4 Reasons Taking a Break from Seeking a Relationship Invites God’s Favor

Here are 4 signs the Lord may be leading you to take a break from actively seeking a relationship, which, ironically, can actually help you meet the right person much faster.

1. If You’re Tired from Trying So Hard to Meet Someone, the Lord Is Probably Telling You to Take a Break from Relationships

Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NLT) famously states, “For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:6 (NLT) then says, “A time to search and a time to quit searching.”

It’s too dogmatic for Christians to say that single people should never search for a spouse and just let God bring someone or to say that Christians should always be searching for a spouse because God will use our efforts. It really depends on the situation, on the person, and on what God is saying is wise for that individual.

Thus, if you are really tired and sense you need a break from actively looking for a relationship, this doesn’t mean you were wrong for looking in the first place. It could just mean that you now need to pause your search and let God refill you with the energy you have spent.

Perhaps God will lead you to start being more proactive again after you have been recharged. Or maybe your season of being very active has passed and God wants to bring someone into your life more naturally without you intentionally trying to meet this person.

Either way, if you are exhausted, take time away from actively looking and recenter your heart on Christ.

2. If You Know You Need to Heal from a Past Hurt that Is Negatively Affecting You Still, God Is Probably Telling You to Take a Break from Relationships

If we have a wound but we deny that we need healing, we just make the wound worse. The fastest way to get over a past relationship hurt is to admit the hurt exists and then seek the Lord’s healing. Only when you are healed enough to love in a healthy way can you thrive with the right person.

When we jump from relationship to relationship, or even from relationship desire to relationship desire, oftentimes we are just making the pain more severe and never finding the healing that we so desperately need.

Sometimes our hurts are actually keeping other people away from us too. We may not realize it, but when we have a wound inside, we can be guarded and act oddly, inadvertently pushing healthy people away from us.

Jeremiah 17:14, “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise.”

3. If You Need to Refocus on Your Purpose and Other Interests in Life, God Is Probably Telling You to Take a Break from Relationships

Ironically, sometimes the reason we struggle to find the right person is because we are too focused on finding the right person.

Human relationships work best when the relationships themselves are not front and center. In other words, two people form a deep connection when they can share in doing something together besides just focusing on each other.

This is why it’s so important to have a well-rounded life if you want to have a well-rounded relationship one day. Not only does pursuing your passions and purpose help you meet people to connect with, but this will also help you stay balanced once you do get into a relationship. If you don’t have other meaningful things in your life when you get into a relationship, oftentimes you will smother the other person and push them away because you are asking too much of them.

Human love is a wonderful gift from God, but there are also other important gifts from God that our hearts need to. 1 Peter 4:10-11 states:

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

4. If You Feel Like Your Desire for a Spouse Is Crowding Out Your Desire for God, the Lord Is Probably Telling You to Take a Break from Relationships

The clearest sign that you should take a break from seeking a relationship is when you feel like your desire for human love has become stronger than your desire for God’s love. God did make us to need and want human love, but more than that, he created us for himself.

If we have the love of God filling our hearts, we can still thrive even when we have a healthy but unmet desire for a romantic relationship. However, even if you do find the right person but you lack the love of God, you will still be unhappy.

Without Christ filling our hearts, everything else is rubbish (Philippians 3:8). Psalm 27:4, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.”

Relates Article: 6 Things God Is Teaching You Through the Waiting