"Your faith has healed you"
Captain Sensible writes: Excellent article by Candice Watters about the need to pray boldly for marriage. Very refreshing in these days when much wringing of hands and agonising over whether or not marriage is "God's will" for an individual's life, accompanies any prayer for a spouse!
Here are a couple of extracts, but it really is worth reading it all:
When I was single, I used to pray for a husband like this, “Oh God, please don’t make me be single my whole life. I really want to be married. Oh I hope it’s not your will for me to be single. I don’t think I could do it! Please bring someone into my life soon, very soon. But help me to be patient in the meantime. And God, if you do want me to be single — but I hope you don’t — please give me the grace for it because I really don’t feel it. Did I mention how much I hope that’s not your will for me?”
I wish I had read about Bartimaeus back then. It wasn’t until recently that his story, recorded in Mark 10:46-52, leapt off the page.
When Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, heard that Jesus was approaching he shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The exclamation point emphasizes his volume. In a book known for economy of words and punctuation, it’s clear this was no timid request. Even as the crowd rebuked him, telling him to be quiet, the Bible says “he shouted all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!”
His clamor was rewarded. When Jesus asked Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” he replied, “Rabbi, I want to see.” He was frank about what he wanted — fully expecting healing. And he knew Jesus had the authority to do it, acknowledging Him as, “Jesus, Son of David.”
And Jesus did. “Immediately he received his sight,” the Bible reports. But it wasn’t his flattery, his neediness, or even his volume that made the difference. As Jesus said, “your faith has healed you.”
...
Suddenly I felt free to really pray. My requests looked totally different than before. No longer weighed down by doubts that what I wanted was good, I asked with confidence:
Lord you created me. And I believe you created me for marriage. I don’t know the timeline, but I’m asking you to fulfill my desire to be married.
Then I thanked Him for what I believed He would do:
Thank you Lord for this strong desire you’ve placed in my heart. Thank you that you’ve already been where I’m headed and that you know what my future holds. Thank you for marriage and for my future mate. Please be with him and prepare His heart to do your will.
...
We know God designed us for relational intimacy — when Adam admitted his loneliness, God created Eve. After they were together in the garden, God said, “It is good.” Not long after that, He gave us marriage. It’s not a “social construct” but a gift from God. Some are called to celibate service, and they’re specially gifted to live that out. But the rest of us are called to marriage. Asking God for a mate is asking Him for something He created and called good. For those of us who are called to marriage, it’s nothing short of asking Him to give us what He wants us to have.
Here are a couple of extracts, but it really is worth reading it all:
When I was single, I used to pray for a husband like this, “Oh God, please don’t make me be single my whole life. I really want to be married. Oh I hope it’s not your will for me to be single. I don’t think I could do it! Please bring someone into my life soon, very soon. But help me to be patient in the meantime. And God, if you do want me to be single — but I hope you don’t — please give me the grace for it because I really don’t feel it. Did I mention how much I hope that’s not your will for me?”
I wish I had read about Bartimaeus back then. It wasn’t until recently that his story, recorded in Mark 10:46-52, leapt off the page.
When Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, heard that Jesus was approaching he shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The exclamation point emphasizes his volume. In a book known for economy of words and punctuation, it’s clear this was no timid request. Even as the crowd rebuked him, telling him to be quiet, the Bible says “he shouted all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!”
His clamor was rewarded. When Jesus asked Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” he replied, “Rabbi, I want to see.” He was frank about what he wanted — fully expecting healing. And he knew Jesus had the authority to do it, acknowledging Him as, “Jesus, Son of David.”
And Jesus did. “Immediately he received his sight,” the Bible reports. But it wasn’t his flattery, his neediness, or even his volume that made the difference. As Jesus said, “your faith has healed you.”
...
Suddenly I felt free to really pray. My requests looked totally different than before. No longer weighed down by doubts that what I wanted was good, I asked with confidence:
Lord you created me. And I believe you created me for marriage. I don’t know the timeline, but I’m asking you to fulfill my desire to be married.
Then I thanked Him for what I believed He would do:
Thank you Lord for this strong desire you’ve placed in my heart. Thank you that you’ve already been where I’m headed and that you know what my future holds. Thank you for marriage and for my future mate. Please be with him and prepare His heart to do your will.
...
We know God designed us for relational intimacy — when Adam admitted his loneliness, God created Eve. After they were together in the garden, God said, “It is good.” Not long after that, He gave us marriage. It’s not a “social construct” but a gift from God. Some are called to celibate service, and they’re specially gifted to live that out. But the rest of us are called to marriage. Asking God for a mate is asking Him for something He created and called good. For those of us who are called to marriage, it’s nothing short of asking Him to give us what He wants us to have.
posted by Captain Sensible at 11:24 PM
7 Comments:
I don't know if it is relatively "new" teachings in our churches that God does not "promise" us a spouse.
