7. Your Father knows your needs.
You’re probably questioning this in the wake of your breakup, but God does know what you need, and he’s never too slow to provide it. He might reveal things to you about the things you thought you needed. Or he might simply show you how much more you need him than anything or anyone else.
God feeds the unemployed birds of the air (Matthew 6:26). How much more will this Father care and provide for his blood-bought children?
When you ask for a husband, he won’t give you a snake. When you ask for a wife, he won’t give you a scorpion. Even when it looks like he’s done you harm, he hasn’t. He loves you. He knows what’s best for you. And all things are at his disposal. All things.
One way God provides for us through breakups is by making it clear—by whatever means and for whatever reason—this relationship was not his plan for our marriage. The heart of Christian dating is looking for clarity more than intimacy. This probably won’t taste sweet in the moment, but if you treasure clarity, breakups won’t be all bad news. We all know some of the news we need most is hardest for a time, but fruitful down the road.
Trust him to provide for you each day (or year), whether you get married or not. If you do get married, know that he will bring the imperfect man or woman you need.
8. Learn from love lost.
One of Satan’s greatest victories in a breakup is convincing a guy or girl, “It was all the other person’s fault, and I’ve already arrived as a future husband or wife.” The reality is no one—married or not—has fully arrived this side of glory. We are all flawed and filled with the Spirit, so we will all always be learning and growing as people and spouses—present or future.
After the emotional tidal wave has crashed and passed, take some time alone and then with close friends to assess where God’s carrying you—who he’s making you to be—through this. Identify an area or areas where you want to strive to be more gracious or more discerning or more faithful—more like Jesus—moving forward.
You won’t have many relational crossroads more intense, personal and specific as a breakup, so it truly is a unique time for some hopeful, healthy introspection, checked and balanced by some other believers.
9. Jesus will help you find joy in the shadows of heartbreak.
When we’re left alone and feeling abandoned, it’s really hard to believe anyone knows what we’re going through. That may even be true of the good-intentioned people around you. It is not true of Jesus.
This Jesus came and was broken to give hope to the broken. “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; and in his name the Gentiles will have hope” (Matthew 12:20-21).
The joy is not in knowing that Jesus had it hard, too. Not much comfort there. The joy is in knowing that the one who suffered in your place died and rose again to end suffering for his saints. God saved the world and defeated death through his suffering, and your suffering in the midst of your walk with Jesus—in this case, in a breakup—unites you to that victory, the greatest victory ever won. For those who hope in Jesus, all pain—unexpected cancer, unfair criticism, an unwanted break up—was given an expiration date and repurposed until then to unite us in love to our suffering Savior.
Jesus went before the broken-hearted to pave the way for joy in pain. We live, survive and thrive by looking to him, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). His joy before the wrath of God against sin is our first and greatest reason to fight for joy—not just survival—after a breakup.
If you believe that, then make the most of this breakup, knowing God has chosen this particular path to grow and gratify you in ways that last. No relationship you have in this life will last forever, but the good things that happen through them in you—even through their sorrows, yes even through their collapses—will.
