THE PROCESS OF TIME FOR LOVE:

Yesterday I saw a young boy and asked him, “How old are you?” he said, I am eleven years old”. I quickly remembered my childhood mistakes. While at age eleven was the first time I felt in love with a girl who was two years younger than me. For three years we were madly in FOOLISH LOVE not really knowing what we were doing. We had no knowledge about Love Responsibilities, Pregnancy or Marriage, but we were having fun and hoping to get married soon. In those days, our immature hearts lost concentration while in school. All we can think of was PLEASURE and getting married soon. My performance in school started dropping low. Five years later we parted ways because another man came and eloped her. I cried all night and could not eat for two weeks. My fragile heart was broken and I developed mistrust for women after I had five of such experiences, which resulted in me misusing and dumping ladies. Few years later, I met my first lover and could not believe what I saw. She looks older than me and not even the type of woman I could ever fall in love with.

In my recent research, I observed that 85% of the people we fell in love with while we were under 20, might not be our ideal partners. Because it was not the appropriate time for us to be in love, we will not have the capacity to sustain love and that is why we end up being misused, heart-broken and hating the opposite sex. 

Our Maker is the God of process, therefore, for anything to come to fruition it must pass through the process of time. It takes a process of time (nine months) before a baby is born. Even Christ could not come until at the fulness of time, before God presented Him to the world, Gal 4:4.

In Isa 9:6, the Prophet said, "For unto us a CHILD is born, Unto us a SON is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder". Until a child becomes a SON, the government will never be on his shoulder. He should still be under the leadership of his parents, waiting patiently for the fulfillment of the process of time – growing through the process of CHILDHOOD into SONSHIP. And when he become a SON, the Lord will then PERFECT that which concerns him, Ps 138:8. 

Because of lack of knowledge and impatience, we attract the wrong person and in the wrong timing and order. We don’t wait for God's timing, but instead we pick the one who is good enough and we pray for the best. We don’t take the time to grow up.

If any of these shortcuts are taken, then what happens is, we awaken love before it’s time. When we do that love awakens as immature and ill-prepared to handle the ups and downs of life. Love can’t sustain itself. Think of an orchid, there is a way to flick the petals where they open prematurely. It’s beautiful but it also withers sooner than it would have if it had opened during a natural progression of time. Just as that orchid can’t be closed again, love can’t be put back to sleep once it’s aroused. God is crying out to young people in these passages that you need to wait for correct timing. Everything done in order and right timing thrives. Love birthed in correct timing is lasting. God isn’t being a party pooper; instead He is saving you a hurt, pain and a broken heart. Take heed to what He is saying and let Him guide you through the process of love.

Don't excite love, don't stir it up, until the time is ripe--and you're ready. 

WAIT UNTIL YOU ARE READY: 

Statistics say that the average person spends 45-62 minutes of each day waiting for something. That’s about 4.2% of the average lifespan. Right now, you may be waiting for a document to download, for your turn to use the bathroom, for a ride to arrive, or for the right person to come along. According to a study on the psychology of waiting, emotions normally dominate the process. The way we feel affects our attitude about the waiting period. The more unpleasant the experience seems for you, the more frustrating and the longer the waiting period seems. Time filled with something else, other than the realization that you’re waiting, gives you the perception of a shorter, quicker wait. Holding your place at the amusement park queue is one thing; now, waiting for a person, a.k.a. God’s best, to come into your life is another story.

I wonder, how would a new concept of time change our culture of waiting? After all, waiting is a function of time. At the risk of sounding too naive, I will say what I know to be true: God’s timing is always perfect. He’s never a minute too early or too late. In Ecclesiastes 3:1, it says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven”.

It clearly says that there is a right time for every single thing. As for love, it is written, “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires”. – Song of Songs 2:7
This means that until it is God’s appointed time, we are not to force the issue or attempt to speed up the process. In my own walk with the Lord, I have come to learn that there are four main reasons why God does not give us what we want when we want it:

An area of sin. It’s either there is an area of sin in our lives that He wants us to address first or what we are asking for AT THIS TIME may cause us to stumble in our own walk with God. This leads us to the issue of…

Unpreparedness. Sometimes, we are asking for something we’re not yet ready for. For instance, some of our single women in the church may be praying for a husband when their actions show they are not really ready to be a wife.

God is using the waiting season to mold our character. One of my favorite Scriptures tells me that “the testing of your faith develops perseverance” (James 1:3). In the same way, as we wait for God’s Best, we gain wisdom and patience along the way, and these are essential for playing the role of a godly wife or husband.

No matter how far along we are in our waiting season, we are given a model of the right attitude to keep in James 5:7-9: “See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains… Be patient and stand firm… Don’t grumble”.

RELATIONSHIP COACHING

Welcome to the first part of the Series on Relationship Coaching. This coaching is culled from my Book "The Marriage Quest", which will be release soon

We are born with the ability to relate to another human being. Nobody is an island because we all need love and love consists of living relationship. Been in LOVE is the QUEST of all human beings, essential like breathing fresh air and drinking clean water. 

