Genesis 50:20
At the end of this article, I’ll share a resource with you about how you can respond if you did get ghosted. But in this article, I’ll be talking about 4 possible reasons for why God let you get ghosted.
1. God May Have Let You Get Ghosted to Prevent an Unhealthy Attachment That Would Have Been Even Worse If More Time Was Given to This Person
Time is very powerful. Healthy people can only be a blessing to you in relationships if you give them time. And unhealthy people can only hurt you in relationships if you give them time.
For example, let’s say you are trying to meet someone through online dating. Person A instantly reveals their nasty character by asking you all kinds of inappropriate sexual questions. While you wish you never received those nasty messages from this person, in the long-run, this unhealthy person has zero negative effect on your life because you block them and don’t give them any time.
But, let’s say you start chatting with Person B. This person seems amazing. You two are hitting it off through online chats, so you then start video chatting. Things go even better. You two have a ton in common, you are laughing, and you both are attracted to each other. Now you meet in person. Again, things go super well. In a few weeks, you two are an official couple. Sadly, however, it takes you another six months to learn that Person B is actually charming a bunch of other people on the side too. They have been cheating on you right from the start. You are now devastated because you two have spent so much time together.
Person A and Person B were both unhealthy individuals. But Person A didn’t hurt you because you never gave them any time. Person B hurt you a lot because you gave them a lot of time. In a situation like this, you may have even prayed, “God, why didn’t you let this person ghost me early on? That would have been so much better!”
As I will talk about in the points of ahead in this article, there are many reasons for God allows bad things to happen to us in relationships. But sometimes, God will spare you of more bad things happening by limiting your time with someone. One of my favorite verses about relationships is Proverbs 13:20, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” Notice the emphasis on time. Time with wise people will make you wise. Time with a fool will bring you harm.
In kindness, God will sometimes limit your time with someone by allowing them to ghost you.
2. God May Have Let You Get Ghosted to Help You Better Identify Early Relationship Red Flags for Future Reference
When we first bought our camper, I knew there was one piece on it that was going to get lost if I wasn’t careful. Above the propane tanks there was plastic door that you would pop on and off when you needed to access them. I could tell it wasn’t well made. The hinges were just plastic, it would flap around in the wind if I didn’t secure it, and the whole thing just felt flimsy.
So I knew one of these days I would probably forget to latch it and it would rip off when I was towing the trailer. Sure enough, one day I forgot to latch it down and with just a little wind that thing went sailing.
Now, who’s really to blame for this? Sure, the designer of my camper could have done a better job. Sure, my kids were acting crazy so I was distracted when we were packing up. But ultimately, I had all the warning signs I needed to prevent this from happening.
This is just my silly story to point out how many of us act in relationships. When someone finally ghosts you, it can be a shock. The hurt can be intense. But when we look back, oftentimes there were lots of red flags that were pre-warnings that something like this was going to happen. That little plastic door on my camper was never seen again. But I knew that was going to happen and I could have done something to prevent it. I could have bought a better propane cover or made some sort of better latch.
I’m not saying you could have done something to prevent this ghosting. I’m just saying there are often warning signs before someone vanishes that something like that was going to happen, which God wants us to recognize so we can guard our hearts before we get ghosted. Psalm 32:8-9 explains:
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.”
This verse means God wants us to learn to actively follow him rather than always needing to be pulled and pushed by the Holy Spirit. Sometimes God will let something hurtful happen in a relationship, like getting ghosted, to teach you not to ignore the red flags he was showing you before this painful thing occurred.
God sometimes allows us to get hurt once in a particular way so we can spare ourselves a bunch of hurts in the future because we now know what to look for. Because this happened, now we know how to better follow the Spirit’s leading.
3. God May Have Let You Get Ghosted So You Will Remember This Person’s Character When They Try to Play You in the Future
From an emotional viewpoint, it makes a lot of sense of why you would be hurt by someone who ghosted you. Even if you didn’t know this person that well yet, the lack of explanation and the lack of closure can be very confusing and painful. It can make you question yourself, “Did I do something wrong? Why does this keep happening to me? Maybe I’m the reason I keep getting ghosted?”
While these types of feelings and reactions make sense from an emotional standpoint, from a logical standpoint they don’t really make much sense. Someone’s low character and childish behavior is not a reflection on you. Yes, we can hurt people and be a contributing factor to them wanting to lash out at us. But ultimately every one of us is responsible for our own choices.
Sometimes you have to choose to put your emotions to the side and to look at this relationship situation from a prayerfully objective perspective (1 Peter 4:7). If someone is telling you with their actions that your heart doesn’t matter to them, then in your mind you need to believe what they are telling you – you don’t matter to them. Of course you matter! You matter to God! You matter to other people who love you! But to this person who ghosted you, you don’t matter to them.
It’s hard to dwell on these logical facts, but it’s important to do that because in many cases this person who ghosted you will pop back into your life later on. If you let your emotions lead, you will give this person another chance, which is exactly what they want. They ghosted you to show you they hold the power, so they will expect you to do what they want or else they will disappear on you again.
Don’t play this game. Use your mind to realize this person is not for you. God may have let you get ghosted by this person so that when they try to come back into your life, you will remember what they did and you won’t waste your time with them or allow them to hurt you any more than they already did.
4. God Let You Get Ghosted Because His Solution to People’s Sin Is Not Micromanagement. His Solution Is the Gospel
Yes, God can certainly teach us many lessons through painful things people do to us. He can always turn something evil for good (Genesis 50:20). But let’s not get off track. Let’s also remember that God never causes people to sin (James 1:13-15). If someone treated you disrespectfully, that is a sin and God did not cause them to do that.
Terrible and evil things happen on earth because God allows people to make terrible, evil choices that truly hurt other people. But why doesn’t God stop this? Why doesn’t he just prevent people from hurting other people?
God’s solution to sin is not to micromanage us. God’s solution to sin was to send his Son, Jesus Christ, to live the life we couldn’t live, to die a perfect death on our behalf, and to be risen from the grave so we can live a new life with him (Romans 6:4). God doesn’t need to micromanage human’s and prevent all sins because that would mean God’s solution found in the gospel is not enough.
But the gospel is enough. Through God’s grace, he can heal, he can restore, and he can help us offer grace to those who don’t deserve grace just like we don’t deserve grace.
So big picture, God may have let someone hurt you by ghosting you because he allows all people to make choices that have real consequences. But he also allows people to hurt us because he has also given us the final solution in Jesus Christ (Romans 8:26-30).
Here’s an article where I talk about 3 Ways to Respond If You’ve Been Ghosted By Someone.
Click here to learn more!