The Love Better Manual

By Linda Dominique Grosvenor

Many well-meaning believers have been indoctrinated with the reckless way society has relationships and govern their marriages for so long that the true biblical way to love and be loved has become an all but obscure notion. However, uprooting the worldly version of love and getting down to scriptural basics can mean the difference between finding a temporary kind of love that will eventually disappoint you and cultivating a true God-inspired love that was meant to last. In order for individuals to get the fulfilling life of love that God has for them, first a revival has to take place in their minds and in their spirits. There is a stripping and pruning process that God has designed to produce a bounty of sweet tasting fruit for the one He is sending or has sent to love us. It is through this process and the teaching in The Love Better Manual that individuals will learn about, soul ties, unconditional love, boundaries in marriage and even toxic relationships. They will also glean the crucial tools that are necessary to build up marriages and heal those who are ready to allow themselves to be pruned before they even begin to seek out a wife or allow themselves to be sought by a husband. The Love Better Manual is a journey and was designed to bring permanent positive change the way we live and love forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Linda Dominique Grosvenor
• Release date: Mar 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301967445

Linda Dominique Grosvenor

Linda Dominique Grosvenor is the author of The Plural Thing: Spiritually Preparing for Your Soul Mate (Feb 2010) that has been called, "unadulterated spiritual relationship guidance for modern times," and the author of the soul-healing article "She Didn't Steal Your Man, He Was Already Hers in the Spirit." Her expertise on dating and relationship issues have been used in articles for publications such as Modern Bride and MORE Magazine. She is a blissfully happy wife married to her soul mate Calvin and enjoys writing books that help assist people with having the best relationships of their lives. Visit her website at http://www.LindaDominiqueGrosvenor.com.

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Introduction

Love is a constant state of being. Learning to love better must be a conscious effort put into practice until it becomes a habit. Before we can even come together with the person that our magnificent God has hand-picked for us, we have to learn to love better. We have to learn what we’re going to do when we get that person and when that person comes we have to learn to make a habit of the good behavior that we’ve been taught. Implement it. We can’t offer excuses and dredge up reasons and stories about past hurts and pains and refuse to let God tear down the walls that we’ve put up around our hearts. We can’t hold the next person to their flaws while we conveniently overlook our own and use the I’m not perfect cop out. Even if we are single and pray to one day be in a meaningful, spirit-filled relationship, we have to trust that the person God has sent or is preparing to send has done the same and that when there is a coming together, we are both capable of being a whole and thriving marital unit. We all believe that we are going through life doing the best we can, but our best is not His best. When God has given us a spouse or someone who has the potential to become our spouse we have to give more than the best effort we can. We have to give as He would give—all. That means stripping ourselves of habits and things we used to do that may have worked for a season, but have no place in the now. We have to learn to love ourselves and the other person enough to say, My way isn’t working and fully yield to the Spirit of God. In loving ourselves better we can love others better. Simply put that’s exactly what God expects from each and every one of us as we strive to be more like Him and love not just how much we want to, but the absolute best we can.

1 Getting Pruned

Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. – Luke 12:43 KJV

Getting pruned is one of the most important stages of preparing yourself for the relationship that God wants you to have. It is critical that you allow a Holy God to strip away the things He no longer wants to be part of you, so that something more fruitful can appear in your life. When you decide to spruce up your house or apartment you don’t go out and buy all new furniture and then have it delivered and positioned right next to the old, worn, matted furniture with the flattened cushions that are full of holes. Likewise, the old stuff that you’ve been dragging around from relationship to relationship like twenty-five pound bags of sand has to go now because the new things that God will put in you are to glorify Him, and will not stand side-by-side with junk.

The average person, however, does not like change. They take the same train, bus or highway to work every morning even if there are several other options that will get them to same destination, mostly because they like to be comfortable. Face it, change is uncomfortable. Familiarity is comfortable. Routine is important to people. They enjoy seeing the same grouping of dogwood trees, passing by the same gas station and if there’s a guy waving newspapers at the intersection every morning we expect to see him there like clockwork—we look forward to it, and on the off chance that it’s raining we’ll look around to see where he’s taken shelter. As long as he’s still there our routine is intact- unchanged. Familiarity wants to keep things as routine as possible, but in doing that we won’t always take a moment to find out what God wants us to do in a particular situation.

