If you’re an intentional Christian who purely desires God’s will to be done in your life, you shouldn’t feel like you wasted your time in a relationship that didn’t work out. For several reasons, God can use relationships to spiritually mold you. Maybe the purpose was to instill more strength, boldness, wisdom or understanding in you. And through any relationship that ends, you can understand more of what your heart desires.

God Is Still In Control 

It’s easy to feel that you wasted a months or even years of your life with the wrong person, but isn’t it also easy to forget that God is still in control? If it didn’t work out, there will be sorrow, but you should never feel it was a waste of time, for everything there is a season, and a purpose under Heaven (Ecclesiastes 3). Granted, the guy you went on a single date with who asked if you were going to finish your overpriced Spanish latte very well could have been a waste of your time. I’m talking about someone who was faithful and surrendered to God’s will during the relationship, and it still didn’t end well.

If it didn’t work out, God is trying to help you learn, grow or change in order to mold you more into the likeness of Christ. God often does that, doesn’t He? His hands somehow mold us stronger through pain. We can imagine our God at the wheel, bending over to breathe in His strength and His power into the clay while He forms us, molds us and builds us up higher into exuding His character. We have nothing else better to fill in the emptiness than the very breath and richness of our Father.

What Was The Purpose?

When a relationship ends, we should call upon God to reveal the purpose. If we truly break things down to our rawness and our nakedness, we are never too good for pain. Yet, only God can reveal to us the reasons as to why it didn’t work out. Maybe He wants to bring us to a point of humility or remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice, or maybe He wants us to understand that He doesn’t work on a performance-based kind of faith. Moreover, God could be pulling us back to desire Him more.

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” Psalm 73:25 

Another possible purpose for a failed relationship is helping you define your expectations for future relationships. If you’re able to convey why a past relationship didn’t work out, it helps potential partners understand how you desire to be treated in a relationship.

Pain Can Lead To Truth

I hope you don’t feel too disheartened that you can’t see the light God so desires for you to see. You didn’t waste your time. Your season is not a waste to God. You can become stronger because of it. You can be revealed things because of it. You can grow more mature in Christ because of it, but you can only do so if you tear the veil from your eyes that hides you into believing that it was all for a waste. It wasn’t.

“Pain removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.” —C.S. Lewis

Keep seeking His truth and all that He has for you. There is a joy, courage and an unshakable strength awaiting you on the other side. Let’s put our trust in Him that nothing in our lives is for waste, but rather for the propelling of our hearts towards a loving, faithful, and mighty God.

“Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.” Psalm 143:8

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