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Hi Ladies,

Your relationship with God, through acceptance of His Son, Jesus Christ, should be the focus of your life. When that happens, everything else will proceed according to His plans for you.  But okay, maybe finding love and getting married is your second focus.  And praying to The Father about it is always a wise course for a Believer to take.

What to Pray For?

Any discussions on praying for a mate invariably address the following questions: “What should I pray for?”; “How should I ask it?”; “Should I ask at all or just let Jesus answer the desires of my heart?”  Surely there must be a thousand similar questions and just as many answers.

During my season of “mating prayers”, I tried every version I could think of. On some nights I presented a list to The LORD – he has to look like this, be over six feet tall, weigh this much, have this career … on and on with my requirements.  On other nights, I would adopt the stance of “Lord, give me the very best You have in store for me”, then secretly hope that He knew what He was doing.  Even my specific prayers changed from day to day.  Understandably, when The LORD finally did begin to address these prayers, His responses to my requests were almost as varied as my prayers themselves.

One Friday night, after a business trip, I thought about the husband of the saleswoman I’d been working with. They’d taken me out to dinner, and he seemed to be the handsomest, sweetest man ever, who truly loved his wife.  “Lord”, I thought, “I’d like a husband just like him.”  That wasn’t a real prayer, just a notion I expressed to God.

Two days later, I was seated in my customary place in church, on a pew completely empty except for me and my children, when the exact double of my friend’s husband sat down twelve inches from my left side. He smiled, I smiled.  My heart started pounding, buzzers went off in my head, and I immediately panicked.  “Wait a minute, Lord.  I know this is exactly who I asked for, but did You have to answer me so soon?  I’m not sure I’m ready!”

After smiling at each other frequently during the service, and sharing a brief chat afterward, my “dream” man looked longingly at me, got into his car, and disappeared. On the way home, my kids asked, “Who was that man, Mom?  I think he liked you.”  By then, all I wanted to do was cry over lost opportunity. But when God offers you an answer to your prayer and you decline, your only option is to move on from there, and realize it really is His show, and not your choice that made the difference.  By the time my “dream” came back to church, I had solidified a whole new list of requirements, so it was easier to wave him goodbye, and once again resume my posture of prayer for the right mate.

My advice, after weathering several similar incidences, is to ask God for what you truly want, but only when you are truly ready to receive it.  Because I was praying amiss, according to my moods and whims, I was never really sure that one of those “missed” fellows was God’s answer to my prayers.  The Bible instructs us to pray without ceasing, but we must try to pray consistently without ceasing.  Waffling over which direction to take leads only to confusion.  The LORD says of a waffler, “He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1: 8), and so is a double-minded woman.

Or possibly Our Father is simply waiting until you have made up your mind, while you continue praying hither and yon, wondering why He’s not answering. I personally don’t believe that your best choice is to ask for specific attributes unless they‘re really all you’re willing to accept.  The LORD can indeed answer your specific prayer, but it may not be the very best He had intended for you.  Let Him decide!

Until next week…Joy and Shalom!