2. Don’t try again too quickly.
Knowing and embracing God’s design for permanence in marriage and dating will help us feel appropriately, but it will also help us take healthy next steps in our pursuit of marriage. One of the worst and most popular mistakes is moving on to the next one too soon. Especially in the age of online dating and social media, we really don’t have to work very hard to find another prospect.
Affection can be an addiction. If you’ve been on dates, held hands, seen smiles, exchanged notes, experienced the sweetness of another’s attention and affirmation, you will want more. And the easiest way to find it is to rebound right away. But if we care about God, our witness, our ex and our future significant other, we’ll wait, pray and date patiently and carefully. It’s too easy to leave a trail of wounded people behind in our pursuit of a partner.
It’s a lie to think that you’re not moving toward marriage if you’re not dating someone right now. Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your future spouse is to not date. If your history looks serial, you might need to break up with dating for a while. It can be a time to regroup, grow and discover a new rhythm for your future relationship.
3. You may have failed, but God didn’t.
The relationship may be over because of a specific character flaw or failure. There are things about us—weaknesses or patterns of behavior—that may disqualify us for marriage with a particular person. But it does not nullify God’s grace to and through you.
Sin in relationships is some of the most visible and painful. As we let each other further and further into our lives and hearts, the sin is more likely to show itself and to cut the other person more deeply. In the right measure, it is the good and proper risk of all Christian fellowship. As people come closer, and we need this in true Christian community, our sin inevitably becomes more dangerous. Our mess is more likely to splash onto others, and theirs on us.
But whoever has done the failing in your breakup, it wasn’t God. Because of Jesus, his promises never to leave or forsake you are true every moment and in every relationship status. If you are trusting in Christ for the forgiveness of your sin and striving to follow him and his word, God has never abandoned you, and he will never abandon you. God didn’t take a break from loving you in your breakup—even if you’re the reason it’s over. His purposes are bigger than your blunders.
4. You are better having loved and lost.
There’s a unique shame and brokenness associated with breakups. Relationships and love may be celebrated more in the church than anywhere else because we (rightly) love marriage so much. Unfortunately, these same convictions often make breakups an uncomfortable conversation—at best embarrassing and at worst scandalous or humiliating.
You feel like damaged goods, like you’ve been ruined in God’s eyes or in the eyes of others. The hard-to-believe, but beautiful, truth is that broken-up you is a better you. If, in your sorrow, you turn to the Lord and repent of whatever sin you brought to this relationship, you are as precious to your heavenly Father as you have ever been, and he is using every inch of your heartache, failure or regret to make you more of what he created you to be and to give you more of what he created you to enjoy—himself.
When one prize is stripped away, we can graciously be reminded of how little we have apart from Christ, and the fortune he’s purchased for us with his blood. He has become for us wisdom for the foolish, righteousness for sinners, sanctification for the broken, and redemption for the lost and afraid (1 Corinthians 1:30).
In Jesus, God is always and only doing good to you. There’s no circumstance facing you that he’s not engineering to give you deep and durable life and freedom and joy. He loves our lasting joy in him much more than he loves our temporary comfort today. He’ll make the trade any day, and we can be glad he does. Know that God is doing good, even when we feel worst.
