Are you still praying for a husband? Do you feel like giving up? Maybe you started praying in your teens and you’re in your 20s, 30s, or 40s now. Perhaps you’ve started to believe that your prayers are doing NOTHING. Sometimes it may seem like that’s true, but it’s not. Your prayers are working … but in ways you may not see for years and years to come.
Robin Jones Gunn and I wrote the book Praying for Your Future Husband a few years back, and one of our favorite things is receiving letters from women of all ages. Some of these letters include wedding photos! And many more of these women simply thank us for encouraging them on the journey.
If you’re still waiting … then keep praying! Here’s some encouragement for you to do just that:
Robin: This sacred privilege of communicating with our heavenly Father is more than a cozy, open invitation to come to Him anytime, anywhere. Even though His ears are open to the cries of His children 24/7, prayer is more than that. Prayer is also an act of obedience. We are exhorted to pray for others and to pray without ceasing.
Neither Tricia nor I pretend to have prayer all figured out. What we do know is that God hears. He sees. He knows us. He cares more than we can ever comprehend. And most important of all, God answers prayer.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that the way God answers prayers often isn’t what we expect. We look back years later and see that what God did was oh so much better than what we first envisioned when we sent our heartfelt requests heavenward. He created us, and He desires the best for us. God always gives His best to those who leave the outcomes with Him.
Another, even more amazing mystery is that, when we pray for someone else, we change. All of us were made to be loved, to give and to receive love. When your heart connects through prayer to the One who is the source of true love, you’ll find that praying for your future husband will wondrously result in your heart being changed. And when your heart is changed, your life is transformed.
What sort of changes will God bring about in your future husband’s life as a result of your praying for him now? We don’t know.
As you pray for him, what sort of changes will God initiate in your heart? We don’t know that either.
But we do know one thing:
God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. It’s a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God. It’s a good thing when you’re young to stick it out through the hard times. When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear (Lamentations 3:25-29, The Message).
Tricia: I love that last line: “Wait for hope to appear.” Isn’t that what you need most when you’re still praying for your future husband, especially when so many of your friends are married and have children?
Perhaps you’ve prayed and prayed, but God hasn’t answered. Your prayers seem like bulbs planted in a winter garden. Each time you check for results, all you see is barrenness, debris and frost. You doubt the warmth of your faith when you first planted the prayers in a season of light and hope.
Patience, dear God Lover. Nothing is wrong with your prayers. Leave all of them safely hidden with the Lord. Hold fast to the hope that He has heard and is at work in the garden of your heart.
One bright spring morning you will be stunned when you see what God’s resurrection power has done with those requests you buried so long ago.
What is it that the Lord is asking you to work on in your life during this season? Please don’t compromise your standards. Don’t start making excuses to justify why you’re settling for actions or relationships that you know in your heart aren’t what you want your life to be about.
How can you change that destructive behavior today? What are the new choices you need to start making?
Most importantly, be at peace. See this time as an opportunity for God to develop His patience in you. And don’t forget: Love is patient.
Will you get married one day? Statistics say that you will. We all know that staying married is a whole lot more important than just getting married. How you spend this stretch of waiting and allowing God to develop His patience in you will only benefit you during the difficult times that all married couples go through.
And just as there are two people in every marriage, there are two people who are learning patience as they wait for each other. If you’re having a hard time, your future husband most likely will, too. Your prayers will make a difference.
