2 Ways to Stop Making the Same Relationship Mistakes (Pt.1)

Seventeen years ago today, Chip and I got married. Our anniversary is one of the most important days of the year to me. It’s this glorious marker that by grace we’ve defied the odds that were stacked against us! It’s a celebration of a lot of things that are just “us.” Our anniversary also reminds me that at one point God rescued me and I began walking with God on a new path, in a new direction, one that included a right and good relationship. I want to use the words “actually” or “finally” in there somewhere because I was the queen of long-term, broken, unhealthy, sin-filled relationships with men. With God, I was able to live beyond that! 

My journey with Him gave me two answers to a single burning question. Here's the first:

Q: How do I quit making the same relationship mistakes that lead to the same place of brokenness?
A: Know your rooftops.

Journey through 2 Samuel 11:1-4 with me to discover rooftops. This part of David’s story holds one of the keys to not making the same relationship mistakes over and over again. 

In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her…

David’s progression went something like this: 
  He should have been at war. He remained in Jerusalem. 
    He should have been peacefully at rest. He walked restlessly on his rooftop. 
      He should have turned his eyes away from the bathing woman.
        He asked someone to find out more about her. 
          He should have listened to the servant’s subtle caution about the married woman.
           He sent messengers to get Bathsheba.

Spoken like this, David’s downfall seems fast, doesn’t it? However, we’ve seen it didn’t begin with a rooftop. This was much farther down the path of “heart led astray.” Like a jenga tower, the rooftop was the last piece pulled before the blocks collapsed.

Rooftops can be spiritual places, emotional and mental places, and physical places. Think about those three aspects as we consider that a rooftop is…

• An innocent place. Rooftops were not known to be dens of iniquity. A rooftop was a personal place for a king, a place to get some fresh air, or to sit and meet with his family or advisers. Despite his choice to not be in the right place (at war like all the other kings), it was David’s own heart and lust that made the rooftop a dark place.
• A planned, deliberate choice—to be here instead of there. This can be a physical location but we can also choose emotional or spiritual places in relationships that can lead to a total mess including sexual sin such as longing for approval or running to numb feelings of conviction. 
• A place of restlessness. When we are restlessly seeking to meet our own needs we begin looking here, there and everywhere for that perfect situation and perfect person to meet our desires. 
• A place of entertaining possibilities. We become willing to deceive ourselves with the notion that something or someone out there will be able to meet all our needs, desires, and expectations. 
• A place separate from our “brothers” and without real accountability. We probably have plenty of company, but we grow increasingly disconnected from truth-speaking Christ followers, and friends who call to God out of a pure heart. (2 Tim. 2:22) When we are alone with our thoughts, our growing emptiness, and our struggle we’re left vulnerable. Without authentic relationships with people who respect us and love us enough to speak real truth and point us to Jesus, we are in danger of taking a hard fall. All the “brothers” who would have held David accountable to God’s way or told him a hard “no” were away at war.

This is when a rooftop becomes ripe for temptation. It’s a place where our desires can take an awful turn toward evil desires and we can be dragged away and enticed. (Jas. 1:14)

Consider your rooftops. Ask God to show you where you are physically, emotionally and mentally, and spiritually when you are most tempted to repeat the same mistakes or to sin. Ask Him to open your eyes to you how you got there. 

Understand when you ask Him this, He stays with you to sort through it. He doesn’t turn on the light in a messy room and walk away, telling you to clean it up. With God, no condemnation, no shame, exists. (Rom. 8:1). He desires to lead you in the way everlasting. (Ps. 139:24) That includes freedom from condemnation and shame, and freedom from lingering rooftops. 

It may be helpful to read through the rooftop list considering your body and physical locations first, then soul (heart and mind) places, then spiritual places. 
   It may be when you are feeling insecure, rejected, lonely, or fresh from a break up that you become desperate for someone who could really be the perfect guy to meet all your needs—and rush into sex in the next relationship you find. 
   It may be that you seem to be attracted to the same kind of man, every time, but nowhere to be seen is his true relationship with Jesus, and you set your relationship with Jesus aside every time, because you believe this guy is different—and you can “handle it; this one will be better.” 
   It could be the same guy you struggle with, break up, have long conversations, get back together, and enter in to the exact same mess all over again. Where’s your rooftop there? 

The primary lesson I learned in living beyond our pasts is that we must take time to know our rooftops. If we ignore our rooftops or don’t truly identify them, then the very places we have tripped before we may trip again. We stop repeating the same mistakes when learn to avoid our rooftops or get off of and get away from those places. 

It is there that we can stop short on the path of heart led astray and entrust ourselves, and our needs and desires to God. As we look to Christ to answer spirit-soul-body longings in His way and in His time we will find Him wholly satisfying, and find ourselves becoming whole.

Just another seed of my faith,

Ginny