Most of us at some point in our lives will find ourselves in some sort of leasing agreement. A lease is an agreement where an owner of a house, a car, or a piece of equipment allows an individual to use their property in exchange for monetary payments. Although most leases are offered for inanimate objects like cars and houses, I’ve discovered through observation that many of us have unknowingly offered one of our most prized assets for lease, our heart and our love. Businessdictionary.com has a great definition for the term lease and it states a lease is a, “Written or implied contract by which an owner of a specific asset (such as a parcel of land, building, equipment, or machinery) grants a second party the right to its exclusive possession and use for a specific period and under specified conditions, in return for specified periodic rental or lease payments.” So, let’s take this same definition and replace all the underlined words with words that pertain to you and our topic of discussion today. If we did that the same sentence would read as follows: a lease is a written or implied contract by which I, the owner of a specific asset (such as my heart, my body, my time, and my love) grants the guy/girl I’m seeing the right to its exclusive possession and use for an indefinite period of time under specified conditions, in return for periodic affection, phone calls, happiness, or company. Wow! Isn’t amazing to see how you and your love life fit right into the definition of a lease. Matter of fact, we all have squeezed our way into this definition unknowingly. That’s why it is so important for us to open our eyes and realize that the things we do now, though they seem to be just temporary fixes, could actually be setting us up for longterm failure. The seeds you plant today will reap a harvest. Always remember the roots of a plant start forming before the bloom. If you are attempting to grow a happy relationship, but you began it with a seed of loneliness then your harvest will be rooted in insecurity and discontent.
The question at hand is how do you cancel the lease on your love and on your heart? First, you must realize that your heart is not just a thing that can be given away freely. Your heart and the love you have is a personal asset that doesn’t get handed out at no cost. People don’t go around giving away free cars and land. These are assets that were paid with a lot of cash, therefore it has a lot of value based off the cash that was put into purchasing it. It would be foolish of you to give your car away to a total stranger once you’ve paid it off and the same goes with your heart. If you have given your heart away and have freely given your love away to an undeserving person then it’s time to take back your property. Your Heart is not a vacant room where just any body can stop through and take up residency. If there’s an empty place in your heart, no one should be able to enter your heart freely and lease out that space, just to fill that void. Your heart is not up for rent and can’t be leased! The only person that should be residing in your heart, especially if it has a void, is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He paid the ultimate price for us! If Jesus doesn’t have a permanent address in your heart then it’s time to invite Him in. The void you feel inside can’t be filled by man, but only by Christ alone. Once you allow the Lord to come into your heart and fix what’s been broken and bruised, then you will be able to value what you have within you and you won’t be so willing to give yourself away freely nor will you be willing to invite others into your heart so freely. So, the first step to cancelling the love lease is to kick out whom ever has taken up residence in your heart and give that place back to Jesus.
Next, I want you to recognize how damaging it can be to lease your love. You may not even be aware that you are doing it so it’s important to shine some light on your actions so you can fully understand how it affects you and how you unknowingly enter a love lease. If you are currently dating, in a relationship, or still have feelings for an ex then I want you to take this time to evaluate your feelings for that person. Do you have strong, semi-strong, or slight feelings for them? If you aren’t dating anyone then you can use this assessment once you meet someone. Based on how strong your feelings are can help you determine how much of yourself you’ve invested into the other person. Strong feelings equal high investment and slight feelings equal slight investment. By recognizing how much of yourself you have invested into someone will help you identify how much you will need to invest in yourself in order to successfully turn things around. If you’ve invested more of your feelings into someone then it may be harder for you to revoke your heart and feelings. My goal is to help you identify how much you actually like the person, which will help you determine how much work, commitment, and strength you will need to put into action to get your heart back. I do want to make this clear though, if the person you are dating is bringing you joy, peace, no confusion, has mutual feelings for you, and isn’t separating you from God then they are probably worth keeping. However, if the person you are seeing is brining you pain, confusion, sadness, and they aren’t showing you the same level of interest then you may have a lease on your heart and that lease needs to be cancelled. Don’t continue to allow that person to occupy space in your heart to keep yourself from feeling the unwanted side effects of being single. Sometimes we have to deal with things rather than cover them up. You have to attack the problem at the source that way you know it won’t continue to spread and become worse later on in life for you.
