In many of our past relationships, there was a lot of overpromising and underdelivering by the man and by us as well. When things started to go sour, the ship was sinking so fast that we felt helpless to save it. We learned that significant relationships have the potential to take us to the highest highs and the lowest lows. They can be exciting, rewarding, entertaining, and exhilarating, but all of this takes on new meaning as relationships get closer to marriage. They begin to require more of us, and this doesn’t decrease, but increases as things progress. The bond deepens, and as it does, partners are faced with the work of deeper communication, intimacy, unity, loyalty, commitment, sacrifice, and supportiveness. We learn from experience that sometimes in our significant relationships, partners run rather than pull up their sleeves to prepare for the treasures of the next phase.

For those of us that are single and praying to partner in marriage, we must open our hearts to the reality that our new relationship will not be like our past ones. This is where our faith should be. We can’t expect newness when in our minds and hearts, we are not making room for it. A single person desiring marriage must measure up to the newness they expect, and this is one of the most challenging truths for us to accept.

We haven’t asked ourselves if we can truly handle the blessing of a spouse right now, and if we’re still in wait-mode, we have to consider that the answer to this question is maybe not. As an unmarried person that is expecting to be someone’s spouse, we must change. Ephesians 5:22-28(NLT) gives us God’s standard for husbands and wives. This passage tells us, “22 For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. 24 As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. 25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself.”

Ephesians 5:22-28 sets God’s expectation for the level of humility and loyalty that men and women must have to partner well. We must become a supportive and good steward of one of God’s treasures. And let’s face it, all of us think we’re ready, but from where we stand today, we don’t have a clue what our next relationship will require of us spiritually, mentally, or emotionally. Many of us are not measuring our preparedness to partner based on the standards that God has set but by the standards we set. Because we’ve done this, our prayers may be missing the mark, because they are not grounded in God’s truth.

God’s prophet, Daniel, gives us a window into the heart and humility we must have as we pray for spiritual preparation for ourselves and our partners. Daniel 9:4-6(NLT) says, “4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed: “O Lord, you are a great and awesome God! You always fulfill your covenant and keep your promises of unfailing love to those who love you and obey your commands. 5 But we have sinned and done wrong. We have rebelled against you and scorned your commands and regulations. 6 We have refused to listen to your servants the prophets, who spoke on your authority to our kings and princes and ancestors and to all the people of the land.”

Daniel pleaded and prayed to God after reading the writings of the prophet, Jeremiah, that Jerusalem would have a hard time for seventy years because of their sin and unfaithfulness. He labored before God because he loved them, and he knew they had not done the things God requires. As single women, we must have this same heart. We could have been better partners in our prior relationships. We could have walked closer to the Lord. We could have built a solid foundation of faith in Him and changed our ways, but we didn’t do all that we could have. We should be humble before the Lord and seek His forgiveness so that we have the right heart to pray for ourselves, our future spouses, and our marital unions.

One of the reasons that marriage has gotten a bad rap is because so many are entering into God’s institution blindly, without giving thought to how challenging relationships can be. They require that two people have a solid prayer life and are committed to pray for each other every day. As we stand before our Heavenly Father, we don’t know all the ways in which we need to spiritually grow so that we can handle the blessing of marriage. We don’t know if we’re prepared to nurture and maintain the bond we’ve longed to share with our spouses, but these are the types of things that should be in our prayers. We should be praying for eye-opening revelation that helps us to prepare for our spouses, and we should also be praying that they are doing the same.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Can You Handle the Blessing?”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2025. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

“Was I a fool for dating him for so many years?” This is a question we ask ourselves after we’ve been with the significant man in our lives for a long time, and the relationship isn’t yielding anything promising. We’ve either been in this situation or know women that have. They’ve dated a man for years, and given so much of themselves to that relationship, but with all their dedication, commitment, and loyalty, marriage isn’t on the horizon. This is a very hurtful thing to face. We’re hit with some realizations that we’ve avoided for the sake of maintaining the relationship. One of them is that no matter how much we try to convince ourselves we don’t need a piece of paper to prove his love, if we desire something real, that piece of paper is a symbol that can’t be overlooked.

Amos 3:3(NLT) asks, “Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction?” A relationship is strengthened by an agreement, and this agreement is a harmony that binds two people together. At the very least, the man should feel the same way about you as you feel about him. As those feelings of affection and devotion deepen, it should lead to something that honors God and is fulfilling and meaningful for both individuals. We should never think that God is pleased when we are not treated in a way that honors us in the way He has ordained in His Word. We’re His daughters, and he wants us to be treated well, and having a husband who loves and values us is a part of that equation.

