Crushing Invisible Barriers

All human beings crave for and certainly need social contacts. Relationships are very important regardless of age, nationality, or gender. Without relationships, life is empty, boring and lonely. With, relationships, lives are fun and fulfilling but can be stressful at times....
Man was created as a social being; therefore, no one can claim that they do not need relationships. God Himself created man so that we could have a relationship with Him. Relationships however, change and develop over time. For instance, your relationship with your parents has matured over the last twenty-five or so years. Hopefully, they do not treat you like that ten-year-old child you were back then, and I would like to believe that you do not act like a child either. Similarly, our relationship with God and other people is expected to grow stronger and mature as we grow.
Happy, healthy, and rewarding human relationships, especially those that are geared toward marriage are those in which:

• Both sides see the relationship as an opportunity to give
• Both sides have integrity
• Both sides can learn from each other
• Both sides are open to each other
• Both sides are willing to listen first...

To achieve the above you must build a relationship on strong ground. How do you do that? The story of the wise and foolish builders in Matthew 7:24-27 comes to mind.
"Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.
Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it is built on bedrock.
But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand.
When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash." Matthew 7:24 (NLT)
Outside of obedience to God’s word, there is no strong ground on which a relationship can be built. If you build a relationship without obedience to the Word of God, you are guaranteed that the relationship “will collapse with a mighty crash.”
My parents will soon celebrate their forty-fifth wedding anniversary and I can imagine the excitement - if the celebration is anything like what I remember twenty years ago when they decided to go ‘extravagant’ on their twenty-fifth anniversary. How my mother adjusted her original wedding gown to fit her twenty-five years later is still a mystery to me. I remember baking the anniversary cake and then having to transport it over 230 miles by public means! Long story short, ... where there is a will, there is a way!
My belief is that for everyone who has a desire for marriage, statistics notwithstanding, God has someone somewhere for them. I have heard it generally said that there are more women than men and sometimes women wonder if they can really get somebody. ... Whose report are you going to believe? The ratio of single men to single women might be lower particularly in the town where you live but that is not a countrywide or even worldwide truth...I am pleased to quote one of my brothers in the faith. He said that there are men out there! Not necessarily in the United States. Praise the Lord! Nevertheless, the Bible is clearer. Male and female created He them… says Genesis 5:2 - not male and females or any other way.
God can never lie. He does all things well. Lately, though, I have come across marital statuses on Facebook that say: “It’s complicated”. I have never understood an “it’s complicated” status. A Christian in an “it’s complicated” relationship needs to exercise just a little bit of common sense to get on the right road. You do not need special spiritual gifts for that. I studied a little physics and probably the only thing I got out of that class was Newton’s Laws of Motion. The first law is relevant here because it states, ‘Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.’ You do not need a revelation for that. To state it differently according to the Law of Inertia: ‘A body will preserve its velocity and direction so long as no force in its motion’s direction acts on it.’ If you do nothing, nothing will change. Do yourself justice and un-complicate matters quickly. You hold your destiny in your hands! It is crazy to keep doing the same thing over and over or stay in a particular situation and expect different results. Even a miracle demands that you take a step in the direction of obedience. What we shall discuss here will help straighten things out.
Over the last few years I have observed the ‘changing perceptions of marriage’ in our culture and it is really puzzling. I have met people who are serial daters and some will even tell you that they do not believe in marriage because they do not see its value. I wonder how you can see value in something you despise. In John 1:46, Nathanael asked, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Was it was possible that the Messiah should come from a place proverbially wicked and despised? With all these divorces, is it possible for marriage to stand? With all the promiscuity going on, can I really find anyone pure? In this day and age, is it possible to find a loving husband, a submissive wife, a faithful spouse? This mode of judging is not uncommon. A lot of people approach the marriage issue with some prejudice. Many have allowed their minds to be filled with prejudice against the marriage institution, and then pronounce judgment at once without properly seeking God. Can anything good come from marriage? God, the Maker of marriage and from whom we receive a clear vision of what marriage is has given us the answer. Most of us want the ideal marriage, but we are going about it in very erroneous ways. One person wants the right spouse while they themselves are not doing much to make them the right person. God is not the author of confusion! The ideal Christian marriage is one in which the spouses– the male spouse and the female spouse are believers in Christ, and embrace the attitudes and actions prescribed by the Scriptures in their relationship with each other. In this marriage relationship, Christ is manifested by the partners and God is glorified.
If you are at the stage where you are seriously considering marriage or are looking to pursue a serious relationship that will develop into marriage, we shall discuss some issues that will help get rid of clutter in your way in this book. We shall go back to the basics, stressing simplicity and adherence to fundamental principles, an approach that will simplify matters that would otherwise become complicated. To enter successfully into the marriage arena, I cannot accentuate enough that your walk with God and your maturity in Christ should be sound. Perhaps a question to ask yourself would be, “If I aspire to be a godly husband or wife someday, what have I done or what am I doing to prepare for that service?” To answer that question it will be important to look into your present actions and decisions. Just like your present conditions have been determined by the actions and decisions you took in the past, those that you are taking or will take today are what will shape your future.