This part is mostly for the single people, but the dating and married can glean some good advice, too.
I watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers the other day, and I think all single people can learn a thing or two from the first song.
Bless your beautiful hide
Wherever you may be.
We ain’t met yet, but I’m willing to bet
You’re the gal for me.
Adam sings this song as he strolls through town, looking to find himself a bride. Of course, in context, he doesn’t really know what he wants, but even so, the lyrics can teach us a lesson: he hasn’t met her, doesn’t even know who she is, yet Adam is already blessing her.
Pray for your spouse before you ever meet them.
Call down the heavenly hosts to bless their socks off. You can pray for comfort, protection, strength, perseverance, chastity, encouragement, healing, or whatever comes to mind, but make sure you are blessing them, not just trying to bless yourself. Add a prayer of thankfulness that God loves you so much that he carefully picks the person for you.
You don’t know who they are, but if God has put it on your heart to marry, then you know God has a special man or woman that he’s setting aside for you. And if God has specially selected them, then you know they’re worth every ounce of love in your body.
This is preparing your heart for them. You extend your spirit towards them. You don’t know where to send it, but God knows, and trust me, it will reach its destination. I should know. I have experience.
In the months when God was building me as an individual, I still knew that God had put marriage in my heart. One day, I felt God prompting me to pray for this young woman, so I prayed that God could protect and keep her, that he would build her up for me and more importantly, build me up for her. That’s a good basic prayer for you single Christians, and you can add your own style to it.
I didn’t know it, but in the months I was praying, God was doing exactly as I asked. He was building my future wife up in her own walk with God and in her individuality. By the time we met, we’d both grown enough alone that we could continue growing together. It amazed me how much she and I were walking the exact same path. Eventually, this would be one of the many things that convinced me to marry her, and it all started with prayer.
If you think it doesn’t make a difference, you don’t know the power of prayer. James 5:16 says that “the fervent prayer of a righteous man [or woman] avails much.” (NKJV, addition mine). Don’t make it a glib prayer, be serious about it. Love in a marriage only lasts forever if you both put forth the effort, so why not start now? Why not prepare that spiritual foundation even today?
If you’re single but you would like to marry, take a moment now to pray for them. It doesn’t have to be long or fancy, but make it genuine.
If you’re dating or married, pray all the more. Now you know them, now you know their deepest joys, fears, strengths, and struggles. Pray for them and also make a thankful prayer for them.
God loves them already, so you start loving on ’em, too!
Fencing With Ink 
Ok, sure pray before you meet them, but that movie was terrible. They quite literally kidnap women and hold them hostage until they marry.
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Yeah, I’d say the movie was bad, but Beauty and the Beast did the same thing and that’s one of my favorite movies, so I’d be a hypocrite. 😀
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This is great – so easy to pray ABOUT a future spouse, that I think I often forget to pray FOR them. Thanks. 🙂 (Btw, I have so enjoyed your blog over the couple months I’ve been on here – wanted to share the joy, so please check out my blog. Nominated you for an award…)
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Aw, well thank you very much. I’ve enjoyed your blogs, too. Very enlightening. And nerdy, which is fun.
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Completely agree with this! Glad you included this in your advice. I am such a writing nerd that I have written down my prayers, thoughts, and sometimes have even written out full letters, to the poor sucker God has out there for me. 😉 It’s not only a way of blessing him but I have found it helps me feel a little less discouraged that I am still living out the single life, it’s not that he doesn’t exist, he just hasn’t popped into my world yet (that I know of).
Great words of advice!
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Good for you, prepping yourself. One day, he’ll receive those letters and just be amazed.
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I decided God wants me to stay single. Lost my urge for romance a few years ago.
If a Christian woman is over 30, ugly, awkward, too smart, disabled, or African American she probably won’t marry. It’s okay. God foresaw it long ago and can meet your needs without a husband just like Naomi in the book of Ruth, the prophetess Anna, Amy Carmichael, and Corrie ten Boom.
My only problem is church folks nagging me to date. They say not to give up “hope.”
My hope is a hope that does not disappoint. Christ crucified must be the real hope of all Christians. I know some miserable Christian matrons too.
The church needs to allow more single women to serve instead of urging rapidly aging spinsters to deny reality and live in some earthly fantasy that will never materialize. I still get irritated at how churches laugh off our loneliness and alienation with empty promises of “God has someone for you.” Unless you’re a prophet you can’t know.
Too old and sick to get out much. Dating is a pointless joke at my age. Rather read a book than make my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome worse by acting like a 20-year-old at 45. Dating this late in life is a recent phenomenon. The Victorians were smarter since they allowed women to throw in the towel at 30 and quit nagging us to waste our lives pursuing a mirage.
I’m too old for kids and the old geezers available make me feel nothing but, “Meh..” at best. They’re way older and we have nothing in common to talk about. All they want is a live-in HHA anyhow.
No point in aping youngsters. Romance is for the young since it requires youthful energy and hormones. .
If I had been married for 20+ years it would be nice to date the man I had spent years with but most of my life is over. Too old to bond, no physical temptations, and I can’t have a family so it’s pointless.
God’s never too late? Well then His answer must be “No.” Because it is too late.
Not a pessimist but a realist. It is what it is unless God sends a time machine my way.
I prefer living alone now.
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