Sometimes, when we give our best and it’s not reciprocated, we can be wounded deeply, like the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. She was plagued with feelings of shame, insecurity, and self-doubt, and this caused her to go from man to man seeking to satisfy a void that only God could fill. As was the custom of many women that lived during that time, she came to draw water from a well in the hottest part of the day. As God would have it, Jesus was there, and he asked her for a drink. John 4:9-10(NLT) tells us, “9 The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?” 10 Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”

Of course, Jesus Christ knew all about her pain and her sin, but he was concerned about her salvation and deliverance. He said to her in John 4:16-18(NLT), “16 Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her. 17 “I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied. Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband– 18 for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!” Our Master Jesus didn’t speak these words to the Samaritan woman to condemn her; he did it to cut through the lies, shame, heartbreak, and disappointment so that he could speak the deliverance of truth into her brokenness.

In Ephesians 5:25(NLT), God commands, “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her.” Marriage is extremely important, and we should never believe the lie that it isn’t. That piece of paper, a marriage license, is so important because among many other things, it’s a public declaration of a man’s commitment to honor a woman in the eyes of God. Every woman that loves God deserves to be honored in this way. So, we should never allow anyone to make us feel anything other than privileged and thankful that God has given us this beautiful institution.

Being consumed and distracted by the desires and lies of the world will only leave us seeking after an empty well. Only the Lord Jesus can give us living water that fills us up to such a degree that we will never be thirsty again. If you’re disappointed and hurt because the significant man in your life doesn’t want marriage, take it all to Jesus Christ. Don’t allow insecurity, doubt, and the fear of loneliness to blind your faith. God loves you and He wants you to be loved and honored because you’re His daughter. Do everything you can to increase your faith in this so that you only want what God wants for you. Then you will be determined to never accept anything less. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

“Seeking After an Empty Well”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2025. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Philippians 4:7-8(NLT)
“7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. 8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

Do you know anyone that says they only think about things that are true, honorable, right, lovely, excellent, and pure? If you do, that person is someone you should absolutely love being around. They’ve got the right attitude and when this level of humility and obedience is their commitment, their inspiration is infectious. They understand that their mind and heart are very valuable instruments when they are used for our Father’s glory. He tells us in Proverbs 4:23(ESV), “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” He tells us in Romans 12:2 that we should not be conformed to the customs, cultures, and traditions of this world, but instead we must be transformed by the renewal of our minds. So, we can see very clearly that changing our thoughts and lining them up with the mind of Christ is required to keep our lives blessed and pleasing to God.

When life is going well, we rarely consider that we might need to make some changes to how we think and feel. When things are peachy, an attitude adjustment is the furthest thing from our minds. Often, it’s not until trouble hits, or answers to our prayers are delayed, that we might begin to look in the mirror. Even then, some of us refuse to accept the reality of what is staring back at us. We refuse to accept that our own thoughts and attitudes may be holding us back.

When life becomes a sour reality, it’s often a signal that change is upon us. It’s time to take an internal inventory, and this is not always an easy thing to do. Our behaviors in our previous relationships comes front and center. Perhaps we were overly sensitive, argumentative, or petty in some areas. Thoughts of jealousy and insecurity could have loomed large over many of those relationships, yet, we expect the reward of another one when those issues of the heart and mind were not resolved.

Our Heavenly Father tells us in Colossians 3:2(ESV), “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” This isn’t a suggestion. It’s a directive. God is not telling us to change our thought-life just so that we can get a man. He’s commanding us to change our behaviors, attitudes, and thoughts to those of Christ because doing so brings us closer to Him. Doing so allows us to mature in spiritual strength and stamina, and we desperately need to do this for our journey further in the Lord.

Too many of us miss the message that God is sending because we’re not paying attention to our internal reality. We’re looking for God to do something on the outside when we haven’t invited Him to do a work on the inside. We haven’t prayed as David did in Psalm 51:10(KJV), “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” We should continually pray this prayer. We’re neglecting our relationship with God because we’re not being obedient to what He says. Nothing is more injurious to our well-being than ignoring and neglecting to love God in the way He requires.

We’re hurting ourselves spiritually for the love of a man we don’t even have. This is not walking in faith. Many of us are starving for love and attention from a man, and we’re completely forgetting about establishing and maintaining an intimate relationship with God. Sometimes this is the thing that keeps us stagnant and dissatisfied, and it has to change.

