Finding true, soulful love, rather than completing who we believe we may be,
is more of a place of acceptance in the security of who we are with someone unto God in Christ. As faithful living is a selfless
activity; and not a destination, or a journey, we can see where any place our personal love interest is, is where we are with
them in our attentions and concerns. As God desires His leading in our decisions of a day, our togetherness with a soul mate
gives to us the avenues of sharing all that we may be without the fears of loss our eternal soul ultimately dreads.
A real and lasting relationship with a spiritual soul mate requires inner work
and outer preparation unto God in Christ for the one who we literally “would die for”. As a woman is designed
to be the complement of a man, a man is designed to be the compliment to a woman. When a man and woman join their faith in
active togetherness by giving their attentions to each other, for the sake of each other, for Christ’s sake, there is
a supernatural inflowing of God’s will for them in their own will to be as one. Each person has their own perspective
constantly in arrangement and rearrangement depending in whom their attentions, with regard to the balances of faith and doubt,
are occupied at any time.
Because every person has particular experiences that no one else is able to
fathom, being an individual, there is a mutually understood respect for where each may be in their level of understanding
trust that God has the answers. Most often, when there are frustrations about differences in doctrines of religious belief,
it is because of fears one may be drawn away from God’s truth and into false leading away from His Salvation. Usually,
when this type of fear presents itself, faith in God through Christ for Who He is has taken a turn to materialistic meanings
in whether God will supply one’s own personal will of desire.
There is the ever-present danger, as warned about in Scripture, of being led
into false Gospel by motivations based in worldly gain and self-elevating experiences. Progressively developed Christian “babies”
(no matter how long one may have been a believer) are more concerned with who Christ is in their selves than they are with
who each of their selves are in Christ. Part of the appreciations a man finds in a woman and a woman finds in a man is their
differences.
As they compare things they mutually like and enjoy as different from the things
they mutually do not like and do not enjoy, there comes a giving up of who each believes they are as individuals in the sharing
of who they are together. Since each of the two must properly maintain their unique persona to be appreciated as the one who
attracted the other, while simultaneously allowing for God’s proclamation that the two are one unto Him, there is a
confusion about what to share as one and what to respect as the differences that combine to make the one of the two.
This is exactly where our faith in Christ for His purposes to put our mate first
in our attentions and concerns finds its active trust through our partner to esteem the marriage over any personal will of
self defensive posturing. The only way any true soul mate process of maturing may be worked through through a day’s
difficulties is to trust that God is the one Who does the changing into better ways of any person’s learning and growth
in His will.
A man desires his wife to improve, and a woman desires her husband to improve,
because they both are far from perfect. A hidden blessing is, they must remain imperfect in comparison to Christ, and paradoxically,
are perfect in Him through His finished work. There must be an ongoing combination of extended grace and mercy, from Christ’s
example, and at the same time the openness to share each of their concerns with the other about the desires one has for the
other to improve. God designed a man to carry a woman for His sake and a woman to allow her man to carry her for His sake.
At the same time, as a woman is one with her husband, she has the authority
in God through Christ to be for the man the leader with respect to their marriage positions where a man is weak in his faith
and personal strengths. Also, a man may, depending on circumstances and present situations, accept that his wife through his
position as her husband is in his intercessory stead to uphold the faithful promises of God’s dealing in honoring marriage
by the dynamics of appreciation for His wisdom to put Him first.
This is one of the reasons He gives to us a sense of humor – a satirical
ironic understanding that says no one except God actually is in ultimate control. Common methods of surrendering to separation
to “reduce conflict” and/or correct insufficiencies is laying down our spiritual weapons of covenant at the feet
of the father of lies, accepts defeat, and brings reproach not only on the name of those involved, but God’s Name through
Christ’s grace and mercy. The call of instinct is security, the call of the soul is variety, and these two can find
their rightful appreciations through faith in Christ’s call of loyalty in our priorities of what we do with regard to
who we are responsible.
Men and women will not always have discernment with confirmation about matters
at hand in the struggles of life in faithfully living a marriage. This is partly because reliance in commitment to defend
the promises marriage means finds its strengths in co-dependence to place one’s self in the shoes of their mate. Not
difficult to do when it is understood God’s anointing transpires through tending to a mate’s present personal
needs to be wanted, cared for, and loved. This includes understanding that when a man or woman is angry with his or her partner
it presents the intense concern required to express devoted defense against adversarial people and situations.
Whether a man and woman both are strong, both are weak or any mix between, togetherness
is always the answer because satan knows that is where God’s power of life resides. If one were to call the soul mate
relationship of marriage a ‘circus’ (without entertaining the critical connotations the label circus may conjure)
it can be understood that faithful open honesty, no matter what, between a man and woman brings the needed unity God can use
for His glory. Trying to cover what one knows is contrary to a mate’s expectations takes from the mate the responsibilities
they have for their mate to intercede in prayer and assistance.
Trust in God our Father as the example of family where parents are tolerant,
but not permissive, with their children, gives to us the strength of long-suffering to endure our mate’s foibles and
idiosyncrasies. Knowing about problems and indiscretions, and the undesirable circumstances involved, does not keep us from
accepting who we are married to. Being generous with the gifts of grace and mercy Christ bestows upon is, and at the same
time requiring open communication about our short-fallen-ness in any aspect of living, gives to our committed (commitment
in promise whether subsequent words or deeds fall short) love interest the freedoms to relish in being loved no matter what.
