Proverbs 16:33
God will never send or cause confusion to his people, for as 1 Corinthians 14:33 states, “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.”
In our humanness, however, we can be confused when God is doing things in our lives because of our own immaturity and lack of knowledge. God won’t be confusing us, but we can be confused with God because of our own flaws.
This scenario often plays out when God is actually protecting us from bad relationships. In our finite minds, we long for relationships God prevents us from having because he’s actually protecting us.
So here are 6 confusing ways God will protect you from a bad relationship.
1. God Will Let You Try Something That Will Cause This Person to Ignore You
I just recently received an email from a man who pursued a woman but she is now avoiding him. He fears that he was too pushy and bold in his pursuit which made her not like him. After he told me what he did, I didn’t feel like he was too pushy. Some women might even prefer a man to be so upfront and clear like he was with this woman. So I encouraged the man that perhaps he should not blame himself for doing anything wrong but accept that this woman was just not interested in him.
Too often we blame ourselves when we try something in a relationship and the other person responds poorly. But it’s not our job to do the exact right thing to get the exact right response. Rather, in God’s sovereignty, he will allow us to be ourselves and he will let other people respond in ways that end relationships God knows are not good for us.
As Proverbs 16:9 reassures us, “The heart of man plans his way but the Lord establishes his steps.”
2. God Will Prevent You from Even Having a Chance to Connect with This Person
People seem so perfect when we observe them from afar.
Perhaps you’ve been watching a man at church. He serves, he seems happy around his friends, and he raises his hands during worship. While none of these things are wrong, they are not evidence that you and him will be a great couple.
Or maybe you’re on the greeting team and whenever you get paired up with this one woman, you have great talks and seem like you really hit it off. But then whenever you try to talk to her and connect with her at other points, she seems to always be going in the other direction.
While it’s possible you just need to be bold and make a move to get to know this person more, it’s also possible God is preventing a connection from even starting to form to protect you from something God does not want you to have.
Remember, even things that seem random in life are actually under God’s sovereign control. As Proverbs 16:33 explains, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”
3. God Will Allow Someone to Make a False Prophecy About You and This Person
Notice I said God will “allow” someone to do this. I didn’t say God will cause or instruct someone to make a false prophesy.
Sadly, in many Christian circles, there are people who are quick to play God, quick to predict the future, and eager to take the spotlight for themselves by telling people what they want to hear. If someone is self-centered and they have a sense that you like someone, they may act like they heard from God about you and this person.
As 2 Timothy 4:3 states, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions . . .” Notice this verse is really a rebuke not against false prophets but to the people who choose to listen to false prophets.
The reason God will let people make false prophesies over you is because God wants you to be mature enough to go to him yourself rather than blindly following someone who is just telling you what you want to hear.
4. You Will Do Everything “Right” to Get Your Prayers Answered, But You Will Still Get a No
In Matthew 7:7, Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” When we ask God in faith (James 1:6), when we pray with pure motives (James 4:3), and when we are living righteously (James 5:16), the Bible states these are the prayers God answers.
But what if you do all these things when you pray about a certain relationship and you still get a no from God. Notice what Jesus also said in Matthew 7:11, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Notice the emphasis here on the “good” of the gifts God wants to give us.
Even if you do everything spiritually and biblically correct when praying about a relationship, in love God often still says no because he will not give us something that he knows is not good for us. Perhaps this relationship would bring you immense pain and be one of the worst experiences of your life if he gave it to you.
5. God Will Allow You to Have an Amazing Friendship with Someone but the Friendship Will End Because Romantic Feelings Arose By One of You
It’s not wrong for single men and women to be close friends. However, in almost every case, one or both of these single people will start to form romantic feelings. This is good. God didn’t make you with a desire to have a best friend from the opposite sex. God made you with a desire for a husband or wife.
However, oftentimes, the feelings are not mutual and because one person starts liking the other as more than a friend, the friendship changes and the two of you are no longer close. While this can sting and be very confusing, you have to accept that if God wanted this friendship to turn into something more, the feelings would be mutual.
Mutual feelings are one of the signs God wants two people together (see Song of Solomon). A relationship is always bad when one person in that relationship is forcing it and does not like the other person in an authentic way.
6. God Will Let You Date This Person but the Relationship Will End Quickly
When a relationship ends quickly, Christians often wonder why God allowed this relationship to start. Why did God allow you two to date if he knew it would end so fast?
Sometimes God allows two people to date so they can have absolute certainty that they are not meant to be. And in kindness, God allows the issues to arise quickly in the relationship to spare them both of getting deeply connected and then needing to break up later on.
While it still hurts when a new relationship ends, it would have hurt more if the relationship lasted longer and then ended. So while this situation can be confusing, God often allows this type of thing to happen as a way of protecting his people from bad relationships.
Even when you don’t understand why God has done what he’s done, keep submitting to him. As Proverbs 3:7-8 states, “Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.”
If you keep following God even when you are confused, you will reap a reward in the end.