Change can turn things upside down and make your existence somewhat unsure at first. God knows that, but we have to build our faith up and learn to trust Him. Let someone chop down that grouping of dogwood trees that you see every morning on the way to work and you will probably pause as you pass. It might even take you a moment to wonder where you are, and once you've figured it out, wonder what is different about it. You may look in front of you or behind you and then check the streets to make certain you are at the right location where the trees should be. What it all boils down to is no matter what happens, even if it feels a little weird or uncomfortable, we have to trust the changes that God allows for our lives and embrace it so we can grow, get rid of some unproductive traits and eventually produce more fruit for the Kingdom.

Sometimes change can cause mayhem if it’s ungoverned. I’m not being blind to that fact. I remember living in a tiny studio apartment in North Carolina. One evening the management put a notice on everyone’s door notifying us that they were going to be paving the parking lot the following morning at 8 a.m. I moved my car immediately, right then and there when I got the notice and didn’t wait. The next morning, bright and early it was pandemonium for the majority of the residents in the complex where I lived. People walked out of their doors in a mad crush, clueless as to what to do next, even though the notice gave explicit instructions and an alternate location very close by for everyone to park their cars. Pruning can mean change and even with a map and step-by-step instructions some people just don’t readily welcome it.

When you allow God to prune you, the change that comes is specifically governed by Him. He oversees it so that the outcome is what He would have it to be. There are many unexpected changes that bring with it unexpected outcomes in life. God however, is a sure thing. You don’t have to guess about what His motive is because the motive is to always better you to be a stronger example of Christianity, a more faithful witness for the Lord and to lighten the load of baggage that so many of us carry around for years so that our fruit is an impressive harvest—not sour grapes. If you follow His lead, His perfect will shall prevail. No matter how much of an aversion you have towards change, a God-inspired change is a blessing because God can and will send comfort and reassurance if you welcome the changes that He wants to make in your life. Pruning can press you to get the good stuff out of you and grow and stretch you further than you even knew you could reach.

Imagine your ex-boyfriend has a new girlfriend and you still have strong feelings for him. Nobody tells us what to do with the feelings we have for someone else when a romance is over. Saying, Hello to his new girlfriend is probably the furthest thing from your mind, yet it is the right thing to do to greet her like you would anyone else. God would not have you withhold from her what you’d freely give everyone else—especially if you are professing Godliness. Sure we know that it can be uncomfortable, but allow God to prune you, take away the attitude and the resentment and that Hello will come out so sugary sweet and heartfelt that God Himself in Heaven will smile and be proud to call you His own. God will begin processing those lingering feelings of adoration that you have for your ex until you can’t find them anymore. That’s God removing parts of you that don’t belong. It’s called pruning—to bear more fruit. That is elevation in the Spirit.

The same thing is true with ex-husbands and ex-wives. Former spouses are notorious for not ever having a kind word to say to or about one another even in Christiandom. Some would say that divorced people who act like that need major pruning. Nevertheless, in the pruning stage, anger and animosity are normally commanded by God to go take a hike and never come back. Divorce isn’t pretty, especially for the children, but it happens. We need to move beyond our selfishness - that probably led to the divorce in the first place - and cultivate the kind of relationship that will allow us to call our former spouse with questions and concerns about the children without feeling or sending a sting of anger through the phone line.

Your scaly attitude against your former spouse doesn’t profit anything when it comes to showing your children by example how to get along with people in the world. We know that we will never get along with everybody, but does it have to look like a duel from an old western when the two of you once claimed to love each other? How pleased would God be with that kind of irresponsibility in front of your children? No matter what the absent parent has done or how you feel about them now, are you teaching your children to forgive or get even, to hold a grudge or repair and restore the fractured relationship? Perhaps there are no children involved, divorce and moving on after a divorce can still present a challenge, because people crave routine. But we have to know that rage, sarcasm and vindictiveness does nothing for the Kingdom of God. If an action is not building up the Kingdom then it can not only hinder it, but it can dampen your witness and the lives of people around you who view you as an example or role model. Only you are responsible for how your behavior looks to the outside world.