That being said, a part of me is angered by that statement, because of one thing: Did not Jesus say that whatever we ask for in prayer, in His name, he will give to us, if we have faith? (I think somewhere in Mark 11 or 12 or in the neighborhood of that)
And then, when he said, seek and you will find (or ask, and you will receive) in Matthew? I can't see why a spouse can't be included in the list of "things" we ask for in prayer or "things" that we seek and shall find.
Jesus is not a liar, so how come when some people pray for a spouse, they do not receive a spouse? It's not always for lack of faith; because as we can see, non-Christians and nominal Christians can receive spouses faster than we devout Christians can. I know that God can't grant us every single thing we ask for in prayer, but how is a husband so heretical that God wouldn't grant us one, if we ask for one in prayer, like Jesus said to do?
I don't know, Shazia.
I do know that it is God's will that all of us that do not fit the exceptions (ie. eunuchs, renouncing marriage for the sake of the Kingdom, a gifting to remain celibate) will have a spouse.
So why then are so many Christians unhappily single?
Possibly a number of reasons:
The false teaching in the church.
The lack of outreach to men.
The fact that the enemy will do anything in his power to keep Christians single (he is not so bothered about non-believers getting married!).
There may be other spiritual reasons that it is not our business to know about too.
But we need to work with what we do know:
It is God's will for those that desire marriage to have a spouse.
We should pray in faith that God will work out His will in our lives.
So my suggestion is this:
Tackle the problems in the church.
Thank God in faith that He will bring you the desires of your heart - marriage to a believer.
That's just my take on it, Shazia.
Everybody please read Genesis 2 very carefully. It is clear that God made Woman for Man to leave his father and mother and marry her, so that the two become one.
The purpose that God had in making the human race as men and women so that we can get married.
I realised this recently in preparation for the Christian Vision For Men day of fasting and prayer.
Shazia, I too struggle immensly with the passage you referenced in light of my wanting to be married. (Matthew 7:7-11) This statement was such a bold one for Jesus to have made, and yet it seems inapplicable to far too many single Christian women today. Nevertheless, we continue to pray and ask for husbands. As we should.
However, I can't help but wonder whether Christians have struggled with this passage through the ages. Barrenness, for example, isn't new -- think of all the married Christian couples (who actually married in their youth!) who have prayed for children to no obvious avail. The irony is that, unlike barrenness, being a never-married adult who is nevertheless called to marriage is a circumstance that is very much in the control of man (alas, typically much more so on the part of men than women).
Is it possible that church leaders who are GoS advocates also think of this passage? They know so many single Christian women who have prayed for husbands yet remained single -- sometimes for too long, others for their entire lives. Perhaps they have come to view singleness as one of God's "good gifts" as a result of all these seemingly unanswered prayers? I certainly don't believe in the GoS, but I wonder whether Matthew 7:7-11 is one of the "problematic" passages that has contributed to church leaders' flawed theology.
Unfortunately, when it comes to marriage, far too many men focus on just asking God for wives and ignore what Jesus said about seeking and knocking (i.e., actively looking for wives and pursuing relationships to lead to marriage). And women are suffering as a result.
Men need to read Genesis 2 and Matthew 19, where Jesus, i.e. God Himself, reiterates Genesis 2: a man is commanded by God to leave his father and mother and find a wife and have a proper marriage relationship. It's that simple. And it's the MAN's job to go looking for a wife and ask her.
That is why God made men men.
Thanks for the reminder here. I remember reading that article of Candice's on Boundless.org a while back. Then, I was dating a guy for 2 months. Ended up he has major commitment issues and completely misunderstands certain Scriptures--1Cor. 7 is a hang-up for him. Needless to say, he has a long way to go, but I keep praying for him, even after we'd broken up. It's a work only the Holy Spirit can do, but I also pray for the older, wiser married men around him to give him the counsel he needs.
Anyways, I'm realizing the need I have to continue praying and I am so grateful for the examples here. You are an inspiration to me!
I think it's important for every single Christian to pray for a spouse and thank God that it is His will that they marry. No wasting important prayer time in either praying that it will be His will to marry, or to remove the "gift of singleness"! No one that is hungry prays for the removal of the "gift of hunger" as far as I am aware! The curse of singleness however should be renounced.
With regard to praying for a specific person, I think there is a cautionary note to be made, as singles do not know if it is God's will that a particular person become their husband/wife. This is a complex area, but there is a danger that too much praying for a particular person, with whom you have split up, may result in keeping you from moving forward and falling in love and marrying someone else.
I don't have the answers to this! I know of a couple that recently got married, after previously he broke up with her. But sometimes it's wisest to leave that man/woman in the hands of God, and allow yourself to open your heart to someone new.
Complex!
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