Having given this some thought,  I have made this decision.

I am going to pray for my future wife every day.

Has anyone ever considered the thought of doing this?  I came across an article yesterday that served as a great inspiration for me.  A woman started praying for her future husband after finding no relationships for years.  She did this every day and she found a man at the church that she went to.  With the man deciding to meet her, she found out that he too had been looking and has been praying for a wife.  To make a long story short, they both ended up getting married.

To further reinforce this,  the bible has a couple of things to say about this.  The most profound verse that comes to mind is Genesis 2:18:  “It is not good for man to be alone.  I will make him a helper suitable for him.”

Now does this mean that God will provide each of us with our own spouse when we do this?  Not necessarily.  If you are going to do this, there are some important things that you need to consider.   What is God’s will?  Am I pursuing it?  Spend a lot of time in prayer to determine this.  God will never lead you in the wrong direction.  Where is he leading you and is he leading you in that direction?  Remember:  God knows what is best for us and he’s not going to leave us unfulfilled.  He wants us to be happy, but he also wants us to grow.  Sometimes we are not happy during these “growing pains”.

So consider God’s will and direction.   Do you feel led to marrying someone?  If this is what you strongly feel, begin praying for that future spouse.  There are certain desires that God gives us and if this is one of them, don’t hesitate in praying for him or her.  They will appreciate your prayers and will be encouraged to pray for you!

Remember.  in your pursuit for doing this, don’t get discouraged.  God has a wonderful plan for every one of us, and he wants that plan in your life to be fulfilled.  Just know that it’s going to be on his schedule and his timing.

With that, I am going to pray for my future wife.  I don’t know what’s she’s going through and I never met her, but God knows everything that she’s going through right now.  And I know that she will very much appreciate the prayers that I am sending her way.  She may be praying for me, and I want to be encouraged by her as well.  With her encouragement and most importantly, God’s encouragement.  He has a plan for me and he certainly has one for you.  Proverbs 18:22 says “he who finds a wife finds a good thing and receives favor from the Lord”.

One last thing, if you are going to do this, try to remember why you are doing this.  Are you doing this for yourself or for God?  Ask God to guide you if you are feeling led to do this.  If this is going to be done at all, it is going to be done God’s way.  Do you feel the urgency?  Are you persuing your own spiritual wellness as well as their own?  We all need community in our lives, and God will provide it to us one way or another.

With that, seek God’s will before doing this, and he’ll point you in the right direction.  And if he is leading you to do this, do it his way.  God knows what is best for you and he’ll keep you aligned with his will for your life.  He knows where they live and he knows how to make the perfect arrangements for you to meet them.  It will be part of his timing, so do trust in it.

If this is what you strongly feel, I encourage you to pray for your future spouse.  I will surely be praying for mine.

My prayer for you is that God will guide you to the desires that he wants you to experience in your life.  If he is leading you to marriage, then I pray that you will meet your future spouse one day.

If you strongly feel led to pray for your future spouse and you’re looking for a way to started, then I encourage you to check out these books on the subject.

31 Prayers for My Future Wife: Preparing My Heart For Marriage By Praying For Her

31 Prayers for My Future Husband: Preparing My Heart For Marriage By Praying For Him

If you’re looking for additional resources, I encourage you to check out these three books.  The Dating Manifesto, True Love Dates, and Choosing Marriage.  They are all very wonderful resources if you need more information.

Also check out truelovedates.com.  It is full of information, blogs, and podcasts on relationships.  Debra Fileta is a wonderful person with a great knowledge of this subject matter.  If you go there, tell Debra that Kyle said hi!

Solitude is something that we experience every now and then.  You may experience it at work on the drive there.  Also when you’re at your work area, focused on your tasks.  You may experience it when you wake up in the middle of the night.  You experience it in the shower or in the bathroom.  And if you’re single, you experience solitude a lot more often.  Me-time becomes more “me” than what we can stand.

Does solitude make anyone feel lonely?  Does it create a since of discomfort or incompleteness?  For anyone that has felt this before (and I know that you all have at some point in your life), it’s normal.  It’s normal because it identifies something much deeper about ourselves.  That sense of incompleteness.  That discomfort…It’s because of this truth.

We were not created to be alone.  We were created for community.

Having been made in the image of God, our longing for community is part of who we are.  God demonstrates this best in the relationship that he shows us in the perfect community that we see in the bible:  The Trinity.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Throughout eternity, all three parts have always lived in perfect community.  All three supporting one another.