So many people let anger replace the love that was once there in hopes that the feelings will be extinguished that way, but that’s not God’s way. God’s way is to process you through it, not mask it with a fickle emotion like anger. The truth is that we can’t even readily rely on behaviors, emotions and habits that we’ve formed over the years to help us cope with the harsh realities of life when we know that they mean us no good. You can live in the inner cities and still possess qualities that make you easy to talk to and pleasant to be around. You can also be raised in a dysfunctional family and still have peace of mind, a giving nature and other qualities that God can be proud of. You can be someone who was a victim of sexual abuse and still find it in your heart to trust people and experience not only how to give love, but how to receive it too.

We can’t hold up ungodly attributes like a shield, believing we have a right to use them as protection. They will not prevent us from getting our feelings hurt or getting disrespected again, especially when God’s Word forbids those very behaviors and habits to begin with. Anything negative and hurtful that we’ve experienced God can comfort, no matter how deep the wound. Even with the residue of anything you’ve gone through at the hand of someone else, know that God can replace those memories and still your fears with the magnificent warmth of His overflowing love. Your past doesn’t dictate your future and you must walk in the unadulterated belief of that.

Maybe your husband cheated on you. Did he walk out on you and leave you and the kids high and dry without a morsel of food in the cabinets and your joint bank account in the negative? Did your wife lead you to believe that you were happily married and then backed up a moving truck to your house one afternoon while you were at work, and cleaned out every room leaving you with just a toaster, the temperamental microwave and an assortment of neckties? Take it to God and release it there. 1 Peter 5:7 says, Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. Let Him prune you. It’s not up to you to figure out. Don’t relive the break-up every single time you have to talk to him or her on the phone and don’t get it in your mind that you will punish them for all eternity.

Let the past go—just as you want to be forgiven for your past. Get pruned and let God show you how much better than that you can be—how much better than that He requires you to be. Don’t rehash the details of your divorce to anyone who will listen and have strangers wondering how you can be so venomous when you say that you’re a Christian and love God oh so much. Get pruned. Where is the God in you when you’re talking about what happened? Is anger leading you to say things that contradict your beliefs? Are you leading yourself and doing what you want whenever you feel like it or are you living according to the Word of God that says repent, forgive and turn the other cheek? We can’t straddle the fence. To get beyond what we have now we have to present ourselves to God in total surrender. We have to say, Here I am and I’m ready for you to mold and shape me because I can’t do it on my own. And then we have to let Him!

We’ve all been on the not-quite-together end of the spectrum at one time or another. Even people who’ve grown up in the church don't have it so together that there’s no room for improvement or a little bit more that they could be learning or gleaning from. The saddest thing for me, however, is watching people I know do their own thing, making a foolish mess out of themselves and their lives and their relationships when they don’t have to and then have the nerve to want God to help them out of their mess as if He’s the one who created it.

What I love about my Savior is that the merciful God that He is, will still, despite the mess, despite how many times we’ve messed up prior to this time, despite what popular opinions like mine or yours may be, He responds to the sincere prayer of a believer or a sinner who is willing to turn their life over to Him. My approach (I’d like to think) would be different and I would want to avoid the delay by seeking the Father from the beginning. I would stop trying to avenge all the wrongs that have been done to me in life when the Word clearly says in Romans 12:17a Recompense to no man evil for evil and the familiar passage in Romans 12:19 admonishes us, Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. But although it takes work to grow us to a place where we can turn it all over to Him the only way that will happen is if that do-it-yourself mentality is extinguished by a reverence for God and doing what’s right in His sight.

