James 4:3, James 1:6-8
Heavenly Father,
No matter what does or does not happen in my life, I know that you are good. You alone are the one who can fill my heart completely in this life and in the life to come. I do not seek to manipulate you into giving me what I want for my own selfish pleasure, for as your word says in the book of James:
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. . . . But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” (James 4:3, James 1:6-8)
Therefore I ask that you would help me to pray in faith and with a motive to bring glory to your name. For though you alone are the ultimate hope and joy of my heart, your word has also taught me that you made marriage to be a good thing that brings you glory. As you said at the beginning, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18).
Lord, may I desire to be married only for good reasons that are pleasing to you. I ask that you would sanctify my motives. I ask that you would protect me from turning marriage into an idol. Protect me from putting my hope for human love above my hope in your love, which is eternally more important. I know this desire to be married is not bad because it comes from you. But I also know I can misuse it if I am not submitting to you. Please, help me to submit fully to you whether I get married or remain single.
But I also ask that you would remove unbiblical doubts about my desire to be married. Please remove from me any and all unhealthy shame about this biblical desire to glorify you through marriage one day. I know your word says marriage is good and that it brings you glory by showing the world what your love relationship with your church is truly like. As your word has taught me, “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31-32).
Therefore, please grant me the supernatural balance to desire marriage without desiring in wrongly. Help me to live in your freedom and desire marriage without feeling guilty about this because I know you are the one who made this desire in the human heart. But also help me to crucify my sinful flesh which always seeks to corrupt the good that you grant your people.
So now I boldly and confidently lift up the desire of my heart to you. Like a little child, I ask that I might receive just as you taught me in Matthew 7:7-11. Father, you know my heart. You know I desire a godly spouse. And I know you alone can grant this gift to me. I don’t just want to rush out and get married to anyone who shows interest in me. No. I only want to be married to someone who loves you like I love you. I only want to be married to the person you want me to be married to.
Lord, please bless me with a spouse who loves you. I submit to your timeline for my life, but I do pray that you would allow me to get married sooner rather than later. Please show me what I need to do to prepare myself to be blessed by you in this way. Please reveal to me any issues in my own heart that would be blocking this blessing from coming into my life. Please help me to repent of any passivity leading me to live in isolation and please help me to repent of ever taking matters into my own hands and stepping out of your will by trying too hard to get married. Please show me what you want me to do and what you don’t want me to do when it comes to pursuing marriage for your name’s sake.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). For I know that you have good plans for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me. Plans to give be a blessed future rather than a cursed one (Jeremiah 29:11). May I follow you into your will for my life. May I lean not on my own understanding but in all my ways, may I fully depend on you, that my paths may be blessed and straight (Proverbs 3:5-6). May I not be wise in my own eyes, but may I turn away from evil and do good for you, that my bones may blessed and that my heart might be healed (Proverbs 3:7-8).
Father, no matter what does or does not happen in my life, I fully submit to you. Whether in singleness or marriage, I ask that you would help me to honor you above all things. May your name always be honored through my life. But in obedience to your word, I also lay my request before you. In faith, I ask for this blessing of marriage. Please, turn me into a godly spouse and bless me with a godly spouse so that I might glorify you in marriage one day.
But as your Son, my Savior, Jesus Christ has said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you . . . Yet not what I will, but may your will be done” (Mark 14:36).
