong.
Bible said that in the multitude of counsel there is safety (Proverbs11:14). You and your guy are now struggling emotionally because you have long stirred the embers of emotion by your "over closeness". And let me shock you: love is never "over closeness". You have known so much about each other that the next thing left is sex, and I assure you that if you two don't distance yourselves a little, before long you would start messing up. I bet you that if your pastor knows that something is going on between the two of you, his good sense of judgement will make him curtail your closeness to each other. Personally, I sense that something might be wrong somewhere: you two fear that your pastor may not give his consent based on your guy's former relationship with your own friend. So let me ask you, what really happened in the guy's former relationship?
Sis. Ella:"What happened is that my guy had irreconcilable differences with his former girl, my friend also. I tried everything to get the two of them to reconcile but it just couldn't work. Then, after their break up, I was praying with the guy in the house for our church and when we had shared the prayer points and separated to go and pray on our own, it was revealed to me that we two have something together. From that day, we began to get close."
Ride The Tide: "Sister Ella, to tell you the truth, am not comfortable. You guys are not doing this on good foundation. Even if God is in this relationship, the approach is wrong. First of all, the former girl is your own good friend; you were involved in their relationship trying to offer advice and help to the guy for them to keep moving on, but it didn't work. Now, their relationship broke, you and the guy did not even wait, you did not give the guy room to first recover from what happened, and you two began a new relationship. Don't you think that the guy could have made wrong judgements seeing your good qualities, which probably, was lacking in his former girl? Don't you think that someone who just broke out from a relationship is not in good shape, emotionally speaking, to jump into another relationship immediately? He could be using you to fill an emotional void that loosing a girl he once loved caused. And I bet, it may be lust. That's why you need the scrutiny of a higher authority like your pastor, who can see what you may not be seeing because you have been blinded by emotion.
If you two give yourself some distance, he may discover he doesn't really love you, that it is emotion that has been the driving force. Every relationship should be subjected to some tests. Experts call it test of time. If you are in a relationship and you two cannot do without talking, seeing or calling each other every other minute, it's a sign that insecurity is staring you in the face. There is no trust. That relationship will definitely crash. You two have drank each others presence so much that it would be hard to get what God is saying to you about each other with clarity, because, Bible says that dream comes by multitude of activity (Eclesiastis5:3).
Am not totally condemning this relationship, all I say is, do the right thing first. Cross examine issues before what happened to the former relationship happens again. May God help you in Jesus name.
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