When You’re Tired of Being Used

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Dear fellow Presence seekers,

Can we talk? Pretending we’re sitting across the table in your kitchen, eating chocolate together, and really talk for a minute?

Here’s why:

I get so many emails from various sisters and brothers around the world. Every day. And lately, many of them have a common theme:

People are tired of being used.

Precious sisters have emailed me saying that they are praying for their live-in boyfriends to marry them.

Parents have emailed me saying that their children moved back into their house uninvited, and they want them to leave.

Wives have emailed me saying that their respective husbands have cheated on them over and over, and they just want their husband to stop cheating.

The examples could go on and on. But I won’t elaborate because I don’t want to depress you. If you’re being used, you know it.

Here’s the thing:

Beloved, if you’re being used, you–and only you–can put a stop to it.

Why?

Because you, and only you, are allowing it.

I’m not criticizing you here. As Joseph on The Princess Diaries II said, “Sometimes the heart does things for reasons that reason cannot understand.” I know what it’s like to love people with all my heart, just like you love the people in your life. Even when they’re difficult.

So my heart goes out to you.

I wish I could help every individual who has emailed me. (And if you’re one who has contacted me, know that I read your email and I’ve prayed for you.)

But this is the type of situation that cannot be solved by empathy. If you’re being used, the problem can only be solved, beloved, when you acknowledge the TRUTH.

And the truth is:

If you own a house and someone moved into it without your permission, you have the legal right–even the duty, I might say–to kick them out.

If you are in a marriage in which your spouse has been unfaithful, you have the right to leave them.

Do you have to forgive them? Yes (Matthew 6:14-15). But forgiveness and letting someone continue to use you is not the same thing. Not even Jesus says you have to stay (Matthew 19:1-10).

And if you are in a sexual relationship with someone to whom you are not married, that is called fornication. It’s sin (1 Corinthians 6:18), and it’s not going to be blessed; and either your partner is using you or you are using your partner (or both).

Beloved, if you’re hurting, I feel bad for you. My heart goes out to you. But only acknowledging the truth can get you out of a bad situation.

If you’re being abused by anyone, you have to acknowledge that you’re being abused before you’ll find yourself willing to do anything about it.

For example:

If someone is hitting you, demeaning you, or locking you in a room, that’s abuse. You will not get free of it as long as you think it’s normal.

However, as soon as you acknowledge that you’re being abused, you’ll find yourself much better positioned to do something about it.

The same is true if you’re being used in any way at all.

See, here’s the truth:

It’s not your job to provide for your adult children if they’re capable of living on their own. And by trying, most of the time, you are actually enabling them. You are allowing them to learn that they can mooch off you as long as they want, and experience no consequences.

As Ray Hughes says, “When you get saved, God will give you a new heart. But you have to grow you a backbone.”

It’s not your job to let people just move into your house because they want to.

Hey, it would be a great world if we could all just move into an all-inclusive resort somewhere, and live rent-free while everybody else takes care of us. But that’s not how the world works.

How the world really works is that you have free will. Everybody else has free will too. We all make choices. And we have to learn to take responsibility for our own choices …

… which requires experiencing the consequences of our choices.

And if someone is using you, you don’t have to let yourself be used. You’re not helping the other person, and you’re not helping yourself either.

It’s also not right to stay in sin and expect God to bless it.

This is a prayer request I get really frequently: “Pray for my boyfriend, with whom I’m having sex, to marry me. I love him.”

Beloved, if you’re in that situation, I’m sorry you’re hurting. And I do pray for you. But I can’t pray for your boyfriend to marry you.

Why not?

Because if that boyfriend were a godly man who cares about you:

  • He wouldn’t be having sex with you.
  • He wouldn’t be using you.
  • Instead, he’d be pampering you.
  • He’d be treating you like a woman of God, even if you don’t feel like a woman of God.
  • He’d challenge you to a life of purity, and he’d put a ring on your finger and walk you down the aisle as his wife before he goes to bed with you.

He’d love you enough to treat you like the princess you are. He wouldn’t be using you.

And it’s not strictly the man’s fault. This truth applies to women too.

Dear sister, if you’re in a sinful relationship, you know you’re not living right either. It takes two to have sex. And your conscience is pricking at you. You know it’s wrong; and that’s why you want to get married.

So how do I pray for you? I ask God to convict you of your sin; to help you flee from temptation; to show you His better plan; to show you how much He loves you; and to bring you the right husband that Father has for you at the right time–and to deliver you from every man who’d be wrong for you.

Why?

Because you were made for better.

You are the King’s daughter, and you are glorious within and without, and Father has a higher way for you that He will show you if you will follow Him. He will bring you out of this and help you.

But you have to be willing to obey Him, forsake sin, and seek Jesus first.

Sometimes “helping someone” doesn’t look like you think it looks.

Sometimes helping someone means you force them to grow up and live out the consequences of their own choices.

Sometimes loving someone doesn’t look like you think it looks. Sometimes it means you refuse to participate in a toxic or sinful situation with them.

And sometimes loving yourself looks a whole heap different than you thought it did. Sometimes it means standing up for what is right, and refusing to let yourself be a victim any longer.

