Regularly on my prayer list is one marked and circled: “Pray for a wife.”
I think this is a rather reasonable thing to be consistently praying for. After all, I don’t know if there will be a greater decision outside of one believing in Christ that will impact my life. I mean, I’ll be with her more years of my life than I will be single!
And so I make it a regular habit of praying and asking God to bless me with a wife. (If you’ve read my old articles about singleness, I find that this praying is much healthier and Christ-centered now). But some time ago, while I was praying, the Lord totally struck me some hard-hitting truths. Allow me to explain…
1. There is a Time Yet Future
As I was praying I was suddenly reminded then of how thankful I was that God hadn’t blessed me with someone in certain seasons of life. I looked back at college, and thanked Him because it allowed me to focus on college ministry. I looked back at post-college and thanked Him because it allowed me to focus on working and also because I would be leaving Chicago. I even looked back at these past few months being in Cali and thanked Him because I am growing in my relationship with Him and my network of friends.
It was then I touched upon the sovereignty of God over my life. I saw the hand of the Father witholding and confessed to Him how gracious and wise his decision not to bless me was for me.
And at that revelation, I felt in a very real sense that there is an appointed time yet future that God’s purposes for my life will align with actually being blessed to know someone special. And until then, he has so much work to do in me.
2. Step it Up!
As I continue praying, I find that the Lord keeps switching up my prayers–I stop praying about her and I start praying for me because I see how messed up I am!
God has been consistently and on a weekly basis revealing things about my heart and my attitudes that will not bode will in a marriage relationship. After repenting of those things, I am so thankful for my wife that God spared her from seeing and dealing with those things about me.
Selfishness, impurity, pride, etc… yikes!
I am seeing that as I’m praying for a wife, Jesus is not just preparing her, but he’s preparing me. I like to think that my future partner in life deserves the absolute best. And it is sobering thought to consider that I am not in my best, that I am always a work in progress. Perhaps it is normal in pop culture to say great things about ourselves e.g. “I’m hot” “I’m worthy”, etc.. but i find that it is a humbling thing to think about all my imperfections and how that God will unite me with someone else.
That thought causes me to go to my knees because I’ve heard enough horror stories about marriages and relationships and I motivated to never end in those situations.
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So yeah, those are my thoughts as a single man who has been consistently praying for a wife.
Father, have mercy on me!