Just like there is awareness about the delicate ecology of nature, there is a growing awareness about the ecology of relationship. What then is ecology? Ecology is a branch of biology dealing with relation of living organism to their surroundings, their habits, and modes of life or population. In connection to relationship, it reveals the chemistry of love; how we relate with our partners and the bonding agents that make us love for a lifetime.

There are many unconscious forces at work in every stage of a relationship, which has the potential for undermining our best efforts to sustain love if we are not aware. When these unconscious biological and emotional forces that are influencing us are uncovered, we will improve our chances for success in making long-term relationship choices. At this point, we are going to look at brain development as a biological force (chemical) that might be at play when we are making relationship choices. It is proper for us to understand and acknowledge the role of our brain chemistry before thinking of being in a relationship with the opposite sex.

When you are growing up there is a lot more going on than the hormonal changes that have traditionally been attributed to changes in teen behavior. The first areas of the brain to mature are the extreme front and back sections which control basic functions such as processing the senses and movement. Areas involved in orientation and language follow. Areas with more advanced functions (integrating information from the senses/reasoning and other functions) mature last.

Since the REACTIVE PART of the brain develops first, and the RESPONSIBLE PART develops last. As a teen or young adult you may not be developmentally mature enough to anticipate negative consequences of the choices you make. The way information comes into your brain, how it is organized, and then your response may be very different from a mature adult’s response. 

BRAIN UNDER CONSTRUCTION:

Teen process emotions differently than adults. The part of your brain related to emotions and decision making are still developing. As your developing brain undergoes rewiring, you are particularly vulnerable to risky behaviors. The amount of simulations needed to activate motivation differs in your adolescent brain than in your adult brain. 

Researchers are finding that human brain circuitry and development does not reach full maturity on average until the early to mid twenties. They estimated that the brain begin to matures at 20 – 21, and other estimation proves that it is closer to 25 - 26.

Well, these are the ages at which you are making career and relationship that will impact the rest of your life. And yet you may not be fully equipped to manage your impulses and make good long term choices until your brain reaches maturity, perhaps as late as 26 years old.

Your brain’s frontal lobe - the part of the brain that control social activities seems to undergo a lot of development during the teen years. At this time while your teenage brain is changing rapidly, relationship matter a lot to you. This is the time when friends are more important than family and what other people think of you is crucial. It is also a time when you are considering the kind of person you desire to spend the rest of your life with. It is also a time when you may even meet and decide to enter a committed partnership or marry the person you desire to cohabit with for life.

So, what are the implications of the timeline of the development of the brain? While as a teen or young adult you may appear to be mature and have advanced intellectually, the link between your seat of judgment and problem-solving and the emotional center of your brain is the last connection to be fully established. This link is crucial to emotional learning and self-regulation. And so as a teen or young adult, you may not be as mature as you and others sometimes think you are. While you appear to be physically mature, your brain may in fact be still developing and important neural connections necessary for adulthood not yet established. You may not appreciate consequences or weigh information the same way as adult’s do. 

Until your brain is well develop, do not rush into a committed relationship or marry early. Wait until you are mature enough to make the right decision. 

DO NOT AWAKEN LOVE WHEN YOU ARE UNDER 20:

Song 8:4 "Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires".

In this verse, God’s Word is saying to young girls, "Do not arouse or awaken love until you are mature to handle the issue of the heart". When it is not yet time and you awaken love, it destroy your capacity of ever discovering true love and dehumanizes your womanhood to a sex toy.

First off, what is God talking about when he says do not arouse or awaken love? How does this happen? Awakening or arousing love when you are not ready for marriage means you are walking along the edges of it. When the Lord tells us not to awaken love until it so desires, it means we aren’t supposed to walk along the cliff until the time is right. 

Do you know why so many ladies confessed they will never trust a man again? Do you know why their hearts were so broken to the extend of hating men? They allowed men to awaken their love and aroused them sexually when they were under 20. At that time, their brain was still under construction and not yet mature enough to make the right decision about relationship and destiny. Now there brains have been corrupted with false love and their souls tied to different men through sex. When they become adult (from the ages of 25), they get confuse about what true love is. They then discovered that sex is not love and love is not having sex. But, because they were so used to falling in love and having sex with different men, they can't withhold themselves the first day of meeting a new lover.
Their love is so awaken and their emotions so aroused to the extend that they can't control falling in bed with every Dick, Tom and Harry who claim to love them. They are always blinded by "Love at first sight" and ends up heart-broken. 

Out of ten, only 1 or 2 under twenty ends up getting married to the men they were dating. And most of them ends up their marriages in divorce. 

Why disturbing your brain while you are still schooling and under 20? As adult, you know what you want and you just can't offer yourself completely to any man that comes your way except if your mind is reprobate and you decided to be a prostitute. Therefore, it's better to wait until you are mature enough to handle the issues of life.

When is that time and how do we know that it’s that time to love? That’s the million dollar question because it’s different for everyone, but there are some solid guidelines that we can be sure of. First off, there isn’t a magic age at which you can point to and say it’s time. So it isn’t about numbers. There are some things that can’t be denied though.