How can God move freely in our lives when we only want to offer Him limited access to our hearts and our issues and govern our own lives as if we don’t trust that He knows what we need? He is not going to arm-wrestle us for control of our lives. If we want to learn the hard way He will let us—over and over again. If we want to seek His face for guidance He will welcome us, direct us and answer us. It all goes back to pruning. How can God elevate us in the Spirit when we don’t want to even believe that we have pruning that needs to be done? Pain makes us do foolish things. Heartbreak, rejection and sheer embarrassment will lead us to believe that if we admit to needing pruning that it will scream to the world that we are imperfect and take away people, places and things that we want to stay in our lives—although they offer no comfort and maybe not even a temporal pleasure.

Pruning isn’t punishment though. God could let us grow wild like weeds, get tangled up and choke ourselves or become diseased and rot to death without bearing a single berry or plum or apple if He chose to, but what would that say about Him the Master of the vineyard? God sees the big picture while we worry and despair about a little uncertainty right now. People don’t want discomfort. They reject pruning because they know even the gentle kind of tending can pinch a little. Pruning can hurt, but so does having a kidney stone. After the kidney stone has made its way through, however, we’re all the better for it. Passing the stone was necessary and so is the work that God has to do with us in order to get us where we need to be. He only wants to link us together with who we need to be coupled with.

We have to keep in mind that pruning is a good thing. When we allow God to prune us we show Him that we aren’t just paying Him lip service and speaking highly of ourselves with no real action to back it up, but we are dedicated to whatever He has for our lives and we are willing believers that will obey His Word. John 15:2 says, Every branch in me that beareth not fruit He taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Pruning is Biblical even though fear will allow people to sugarcoat it or guesstimate what He meant. The truth is that any believer who bears a plenteous amount of fruit has definitely been pruned by God at some time or another.

Richard Weir the co-author of Pruning: An Illustrated Guide to Pruning Ornamental Trees and Shrubs said in a New York Times article that by pruning, You're just enhancing what nature and God intended. He sawed the branch [of a magnolia tree] at a 90-degree angle just beyond what is called the branch bark ridge, a ringed bulge of xylem tissue between the trunk and branch. This is the area of the tree with the greatest ability to seal itself off, Mr. Weir says. No fungi can penetrate through that. And likewise God knows exactly how to prune us just right so that we too produce an enhanced version of what God created us to be and that His pruning doesn’t become detrimental to our being by letting in things that can damage, harm us or eat away at us like a fungus. His pruning is to perfect us.

If you were to lie down on the ground and look up the trunk of your tree, you would want to see branches radiating out like the spokes of a wheel, Mr. Weir said. These main branches—called scaffold branches—should ascend the trunk in an alternating pattern, balancing the tree with their weight. Ideally, they should grow at 45 to 60-degree angles from the trunk and should be spaced evenly from one another. Some trees, like this magnolia, do it naturally, he said. But sometimes you'll have too many branches emanating out from the same growing point, which weakens the trunk.

If God allowed us to remain how we are, set in our ways, with habits that thwart our growth, and holding onto unjustified misconceptions of life and prejudices against people, the same thing would happen to us. All of those things that produce branches in our lives and go unpruned will weaken us both spiritually and naturally and make us unsteady, ineffective and unresponsive to God’s leading and His voice. Such training is particularly important when trees are young, Weir said. Technically, you should wait a year or two to prune a newly planted tree, because it needs all the foliage it has to help in root establishment, he said. So, let that baby tree grow for a year or two—except for removing any dead, diseased or rubbing branches—but when the time comes to prune, don't put it off. Basically, aside from cutting out dead and diseased wood and branches that rub one another, you are letting light and air into the shrub, as well as shaping it aesthetically.

Did you see that? Just like a natural tree, pruning shapes us aesthetically too. It makes us appear more pleasing to the Master and that’s whose opinion counts. When He looks at us He wants to be able to tell that we are His. When He listens to our conversations He wants to be able to distinguish between a believer’s conversation and a non-believer’s. If we confess Him, remember that the confession comes with expectations—it’s not like flashing a police badge to get out of a sticky situation. God expects a certain way of living and behaving from us who call him Father. We as His children can expect to be shaped and molded by Him—just like we would raise and discipline our own children.