You may be wondering how you are actually leasing your heart/love out to people. You are doing so by giving your heart, love, feelings, emotions, time, joy, money, body, and time for God away to a temporary person in your life. You are giving away benefits and assets to someone who should be buying your heart for permanent, longterm purposes. When I say buying I don’t mean they are spending money on you and buying your love, but instead they are willing to invest themselves into you just as much as you are willing to invest into them. They should be making moves that indicate they want to be a permanent part of your life. A lot of the people you all are involved with aren’t calling you back, aren’t texting you back, keep making excuses as to why they haven’t had time to take you out on a date, haven’t taken you home to meet the parents, or only want to spend time with you alone and not in public. The saddest part about this is that you recognize these are behaviors that are less than what you desire, but you allow that person who is clearly temporary, to continue to work their way deeper and deeper into your heart because you are afraid to be alone, need to feel validated, need someone to block the pain from a breakup, or out of desperation you keep them around because the clock is ticking and you want to get married. When you allow these things to go on in your life you have successfully created a love lease. Whenever you temporarily give away your assets to be used by another in exchange for a temporary fix (ex. Fill a void, bring you validation, etc.) you have officially put your heart on the dotted line and signed your love lease.
Some of you may also be entering into a lease by allowing yourself to believe you can change a persons feelings towards you. If a guy or girl states they only want to be friends, but you continue to invest your time and energy into them while silently hoping you can change their heart and make them fall in love with you then I’m sorry, you won’t be too successful and you will find yourself in a love lease. Especially, if you have feelings for them. Your feelings may cause you to do things that you normally wouldn’t do for a friend and may throw off your judgement and ability to reason. Next thing you know you will be investing your heart into someone who never intended to be a permanent part of your heart. By doing these things you are silently crushing our validity, self-esteem, inner peace, confidence, and strength amongst many other things. We can’t afford to let our inner being be crushed by this demoralizing behavior. When we allow ourselves to continue this vicious cycle our hearts ultimately become hardened due to the repeated hurt felt by the many temporary tenants in our hearts. Then we wonder where the nice me went and how we became so harsh, unsympathetic, and uncompassionate. Even worse, when the right man comes along we don’t know how to treat him nor do we recognize him because we have been through so much heartache and pain. I’m not saying we are always responsible for our broken heart, but there are some instances where we are. So, when does this cycle end? It ends today!
Make the decision now to take back what is yours and guard it dearly. The good news is that we serve a God who is always available to us when we need Him. Psalm 73:26 states, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” How wonderful! Our God is our strength and he is ours forever. His grace is ours forever. His love is ours forever. His mercy is ours forever! Let Jesus be the person to fill your heart. Jesus is there for those who are broken hearted and will save those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). He is here to take care of all your needs including the matters of your heart. It’s time to destroy those leases on your heart and quit handing out your assets in exchange for temporary fixes to stifle the issues of your heart. God did not intend for us to have hardened hearts, which is a result of leasing out your heart. He wants us to have strong hearts that are full of life and vigor. Yes, the troubles of life can bring us down, but when you have Jesus and the Holy Spirit living inside of you nothing can take away your joy. He will give you peace when you are going through your hardest moments.
Always remember, when your husband arrives he will make it clear to you that he wants to have a permanent place in your heart and he won’t take what you have to offer and use it to his benefit or own personal use. Once you allow your heart to be healed properly you won’t have to lease your love to mend your heartache. I pray this article will bless all the hearts that come in contact with it and may we all refocus our energy on who matters the most. Jesus.
Love,
If He did it for me, He will do it for you