With such a strong community as The Trinity, it is no wonder that we all have that same desire built right inside of us.  When we are alone, it speaks to the deeper side of us.  That longing for community, to be with others, is in the forefront of our minds.

God saw our need for community since the time that he created Adam.  He said that “it is not good far man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him.” (Gen. 2:18)  And with that, he created woman.  Adam now had Eve, a helper that was perfectly suited for him.  This created the first community on earth.

So what can you do the next time that you feel alone?  Reach out to your community.  Whether that’s your friends, family, or spouse, we all have a way to fill this unique longing inside all of us.

And also, if you are alone, you have God.  He is always there.  And if you have no one, connect with a church and some other groups.

When loneliness enters our heart, community is calling.  Don’t ignore this call.  Respond to it and be a part of what we were all made for.

To all of you Christian singles that are preoccupied with pursuing your perfect match, stop.

Why should you stop?  Because what you are pursuing has consumed so much of your life that it has the risk of becoming an idol.  Before you make any other vain attempts at pursuing your “perfect match” you need to consider the relationship that you already have.  Yes.  We are all already in a relationship, and his name is Jesus Christ.

To those of you who are experiencing the pain and loneliness of being single, I would like to share a story with you.  One that I feel that you all should hear before hunting for your perfect dream date.

To all you think that I am hating on people that are pursuing a relationship, I am not.  It is human for everyone of us to have the desire for companionship.  Being in my thirties and still single, I have been struggling with that feeling for quite some time.

To address that struggle, I’ll take you to where my story begins.  About a month ago, I was overcome with this desire.  I had to marry, and I had to find the right woman for me.

So I did what any person would do who had this desire.  I went on Amazon and bought some books on relationships.  I read The Dating Manifesto by Lisa Anderson from cover to cover.  That wasn’t enough for my unquenchable desire for a bride.

From the last book I read, I discovered Debra Fileta, and her True Love Dates website.  I read a few articles and listened to a podcast.  This led me to buy both of her books.  True Love Dates and Choosing Marriage.

While Choosing Marriage came first (thanks, Amazon Prime!) True Love Dates took forever since it came through another distributor.  When it got to my house, I started reading it.  Very. Carefully.

I finished the Dating Inward section and started on the self-inventory.  In just one weekend, I answered all 28 questions.  I was dating myself, and I learned so much from doing so.

Then I started reading the Dating Outward section.  I read about the different seasons of dating and the fuel was added to the fire.  My passion for marriage was burning out of control.

I then read about protecting my heart and the sex chapter.  And that was it.  My loneliness consumed me completely.  Nothing could put out my burning passion for Godly woman.  I needed one.  Badly.

So from there, I joined the first impressions team at my church and became a greeter.  I joined an adult discipleship group and joined a young professionals small church.  With all this, I thought that I could up my odds at getting a special friend.

Then I read chapter 9 of True Love Dates.  This was the first of the Dating Upward section, and it covered the love triangle theory.  Basically, God is at the top of it and both me and my significant other would meet at the top, where God is.  I read on and found out that Debra wasn’t doing this.

And neither was I.

My burning passion.  My desire for the woman of my dreams.

It became an idol.  I was not pursuing God but pursuing a woman that I hoped would make me happy if I succeeded in that pursuit.

So with that, I did exactly what Debra did.  I abandoned my pursuit entirely and shifted my focus to Jesus Christ, the one that I should’ve been focusing on in the first place.  Jesus says it best in Matthew 6:33:  “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

After I decided to do this, I felt a great peace come over me. All the time that I was pursuing a woman, Jesus reminded me that he was the one that I should be pursuing.  He was pursuing me the whole time and I didn’t even recognize it.

So please.  Don’t go making an idol of pursuing your other half.  God is not a genie or a vending machine where you can exchange your good church duties for a match made in heaven.  Jesus is the match you should focus on first.  Trust me.  God knows every one of our needs and he’s waiting for you to run after him.

As I have abandoned my idol that I have made of pursuing a woman, I am now discovering the passions that God has for my life and making them my own.  I am forming a vertical relationship with Jesus Christ and leaving the horizontal one behind.  I am going up and I’m going to meet God at the top.

Are you?

I would like to thank everyone for reading this article!  Debra is an amazing person and I have learned so much from her book True Love Dates!  Go over to her website truelovedates.com and check out her blogs, podcasts, her two books and her other resources!

And to all who are on every end of the relationship spectrum, have a blessed day!

Kyle Walker