Love And Relationships
Ready For Real Love?
“Love can be a second-hand emotion” is a lyric from Tina Turner’s song “What’s Love Got to Do with It.” Its meaning speaks volumes to those whose love has been abused, hearts trampled on, and souls crushed by someone claiming to love – with their lips, rather than their actions. Love, emotional love, is powerful, but it can also be misleading. Love based on a covenant agreement that honors safety, trust, and vulnerability, is not simply emotional; it’s spiritual or in divine alignment with God’s will and plan for your life. Without this alignment, we are entering a relationship at our own risk…and this is how many, if not most, relationships begin.
Real love is much more than an emotion or a feeling. Not that feelings and emotions aren’t involved, but the love that you desire, the love that fulfills God’s plans for your life, the love that protects and does not harm, the love that, as the bible says, “Does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth,” is the heart posture of two people that God joins together. Why? Because the foundation of covenant marriage is a deep and profound respect for Christ: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21, NIV). This might not sound sexy to some, but to those who have been loved by an imposter, by a monster masquerading as a covenant partner, by a mask-wearing narcissist, sexy is behavior that backs up words, behavior that respects, honors, and reciprocates love.
Have you heard that the divorce rate, within and outside of the church, is nearly 50%? If that’s not bad enough, research tells us that nearly 25% of the marriages that stay together are miserable, suffering, and on life support. That translates to 75% of all marriages, both within and outside the church, being destroyed or under siege. Why? Let’s take a look…
As you swipe left on dating apps, as you pray for Mr./Mrs. Right, I want you to consider this…there are tens of thousands of books on marriage, dating, and love, including “Christian” books, yet marriages fail nearly 50% of the time. It’s not because the relationship didn’t start out emotional, or that there weren’t butterflies and feelings. When we show for a marriage covenant relationship, we know that the bible didn’t tell us that we would know them by our feelings and emotions, the bible told us that we would know them by their fruit, displayed over time and under different conditions: “By their fruit you will recognize them…” (Matthew 7:16). But what does that mean and how do we discern fruit when people can be deceptive, covert, and even diabilical?
The bible tells us, “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” (Amos 3:3). What do emotions agree to when you start a relationship? What do emotions confirm, discern, or base the potential of a relationship on? Understand this, even if your emotions are “healthy,” and based on a healthy understanding of covenant love, your emotions don’t determine whether or not the person in front of you is healthy, evenly yoked, marriage material, or wearing a mask to get past your emotions. Emotions don’t tell us who someone is; emotions tell us how someone makes us feel — mainly with words and mostly, initially, with actions that are intended to impress rather than expose. Our internal truth determines how we show up for a relationship and how we will be impressed. Walking in agreement requires more than us being emotionally impressed.
Beliefs inform emotions, emotions inform feelings, feelings inform thoughts…
If 50% of marriages end in divorce and 25% are suffering in misery, what does that tell us about relying on, or strictly relying on, emotional confirmation of a covenant partner? When led by emotions alone, whatever emotions feel often result in a confirmation bias — the unconscious tendency to filter information to support existing, emotionally charged feelings.
Get behind me, emotions!
Only in an intimate relationship do we encounter our deeply held beliefs about intimate relationships. And our deeply held beliefs determine how we feel, perceive, and show up in an intimate relationship. Does that mean we are to blame for other people’s behavior — bad behavior or maltreatment of us? Absolutely not. It means that if we’re relying on “feelings inspection” (alone) rather than a deep commitment to “fruit inspection,” we can miss the red flags, and an imposter can hide in plain sight.
How we show in or for an intimate partner relationship tells us a lot about who/what taught us how to love. And more importantly, whether the beliefs our emotions are rooted in, and theirs, are reconciled with covenant love, covenant standards, and covenant requirements. Any discrepancy between what covenant love requirements are and what we believe, emotionally, sets us up to filter love through emotions that are not aligned with the love we deserve.
“Emotions don’t pick, discern covenant partnership, emotions pick feelings. Holy Spirit-led emotions, discern fruit, see through masks and pick a covenant partner.”
When you meet someone, when you desire to be in a covenant partnership, emotions have to be repaired and prepared for a covenant partnership, and not simply an emotional relationship. Emotions support a covenant partnership; they don’t lead a covenant partnership.
Let me say that another way…almost everything you read or hear about intimate relationships, love, and marriage is a devotion to emotions, a description of a place where we go to get happiness and emotional fulfillment. Those 75% of marriages that are either destroyed or under siege, suffer for these 6 reasons — at a minimum:
- Pre-marital dating did not weed out/discern covenant partner red flags.
- The marriage did not have or uphold a biblical covenant partnership agreement.
- Unhealthy, dysfunctional, wounded, unhealed, and toxic emotions control behavior — beliefs, expectations, and truth.
- Flesh was not submitted to one another out of reverence for Christ — deep and profound respect for Christ, which is the prerequisite for bearing fruit (Galatians 5:22-23), and a heart posture that is surrendered to love (1 Corinthians 13:4-17).
- Intimacy, bonding, or connection could not be sustained because there was no, or a weak commitment to truth, safety, and reliability.
- Beliefs about covenant partnership were conformed to world views, false teaching, and unhealthy emotional conditioning.
Finding the love of your life and avoiding the relationship traps set for emotions requires us to show up to the dating table with a deep understanding of ourselves, a covenant partner relationship, and a clear understanding of the phases of pre-marital fruit inspection: the interview phase, the dating phase, and the courtship phase. Each phase is separate and distinct, and represents a different but powerful purpose for discerning whether or not someone is/is not covenant partner material — regardless of what emotions say. We cannot undo what we didn’t do before we said I do, which is why emotions have to be submitted to, and the heart has to embrace the powerful purpose of fruit inspection — before, during, and after dating.
Do you want to date with confidence, avoid the masked narcissistic monsters, define and find your covenant match, and understand the deeply profound meaning and principles of covenant partnership dating and marriage? Do you want to know if the relationship you’re in can be saved or should be, or whether you should stay or go? Are you struggling in a marriage that is worth saving, but nothing has worked to heal and restore your marriage?
For those who seriously desire the tools, healing, and biblical wisdom for covenant dating or repairing and restoring a marriage worth saving, don’t just settle for advice; get personalized and expert guidance that will radically change your life and position you for the incredible love and relationship that God planned for you in weeks rather than years.
Choose from the programs below to begin your journey today:
Virtual Marriage Intensive:
Join me in this 6-week virtual group coaching workshop for unprecedented access to transformational guidance and personalized support for singles and couples who desire to repair and prepare for the love and relationship they deserve.
Go to the main menu or Click Here to learn more and register today.
One-on-one Coaching:
When all else has failed, and you are determined to heal from relational trauma, narcissistic abuse, transform your life, or heal a marriage in crisis, let me walk with you in a private, 1:1 transformational coaching program that will give you the support and the expertise you need to bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be in weeks rather than years.
Go to the main menu or Click Here to learn more about my 1:1 Transformation Coaching Programs. Space is limited, book your program today.
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Patrick Weaver
