3 Dangers of Mistaking a Project for a Potential Mate

There is a significant difference between a Project and a Potential Mate and it is imperative to distinguish the difference between the two.
A project is a person who you connect with and take on the role of helping them to strengthen their relationship with God. A project may or may not have a genuine motive to pursue God and they often seek your help to guide them.
On the other hand, a potential is someone who is already spiritually at your level. This person has a consistent relationship with the Lord and the fruit of their relationship with God can be visibly seen and verified.  A potential is someone who you can help grow spiritually, but he/she can also help you to grow in areas as well. You sharpen one another and you are both actively pursuing God without the persuasion of someone else.
Here are 3 Dangers of Mistaking a Project for a Potential Mate:
1. Projects Are NOT Suitable Helpers or Ready to Lead! Just because they gave their life to God with your help, does not mean He sent them to you for the purpose of a romantic relationship. Mistaking a project for your help meet or yourself as their help meet is not wise.
Men of God, it is deception to believe a woman who has yet to establish fruit in her relationship with God will be equipped to bear fruit in one with you. Genesis 2:18 tells us “The Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” If you are walking with a woman who has yet to discover her true identity in Christ, is it even possible for her to understand her role as your Help Meet? Furthermore, if she is not in a position to help herself, how can you expect her to help you?
Gentlemen, if she cannot HELP you, can she really be your Help Meet?  Women of God, if Ephesians 5:23 says “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church”, how can your Project be your Potential Mate if you are leading him? If he has not allowed God to transform his nature and to first teach him how to become a student of the word and a son of God first, why promote him to Hubby status? No matter how much time and energy you invest in your project, only God can make a man of God out of him. Ladies God never intended for you to take on His job!
2. Are you Equally Yoked? It’s great you desire to help them, but keep in mind you are not on the same level as a project and you are unequally yoked with them. When defining what it means to be unequally yoked with someone many times we only focus on the first part of 2 Corinthians 6:14, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers”. However, there is more to this scripture…”for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness”? If a man/ woman professes to be a believer but has yet to be transformed by God, can you honestly say you are equally yoked with him/her? It’s great they are now attending church regularly, but have they endured the process of allowing the light of Christ to remove the darkness from within them? The truth is, a project is not spiritually mature enough to be yoked to anyone!
3. You Risk Becoming the God in Their Life. When the lines of a project relationship crossover into a romantic relationship, it is most likely that the person guiding the relationship will attempt to mold the project into what they desire them to be. This is extremely dangerous because if the focus shifts from leading him/her to the Lord to leading them to your own heart, what happens when they encounter you but have yet to truly encounter God? When this occurs there is a strong possibility that you may become an idol or the savior in their life. It is important to not allow yourself to become a stumbling block (Corinthians 8:9) or an idol to the project in order to fulfill your own motives and desires.
Unmarried men and women, all projects have a deadline! Attempting to hold on to a project relationship beyond its expiration date will most likely lead to failure. Mistaking a project for a potential can cause you to extend a season that should have ended a long time ago. Projects are designed to remain in your life for only a season. When you extend this season longer than necessary, you delay the arrival of your potential as a result of being consumed with attempting to form a covenant with a temporary project.