Make sure you do it, Weir said about pruning. Because that's the one time in a tree's life that you can develop or enhance its structural integrity, its branching habit and its overall growth. Some words of warning about pruning big trees he cautions: If you can't reach a branch with the pole pruners, let a professional do the job, he said. I personally agree with this statement one hundred percent. Jesus is absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt the sole professional for the job! Let Him do it!

Your comfortable shade tree out back may be in need of pruning one day. After it’s pruned and many branches are snipped away it may not even shade the family like it used to, but realize that an unpruned tree is more dangerous than a pruned tree because it may falsely lead you to believe that because of its many branches and leaves offering shade that it’s healthy and robust, but a strong wind can come and dispute that theory. You wouldn’t want to be responsible for putting your family in jeopardy just because you sought the comfort of big leaves that block out the sun’s rays as you lay in your hammock or on the chaise lounge. Just like your family counts on you for something, we as individuals count on God and that’s why, although it’s not always a painless experience, it’s what He does, what He must do so that our spiritual lives aren’t in jeopardy.

Now you may be asking, ‘what does all this pruning talk have to do with relationships, learning to love better or seeking a mate of God’s choosing?’ and my response is, You’re kidding, right? Paul says, You yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him (Colossians 3:8-10). Some of us continue to exhibit such behavior and then want God to deliver to us a mate who is unaware of our behavior and then force them to love us. We want them to shower us with affection with our filthy mouth, perverted thoughts, temper tantrums and all. Some of us have a mate and are barely holding on to them by a thin thread because after a few years they found out about the real us, not the well-dressed ones who said all of the Holy and righteous sounding things to get them to notice us. God knows that you may be on the verge of losing your marriage or having your fiancé break off your engagement and it’s all because you run with breakneck speed every time you feel God coming near you with the pruning shears.

Running from God won’t hold your marriage together. Pretending not to hear His voice won’t give you a free pass when it comes time to answer for why you haven’t grown an inch since you said the sinner’s prayer fifteen years ago. Avoidance is one of the biggest mistakes Christians make. That old deceptive devil makes people believe they won’t be found out or that they can sit in the last pew in church and go overlooked for years and years, but God sees you and He’s watching.

You think you like yourself pretty much the way you are and you refuse to concede to the Word, surrender to God or change a lick and to boot you secretly hope that God is too busy answering other people’s prayers to notice what you are doing or not doing. When you have people in your life who walk out because they can’t tolerate your behavior a moment longer, you figure they must not have been the right partner, co-worker, or friend. In fact God has been sending all of these people into your life so that you can see yourself up close and personal and get honest feedback from someone who cared enough to bother. We have dead leaves hanging all around us and we push them up and smooth them down as we go through life and hope that nobody is paying close enough attention to really see how dead and diseased we are.

Being the head usher doesn’t excuse the work that God needs to do in your life; neither does being the assistant to the secretary of the church anniversary committee. Titles are just that—titles. Make up a title, give yourself a certificate and see how much it changes your spiritual life. I dare you. Make your title sound really important too and then sit back and tell me what happens next. A title doesn’t mean that you’ve arrived. A title means—get busy, you have more work to do! It also means, get ready God’s coming to prune you!

When God wants something done, listen, He doesn’t want excuses. Did Jesus give an excuse on His way to die for your sins? Did Moses makes excuses when the freed Hebrew slaves were at the mouth of the Red Sea with the chariots of Pharaoh’s army hot on their heels? We have to learn to listen to God and allow change to come into our lives and stop thinking that we are the exception to every Biblical law and statute or else ten years from now we’ll still have exactly what a lot of us have right now, an unsatisfied life that we are blaming God for when it’s not even His fault.

Pruning may be to cut away or to reveal things that can’t be seen because of clutter in our lives. Pruning isn’t a cut and dried process. It isn’t even harmful as it promotes health and growth for the one being pruned. Whether you need light and gentle pruning or heavy aggressive pruning remember: surrender, listen and trust God because the person who is learning to love better and the person who hopes to be the recipient of that better love deserves your absolute best effort.

Surrender everything to God: your motives, your expectancy, your questions and your uncertainty. Come to Him like a child (Matthew 18:3) who is learning something new for the first time and is expecting the Professional to guide them so that they get it right. To do that you’ll have to refrain from trying to figure everything out yourself (Proverbs 3:5). What makes sense to us normally is far off from what God means.

