All You Have To Do Is Ask

The other day I wrote a post on face book and this is what it said:

From the feedback that I received on this post I noticed that a lot of single women are praying about their future husbands in a vague manner. I can speak from my personal experience with this. As an adult woman hoping to be married some day soon I realized that I have been praying for my husband incorrectly! When I pray to God about the man that I would like to marry, I never mention anything specific about him. I mention nothing about his looks, nothing about his character, and nothing about the vision or the mission of our marriage. My prayers would go something like this:

"Dear God, I just want to say a prayer on behalf of my 

husband. I don't know where he is but You do. I know 

that he is fighting some of the same obstacles that I am

and I pray God that you protect him so the he can find

his way to me. Keep him covered under your blood Lord.

Keep him strong and allow him to feel my heartbeat in the

spirit. I trust that you know what's best for me Lord. Let your

will be done. Amen."

There are some things that can be greatly improved with this prayer. This is why it is so important for me to learn more about prayer and the power that prayer has. I admit that I do not know everything I should in regards to prayer but that is something that I am working to change. I know that the devil is hoping that I continue to have a lack of knowledge in this area. In educating myself more about prayer I see how much I have underestimated what it can do. 

In the Bible you can see that prayer has allowed people to overcome their enemies:

"As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the LORD,

"Strike this army with blindness." So He struck them with 

blindness, as Elisha had asked."

~II Kings 6:18 (NIV)

Defeat death:

"Then he cried out to the Lord, "Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I 

am staying with, by causing her son to die?" Then he stretched himself out on the 

boy three times and cried out to the Lord, "Lord my God, let this boy's life return to him!"

The Lord heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him,

and he lived."

~I Kings 17: 20-22 (NIV)

Bring forth healing:

"And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well;

the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be

forgiven."

~James 5:15 (NIV)

and give wisdom:

"If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives

generously to all without finding fault, and it will be 

given to you."

~James 1:5 (NIV)

I could go on and on but the point is that all throughout the Bible there are numerous accounts of the power of prayer! So, if prayer is so powerful, why do we as single christian women apply this power to everything else that we desire in our hearts........except our Godly husbands??? As stated in my Facebook post God asks me this question directly as I'm in the drive through line at Burger King at 12:18am. It took nothing for me to request WHAT I wanted and HOW I wanted it and I EXPECTED to receive it just like I had asked. However, when it comes to my husband I speak hesitantly and really what I am saying is, "God just do whatever. I trust you." Now here's the thing, we are SUPPOSED to let God be God in our lives and we are SUPPOSED to trust Him...that's not the problem. God knows exactly what and who He wants to bless us with but when we take the initiative to come to Him and ASK, that shows God a certain level of faith on our part. The problem comes in when we trust in God for what we want but WE DON'T EVEN BELIEVE IN WHAT WE WANT!!

Life experiences have a way of making us afraid to expect and as a result we water down our prayers out of fear that they will not be answered. My educational background is in psychology and counseling so I would like to use an example from my studies (stay with me, I'm going somewhere with this):

Classical conditioning was a notable psychological discovery made by a Russian physiologist named Ivan Pavlov. Classical conditioning is a type of learning that is based on an association between two stimulants paired together over and over again. Eventually because of the pairing of the two stimulants, the presence of only one of the stimulants will produce a conditioned response. 

Pavlov used dogs in his experiments to examine learning. A bell was used as the neutral stimulus (which is also called a conditioned stimulus or CS). In this case neutral means that the dogs had no reason to respond to the bell...not at first anyway. Food was also used in the experiments, and whenever food was presented to the dogs they responded by salivating (this is called an unconditioned response or UR). Unconditioned in this case means that the response is occurred naturally. When he gave the dogs food he rang the bell at the same time. Over and over he repeated the pairings of the food and the bell. So ultimately when the bell rang without the presence of the food the dogs responded by salivating, this response is called a conditioned response (or CR) because the dogs learned to associate the bell with the presence of food therefore giving the same response as they did for the food.

So how can we apply this to our Christian walk, prayer, and our Godly mates? Well let us continue...(I told you we were going somewhere). 

Let our CS be a man (the wrong man). Right now things are new and fun and so we have no reason to respond in any negative way to the man....not at first anyway; in the beginning we consider him neutral (and nice). Now, lets say that our UR is feeling unhappy. So over time we enter into a relationship where this wrong man is repeatedly paired with our feelings of unhappiness. Over time you exit the relationship BUT when any man approaches you (more specifically the right man) you give the same conditioned response of unhappiness even without the presence of the wrong man.

I'm using classical conditioning to kind of show how we can become conditioned to give the same response in situations that are different. Our painful and traumatic past experiences with men teach us to either not expect OR expect the same. In these instances our faith suffers greatly. Having no or low expectations isn't good because it means that you are not anticipating positive change. People normally set no or low expectations to avoid the effects of disappointment. Ladies, don't let fear cause you to forfeit your future husband. First you have to know what you want in a husband before God can bless you with one. You have to have a vision and you have to BELIEVE in the man that you are praying to God for! Most important, your attitude about your experiences have to change because if they don't they will continue to hold you hostage and you will sabotage yourself from being happy with they right guy. The only way to get an understanding of your husband in order to know what to specifically pray for, is to get to know God. God is our husband above ANY man. He is the one that loves us, takes care of us, and protects us. He places the seed of faith within us so that we can birth great things!!! It seems like women consider God to be EVERYTHING but a spouse. He is EVERYTHING and EVERYONE that you need Him to be!! Entering into this marriage in heaven will allow you to be kept for the marriage that He will ordain for you on earth.

So ladies I encourage you to say YES to God's proposal of marriage! Everyday women wait for a man to get down on his knee to profess his love but God got nailed to a cross to profess His love for the entire world! No man will do that for you!!! So again I encourage you to say yes to a life of happiness with the One who has loved you from the beginning.

"For your Maker is your husband
the LORD almighty is his name
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth."
~Isaiah 54:5

When it comes to your earthly husband you have to know he, like you, is hidden in God and the only way to understand the man that he is, is by first understanding the One who created him. Stay encouraged in your wait. Don't be afraid to expect God to bless you with an AMAZING man of God. Be BOLD and SPECIFIC in your prayers for him. Remain close and in love with God and He will make the vision of your husband clear. And always remember, settling is NEVER an option.