Jesus Christ commanded in Mark 12:30(NLT), “And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” Nothing less than this is acceptable. We must follow the example of Jesus Christ and think Godly thoughts. We must have a good attitude, and make time to pray, read and study God’s Word. Committing to these spiritual practices in Christ means that we’re prioritizing our spiritual growth in a way that pleases God. So, let’s stop hurting ourselves for love, and focus on the One who is love, because this is the key to living a blessed life. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

“Hurting for Love”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2025. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Psalm 31:15(NLT)
“My future is in your hands.”

The Words of the psalmist in Psalm 31:15 are very simply spoken, but they are meaty and levy a giant piece of wisdom for living a more than abundant life through Jesus Christ. This verse is about trusting God as our Source and Sufficiency. He alone holds our future in His hands, and we must trust that He wants the best for us infinitely more than we want it for ourselves. Our faith in God and our love for Him must outweigh our loneliness. It must be greater than our need for companionship, and higher than our desire to be loved by a man. For some women, this is a stretch too far. They don’t want to hear it. They’ve been praying for too long, and to them, the length of their prayers proves their devotion to Heavenly Father. “What more can He require?” they think to themselves. The thing about faith is that we’re not the ones to decide when it is firmly placed in God. He’s the only One who knows our hearts, and this is a truth we must face.

God requires total trust in the reality that our futures are in His hands. For some of us, this is challenging because marriage is something that we greatly desire. We want to be a wife to someone really special to us and share our lives with him. This isn’t complicated and surely God wants to bless us in this area of our lives, but we have to remember that He is a God of order. He has told us in His Word that He wants us to grow spiritually and become more and more like Christ. He said in 2Peter 3:18(NLT), “you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” This is God’s priority for us, and everything else is secondary to it.

In Mark 12:30(NLT), Jesus Christ said, “And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” This is the greatest commandment and all the other laws hang upon this one. Loving God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength is loving Him with all that we are. Even though some of us have been on this Christian journey for a long while, we still don’t have a clear vision of what it looks like to love God this way. Some of us are still holding on to something in our hearts that keeps us from fully loving God. And whether we admit it or not, deep down we’re looking for the new man in our lives to complete us.

For many of us, there were times in the past when our actions conveyed that we put the man in our lives above our allegiance to God, and this is a problem for us as we attempt to have unshakable faith. Our faith in God must be expressed through our love for Him, but right now, many of us are far from this in our minds and hearts. “If he would only ask me…” reverberates from our hearts, because we want to be connected to a spouse. We want to be loved. Rest assured that our Heavenly Father knows this. He’s the One that gave us this desire, so He knows what we’re going through. He also knows that we’re not as spiritually strong as we think we are. We’re still willing to let our relationship with Heavenly Father fall to second place, and this kind of attitude will bring disaster in the long run.

Jesus Christ commands us in Matthew 6:33(ESV), “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Again, there’s a place within the heart of every single woman that tells God where we stand in our devotion to Him. Faith comes from that place, and if it is not fully persuaded and sold out to God, He is asking us to seek Him, and to ask Him to do a work within our hearts through His precious Holy Spirit. God must be our strength and greatest love, because this is the only way to be blessed. He wants to help us be strong in that place in our hearts, so that we can stand on the authority and power of His Word. Then when satan tries to attack our marital unions, we will have the spiritual strength to guard against it by standing with the Spirit’s sword, back to back with our husbands.

Our Master Jesus said in John 15:16-17(NLT), “16 You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.” Jesus Christ makes it clear who is in control. We did not choose him first, but he chose us, and we were chosen for God’s purpose. The Father is always willing to bless us and do so abundantly, but there’s a condition to the promise He’s made us. We must bear fruit, the kind that remains. The only kind of fruit that remains is the kind that is produced from the love of Christ. It’s sharing the Gospel and doing the kind of good works that will please God.

If we have a history of not bearing much fruit—the kind of fruit that lasts, that’s an issue that must be addressed with our Heavenly Father. Some of us are expecting the promise but have not met God’s requirement. It’s time to set our focus not on a relationship with a man but on our relationship with God. Often, not loving Him with all that we are is the thing that keeps our blessing from our reach. Rather than thinking, “if he would only ask me to marry him,” we need to think about the reality that God has asked us to love and seek Him first, and when He sees this kind of love for Him in our hearts, doors will open and we will be ready to walk through them.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

“If He Would Only Ask Me”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2025. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.