Listening may be the hardest thing out of all three to do because so many of us fill our days, hours, seconds and minutes up with anything we can get our hands on to make it race by. Maybe you love turning up your radio on the ride in to work to drown out honking horns or perhaps your cell phone rings incessantly throughout the day and everyone is clamoring for a piece of your attention. You need to make your world still (Psalm 46:10) to listen for and to hear God’s voice. We can’t save the world and lose ourselves in the process. Make people respect the fact that all of your time is not up for grabs and don’t be afraid to switch all of your newfangled electronic gadgets to the off position to get this accomplished. If we are worth the time God takes to prune us, then we are worth the hour, day or weekend we may have to sever contact with the outside world and set aside time for the Master.

Finally, trust Him. God knew us before we were formed in the womb. He knows if we will get it the first time with a gentle nudge or if we require a harsher approach. Even after God has pointed out some things, maybe a circle of ungodly friends, erratic spending habits, the perpetuating and spreading malicious gossip about someone in lieu of offering genuine friendship to the person you’re gossiping about, trust that He knows best. He’s not telling you to sever ties with someone you’ve been friends with for years because He’s intent on ruining your life. Whether you can see it or not, you have to realize that there is something about that friendship that may not be pleasing to Him and if it’s not pleasing Him, it’s simply not right. Trust that God wants to retain the good in you and exterminate everything else that profits nothing.

But you can be sure that some Christians no matter what God reveals may still decide to live how they want to live and hold on to the things they want to hold on to. That’s just how some people are. They like to say, you only live once and they want to do it how they please, but did you know that an unpruned rose bush even of the most desirable variety will produce mediocre sized buds that bloom into average sized flowers? A pruned rose bush, however, even of the most common persuasion, after continuous pruning will bring forth hearty buds and spectacular-sized flowers that will amaze even the most seasoned horticulturist. Pruning cultivates. Get pruned!

So many of us are quick to chalk up our behavior to it simply being our personality. The dictionary says that personality is: an embodiment of a collection of qualities, the sum total of the physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual or the organized pattern of behavioral characteristics of the individual. Within the definition of the Bible is where we should find our personality. Our personality should mirror the one we are supposed to be like—Christ. That’s why we are called Christians because we are to be Christ-like. People should see positive qualities in us and make the logical connection that we are Christians based on that. Unfortunately, it often doesn’t work that way because we won’t let God change us, we don’t want to change, and we exist for years unchanged but expect the blessings of Heaven to shower down on our unchanged selfish nature.

Realistically speaking, your personality and the parts of you that refute the Word and won’t let the scriptures or the sermons seep down into the layers of your Spirit is your flesh saying, This is the way I am and I’m not going to change for anybody—not even God. It’s true. If God wants us to bear more fruit and you are refusing to do it or refusing to take a good look at yourself then you are telling God through your actions that you won’t change, not even for Him. You can’t say you love God and not do what He says.

Our lives aren’t our own. We were bought with a price. Honestly, there is a purpose for our very existence, be it to encourage, nurture or feed. Therefore a righteous man or woman obeys God and if pruning is a part of God’s process, we are to obey that process and allow ourselves to be pruned. Just like a garden, pruning isn’t something that’s done once a year or even twice in the lifetime of a plant. Pruning comes when it’s necessary and it’s the Pruner’s job alone to know when to initiate it. All we need to do is yield to the Pruner when He comes and He’ll take care of the rest.

Hopefully by now you understand what pruning is and as a true believer who loves God, you will allow Him to prune you. This process, like all others that God brings us through, will have a beautiful outcome and equip us to bless others and share our testimonies of His love, mercy and grace. Psalm 1:3 declares that a righteous man (woman) Shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. Do you want to prosper? Do you want to save your marriage, make it stronger, find a suitable mate? Get off the relationship hamster wheel? Let God prune you.