This is the truth. It’s the plain, honest, said-as-sweetly-but-also-as-openly-as-I-know-how kind of truth.

But this truth can make you free.

You don’t have to let yourself be used or abused any longer. You can choose to stop the cycle.

You can love yourself enough to read in God’s Word what He says is best for you and for others, and choose to seek that instead.

It’s up to you.

16 Comments

  1. Nancy Green says:

    You know sister one thing I’ve learned in the ministry is you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.
    And more times than men women love their demons.
    I’ve ministered to women advised that they are living in sin not being married & they just look the other way. So all we can do is pray.

  2. sibonginkosi says:

    Hi sister Jamie
    I was in a relationship where I was hvng sex wth my boyfriend.
    I knew I was doing a wrong thing before God but still I carried on,praying that he marries me
    I took care of him when he was broke and m paying dearly…
    We broke up
    He didn’t show gratitude
    Am in debt becos I went to great lengths to help him out
    I realize that I allowed my emotions and desperation to get married cloud my judgement
    God wasn’t in the relationship
    But I hv made a decision to wait on God for that special man
    God has called me to be an evangelist so my body should be for Him(taken a vow of celibacy)gigantic step and very challenging but to God be the glory!!
    Praying for a husband that has a heart for God too……

    1. Mutebi Joseph says:

      Hi praise God,we learn through mistake.so it’s our prayer that we may [never again fall in such]God has the best in store though it may require you to pay the required price. keep in His presence.

  3. Michele Creager says:

    Thank you for this study, it is appreiciated.

  4. This is a powerful message for all of us who cannot see that we are really being abused because we choose to stay in our comfort zones rather than leave and face the truth. It is hard to get out but I realized that there nay ne a better place for me. Thank you Jamie.

  5. Pauline Borgan says:

    Great teaching Jamie! In a book by Beth Moore she said, “speaking the truth in love or continue to communicate a lie in fear.”. Eph 4:15. Blessings to you for speaking truth.

  6. Hi,

    This is a great article, thank you!

    My situation is with being used is that where I live they take advantage of my being there because they know that housing prices are OUTRAGEOUS where I am. So, they go on trips and don’t even ask, but EXPECT that I will take care of their animals and garden. They don’t even say thank you, do anything to compensate me, or what not. It’s become extremely frustrating. Not a lunch, tank of gas, NOTHING.

    I AM looking for another place to live, but not before they spend another month in Hawaii, using me, but paying anyone else that comes to help when I can’t. It’s extremely rude and insulting to me. There is a disconnect, IMO, because I pay to live there.

    I am believing God for a much better situation, but honestly, I struggle with anger and resentment at times.

    So, I was hoping that this article would hit on those times when you can’t just “leave” a situation, or simply make a choice to walk away.

    Also, while we all go to church together, I can’t say whether or not they are born again, and definitely not filled with the Holy Spirit.

    Anyway, that’s my situation that I am asking God for wisdom and direction.

    Thanks!

  7. A big thank you to you Jamie, you are exposing the lies of the enemy, I am in a friendship where I feel I have been taken advantage of. Praise God for shining His light in the dark places. Glory to His Name. Blessings to you.

  8. Diane Cory says:

    Wise advice! Setting healthy boundaries are helpful. 🙂

  9. Lucretia Wingate says:

    Amen‼️‼️‼️🙇🏾‍♀️. Thank you 😊 for this prophetic word in the name of JESUS AMEN 🙇🏾‍♀️.

  10. Amen thank you Jaimie for this. I pray that God would show me a way out of this toxic business and life situation and place before me a peaceful path filled with His unmerited grace and mighty deliverance. God bless you sister mightily in 2022!

  11. Bantshang says:

    Hi Jamie! The word resonates well with me. Am one of the people who have been so much used and abused in relationships of boyfriends. During that time I was blinded by what I was doing, moving from one relationship to another hoping I would find a good one but to no avail. When I looked back I began to understand how much I have let myself to be used and abused, it hurt me, a great deal!!!.But now I thank you for the word which opened my understanding that I have a free will in life to make choices for my life to immediately come out of abuse. I thank God in Jesus’s name.

  12. Bantshang says:

    Hi Jamie! I have been struggling with sin. This sin is in my flesh, my part. My part at times acts strangely. I don’t know how to describe it. It will just make some movements on its own. Sometimes like am having sex. In my dreams it will make me have sex on my own. It will just start. Am asking for th lord’s mercy to forgive me for past great sins, (consequences) of fornication and deliver me. In Jesus’s name

  13. Tammy Locke says:

    Thank you Jamie for this word. I’m feeling used in my marriage and being a step mom. I’m good enough to work,provide etc. But my rules are not to be followed and my husband won’t back me up. We have never been in agreement when it comes to his girls. I am praying that the Lord will help me find a new place to live just for me and my son. Prayers would be appreciated. Thank you.

  14. Thankyou Jamie I suffered emotional abuse for 2 years, like you said I had to get a backbone put a stop to it and move out, I am now free and happy, this really resonated strongly with me

    God bless your ministry

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