Silas
Beloved of All
Thank you for sharing so honestly about what you have been carrying. It takes humility to name the lingering effects of past involvement in new age practices, the intrusive thoughts that have followed you even after returning to Christ, and the pain of a breakup that you knew was necessary. Your desire to walk in forgiveness and obedience is the right direction, and God sees that desire.
Your decision to end the relationship because you are not equally yoked was a faithful and difficult obedience to Scripture. The word of God says not to be yoked together with unbelievers, asking what fellowship righteousness can have with unrighteousness and what communion light can have with darkness. It is common to think our situation is the exception, that love will be strong enough to overcome the difference, but that yoke is by nature unequal. It is not limited to marriage, though marriage shows it most clearly. When two people are joined who do not share the same Lord, the same standard, the same ethic, they are pulling in different directions. What may not trouble one conscience will deeply trouble the other, because you are living by different rules. They remain like oil and water, they do not truly blend. To come out and be separate is not unkindness, it is obedience that protects your walk with the Lord. You were right to recognize that you cannot be together unless he belongs to Christ, and to hold that line even when your heart still feels hope.
The intrusive thoughts you describe, including the pull toward divination, are painful and loud, and it is understandable that when some impressions seem to come true it creates more confusion and false hope. This is where Scripture helps to reset our thinking. God says His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so His ways and thoughts are higher than ours. He knows the end from the beginning, so when He acts He knows it is right. We act and hope it is right. Our thoughts are limited and often troubled, and to exalt our thoughts or our ability to know what someone else is thinking or what will happen next is to put ourselves in the place only God should hold. The unrighteous way of thinking leads away from peace, but the Lord invites anyone who will turn to Him to find mercy and abundant pardon.
God also tells us what His thoughts toward His children are. He says the thoughts He thinks toward you are thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. In a season that can feel like captivity, when you wonder if God has forgotten you, He has not. He knows your thoughts at their very origin, before you even think them. He is acquainted with all your ways, He surrounds your path and your rest. That is why the psalmist prays, search me and know my thoughts, see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. That is a good prayer for you now. Not only to ask God to quiet the intrusive thoughts, but to invite Him to test your heart, to reveal what needs to be cleansed, and to lead you. Often we have a higher opinion of our own strength than is true, and it is in testing that we see ourselves clearly and learn to depend more fully on Him.
Practically, this means continuing to renounce any form of divination and refusing to entertain it as a source of guidance, even when it feels accurate. Do not simply try to ignore the thoughts in your own strength. Bring every thought captive to Christ, answer it with truth from Scripture, and replace the habit of trying to know the future with trust in the One who already knows it. Keep walking in forgiveness as you mentioned, keep obeying in the small things, stay in the Word, and stay close to faithful believers who can pray with you and help you discern. The contrast Scripture draws again and again is between the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked, not to shame you but to show you there is a clear, parallel path of life and peace God has set before you. Human wisdom, especially about what lies beyond what we can see, is limited. If you want to know what is true and what is to come, go to the words of Jesus, who knows fully.
I will pray for you, that the Lord would bring deep peace to your mind, break the ingrained pattern of these intrusive thoughts, and renew your thinking through His Word. I will pray that He continues to establish you in forgiveness and obedience and leads you in His everlasting way.
I will also pray for your former boyfriend and for his loved ones, not that God would bless a relationship outside His design, but that God in His mercy would open his eyes to the truth of the gospel, draw him to salvation through Jesus Christ alone, and bring his family to faith as well. If God in His sovereignty does a genuine work of conversion in his life, that will be evident over time through fruit and faithful counsel, but your hope now is not to be placed in him returning. Your hope is to be placed in Christ and in the good future God Himself plans for you as you call upon Him and seek Him with your whole heart.
Your decision to end the relationship because you are not equally yoked was a faithful and difficult obedience to Scripture. The word of God says not to be yoked together with unbelievers, asking what fellowship righteousness can have with unrighteousness and what communion light can have with darkness. It is common to think our situation is the exception, that love will be strong enough to overcome the difference, but that yoke is by nature unequal. It is not limited to marriage, though marriage shows it most clearly. When two people are joined who do not share the same Lord, the same standard, the same ethic, they are pulling in different directions. What may not trouble one conscience will deeply trouble the other, because you are living by different rules. They remain like oil and water, they do not truly blend. To come out and be separate is not unkindness, it is obedience that protects your walk with the Lord. You were right to recognize that you cannot be together unless he belongs to Christ, and to hold that line even when your heart still feels hope.
The intrusive thoughts you describe, including the pull toward divination, are painful and loud, and it is understandable that when some impressions seem to come true it creates more confusion and false hope. This is where Scripture helps to reset our thinking. God says His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so His ways and thoughts are higher than ours. He knows the end from the beginning, so when He acts He knows it is right. We act and hope it is right. Our thoughts are limited and often troubled, and to exalt our thoughts or our ability to know what someone else is thinking or what will happen next is to put ourselves in the place only God should hold. The unrighteous way of thinking leads away from peace, but the Lord invites anyone who will turn to Him to find mercy and abundant pardon.
God also tells us what His thoughts toward His children are. He says the thoughts He thinks toward you are thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. In a season that can feel like captivity, when you wonder if God has forgotten you, He has not. He knows your thoughts at their very origin, before you even think them. He is acquainted with all your ways, He surrounds your path and your rest. That is why the psalmist prays, search me and know my thoughts, see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. That is a good prayer for you now. Not only to ask God to quiet the intrusive thoughts, but to invite Him to test your heart, to reveal what needs to be cleansed, and to lead you. Often we have a higher opinion of our own strength than is true, and it is in testing that we see ourselves clearly and learn to depend more fully on Him.
Practically, this means continuing to renounce any form of divination and refusing to entertain it as a source of guidance, even when it feels accurate. Do not simply try to ignore the thoughts in your own strength. Bring every thought captive to Christ, answer it with truth from Scripture, and replace the habit of trying to know the future with trust in the One who already knows it. Keep walking in forgiveness as you mentioned, keep obeying in the small things, stay in the Word, and stay close to faithful believers who can pray with you and help you discern. The contrast Scripture draws again and again is between the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked, not to shame you but to show you there is a clear, parallel path of life and peace God has set before you. Human wisdom, especially about what lies beyond what we can see, is limited. If you want to know what is true and what is to come, go to the words of Jesus, who knows fully.
I will pray for you, that the Lord would bring deep peace to your mind, break the ingrained pattern of these intrusive thoughts, and renew your thinking through His Word. I will pray that He continues to establish you in forgiveness and obedience and leads you in His everlasting way.
I will also pray for your former boyfriend and for his loved ones, not that God would bless a relationship outside His design, but that God in His mercy would open his eyes to the truth of the gospel, draw him to salvation through Jesus Christ alone, and bring his family to faith as well. If God in His sovereignty does a genuine work of conversion in his life, that will be evident over time through fruit and faithful counsel, but your hope now is not to be placed in him returning. Your hope is to be placed in Christ and in the good future God Himself plans for you as you call upon Him and seek Him with your whole heart.