If you aren’t obedient to God and His Word then the prosper in Psalm 1:3 is not for you. So many people want to skip the pruning part and move on to the send me somebody stage and then wonder why even the most appealing or predictable prospects are slipping through their fingers like sand. When God prunes us it is because He knows that we can be better, produce better and operate in gifts, talents and attributes that we may not even know we possess.

We’ve all heard life changing tidbits from a variety of sources. These words can come from television, books, a Sunday morning sermon, a friend, a co-worker or some other wellspring of information. Sometimes God wants you to get it directly from the source - Him. He has done this with me on so many occasions and I know emphatically without a doubt it was Him every single time because my mind couldn’t begin to conjure the things He’s shared with me or stated so eloquently.

I remember one year when I was preparing to attend an event for my first relationship book, The Plural Thing: Spiritually Preparing for Your Soul Mate, I was in the hotel trying to relax, unwind and basically just stay at ease in preparation for the event. God woke me up that morning in the Spirit and shared the following: Some of us are satisfied with a half, but a half put together man will not attract a fully put together woman and a half put together woman will not attract a fully put together man. So, if you’re consistently attracting people who are at the halfway mark, re-evaluate yourself because you’re not as together as you think.

I was floored by that revelation and was brimming with excitement at the same time. I realized that I had to share it with the group that evening at my speaking engagement. As the minutes ticked by I felt like I would burst if I didn’t share the revelation that God had given me. I couldn’t wait to let the words loose, so, I immediately told my husband. He knew on the spot it was God and together we praised Him for the revelation and knew that it had the power to change lives. I shared it with the attendees that evening and they were moved by the words, but shortly before I even attempted to share it with them, a strange thing happened. Something God had been telling me for years prior got stuck in my mind and I couldn’t shake it. He told me, We all get information, but it’s what you do about what you know that counts.

I thought that the Word He had given me was anointed and had the power to change lives - it was and it did - but I realized that He also wanted me to keep in mind that even though the revelation was powerful, if those who heard it didn’t believe it and act on it—nothing would happen. It made me wonder how many other truths we weren’t living and receiving the power of because we heard them and just let them fall to the ground.

Let’s be honest, we all think we’re a well-put together package. We’d all like to think that everything in us comes highly recommended, but the Word says, I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, (John 15:1-2, 5, 8). If everything in a believer was good there would be no need to prune—ever.

The point I’m trying to get across is that since the Word says it, we have to do it, and we must be fruitful Christians. It’s in the Word. We have to allow Him to take away anything that hinders our growth or prevents our fruit from being as plentiful as He would like it to be. Some of us are very comfortable being mediocre. We have had mediocre relationships all of our lives, a mediocre job and a mediocre state of mind, but that’s why it’s about how much fruit God would like us to bear. God’s not pleased with our mediocre mindset. Some of us would be content with seven grapes on the vine and nothing more—but God wants a royal harvest.

Unforgiveness can hinder our fruit production though, as can jealousy, anger and other negative emotions or attributes that we’ve dragged around year after year—but this is the year of change. The Word says, Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing, (Luke 12:43). When God comes it would do you a whole lot of good to let Him see you yielding to His will, not fighting against it to have your own way or define your own highly researched plan—which by the way isn’t working and hasn’t worked since you mapped it out. Let Him find you seeking elevation, reading His Word with expectancy and going through life with a zeal for His personal calling on your life.

When it comes to the relationships that we say we want, if we don’t allow God to prune us we can become a natural and spiritual hindrance and burden to our mate instead of a helper and a joy to come home to every evening. When we won’t let God change things about us that keep attracting the wrong kinds of people we end up in this humdrum relationship cycle and each and every time a relationship ends we’re clueless as to how we got there. If you have a mate, my advice for you is to get your act together. There is always room to learn to love better, listen better, give better, communicate better, be a better husband or wife and just grow your thought process so that God can elevate your relationship beyond the danger zone that can have you counted as a soon coming divorce statistic.

If you’re single, well, you need to get your act together too, because God is not going to count it a blessing to add your ill-put-together self into the life of a man or woman who is seeking Him for favor. When a man or woman is praying, reading the Word, tithing, donating time and allowing themselves to be pruned so that they can grow in God, and