God loves everyone no matter what. But, the attacks from the adversary, combined
with misunderstanding, and combined with manipulative self-serving thieves, and combined with an overall worldly separateness
from obedience to God and His ways, causes men and women to hide into division what God asks us to reveal (privately with
our husband or wife) for His power of life awareness to see us through anything. There is no sin, and no person, which Jesus
Christ did not stand in for on the Cross – or for which He did not receive Resurrected life to perfectly heal.
The soul/mate connection we share with our spouse is not based in like giving
to the same places and/or from the same sources, though they are the same in unity of spirit (spirit being the shared truth
of togetherness, as well as shared particular perspectives of personal awareness). The soul/mate connection is based in like
obedience to choosing to keep one’s mate honestly informed by being responsive (response able) in respect for their
concern in Christ’s concern.
One may look forward to honestly sharing any of the bad and hidden things, as
well as the expected good and displayed things, with the same joys of appreciation that one’s partner will understand
without condemning us. Meanwhile, we know through our own inner heart conviction that anything outside God’s perfect
being is not acceptable as part who we are of Him. This is where we are able to identify demonic influences that work to undermine
Godly obedience in our lives. As God shines His light of wholeness through the attraction to be one with another, the devil
homes in on that light to do what he can to destroy it.
It is not the pitfalls of mal-behavior, the abominations of betrayal, the concealing
lies of infidelity, the self-serving egotistical love of money as God, the “me first” self-protective propensity
we have to shield ourselves from evil people, the desires we have to not worry over hunger, or impulses, addictions, habits,
or meanness, or twisted demented ways, that may have somehow become our ways of dealing with day to day issues that give “power”
to these things continuing. It is the reluctance to rely in honesty (matter-of-fact openness), no matter what a situation
may be, in our intimate personal chosen marriage partner. Openly sharing problems, together, (with the exclusion of others
outside the marriage), allows understanding the problems for what they are.
The enjoyment therein is the camaraderie in sharing responsibility for whatever
difficulty there is before God. He knows we are interned in the flesh and cannot be perfectly well and whole as we will be
when with Him after we leave this flesh life. Devoted companionship takes the judging of future hopes against past failures
into the now of acceptance where God is God and we, as people, are His work to be appreciated. It also takes away the devious
dividing concealment that intellectual/emotional turmoil builds, and casts its manipulating demonic presence of darkness through
inattention and wayward running back to the pit where in belongs.
It is much more pleasing to be excited, rather than scared, about being open
and honest with our mate in sharing the experiences of living – right or wrong. Right or wrong because we know that
all things are conceived and brought to fulfillment through faith, and the wedding vows are Christ’s Word based faith
promises that God honors through Him. As a man realizes a woman is ‘that one’ for him she accepts being ‘that
someone’ who accepts herself unto her man as who they both are in Christ, no matter their idiosyncrasies and/or hardship(s)
it seems either is bent to cause the other.
A soul mate is just that: Someone who has promised to us through marriage to
be for us in all things (better, worse, rich, poor, sickness, health…) as God asks us to do, without a reserve set of
standards that are held as a backdrop threat to disavow if things do not go the way(s) we desire or expect. And, there can
be no standard anyone else other than the two married hold for them to rate or decide if a marriage is viable or not. Only
God is the God of souls and God is the only One who has the decisive power to give a man and woman their case of plea together
before Him.
There is a common conception that one may have many soul mates that reveal layers
of who we may be as an onion has layers in its makeup. This is the free-for-all non-committing commitment to “experiences
on a journey of self development” that flies in the face of the revealing of who one is to another in marriage that
takes living through permanently, day by day through joys and trials, to achieve. The self that is thought to be developed
through the journey of experiences is the very self that was crucified with Jesus on the Cross.
The true self in Him is of Him in who He created us to be according to responsible
honest obedience in faith to the one we are promised to by marriage. People confuse their natural grace for living that contains
our yearning for life, as God designs, to be a self realizing to connect with personalities, and more personalities, as if
we are eventually connecting with the entire Body of Christ with our giving and sharing of physical expressions. We cite advantages
and disadvantages to ‘relationships’ as if the rounding out of our learning comes through what we may discover
from one where it would not be possible to discover from another.
So, as we become more worldly aware, we turn dating into intimacy in our search
to meet and experience another who we feel is on another level we believe is where we may find the next step to a higher self.
We do not want to miss anything about our overcharged and ever emptier hunger to gain, and the misconception is that our need
to gain is what God wants for us to receive. We have a distorted sense of acquirement that feeds our egos on the feeding egos
of others where collusion gives to us a ‘cat-that-ate-the-canary’ excitement for having taken advantage of our
own virtue at the expense of others’ need for permanence through faith in Christ.
Because differences, as well as similarities, are what we like about who God
designs our husband or wife to be, we understand that those differences help us to grow. Differences also keep us humble and
respectfully appreciative of God’s magnificence in His wisdom to create as we are not otherwise able. A good relationship/marriage
changes people for the better, or rather facilitates a dedicated maturity (faith-action practice that grows the seeds of reliance
in trusted commitment, to loyalty drawn from God’s reliability through Christ) that is both spiritual and personally
wise when Christ’s example to us is seen in how we view our partner.
We may be angry, frustrated, and experiencing every conceivable difficulty;
but, when we see Jesus in our spouse because we know He laid down His life for him or her, we know that there is a moment
past the past and not in the future where God loves us. He not only provided but is providing our mate for us to realize His
loving-kindness in the now. The now is always wherever we are, whatever we may be doing, and however we may be. Christ, by
His prophetic promises, fulfilled His vow to us as a people in His Resurrection. In like way, we are able, through faith in
our partner through faith in Him, to rely in His presence of reality to allow our soul’s completeness with our mate.
It will not be always completely understood or felt or realized… but, that is the nature of trust in faith.
John
10:1-18
