This terror that has seized your soul, that God will be late, that a star-gazer’s word has more weight than the promises of the Most High, is a slavish fear. It is the very thing that dishonors God, the mistrust that suspects His goodness, the dread that keeps a man from resting on the bosom of his Father. You tremble before a prediction as a criminal trembles before the judge, but there is a fear that is your birthright as a child of God: a loving fear, a holy dread of grieving so tender a Father by running to the broken cisterns of the heathen. Happy is the man who has this right fear in his own house, the man who says, “I am afraid lest I should not act as a Christian man ought to act.” That is the fear I would see in you now, not a terror of a late marriage, but a horror that you have sought a sign from the stars instead of the mouth of the Lord. You have said it yourself: it was a mistake. Repentance is the gift Christ gives alongside remission, and it is yours to ask Him for it. But see that your sorrow is not that carnal repentance which springs alone from terror, comes up in a night and withers in a night, a mere dread of the consequence while the sin is still cherished. That is a repentance that hardens into despair. The repentance that is unto life is wrought by the goodness of God drawing you, not the whip of a false prophet driving you. You are not to draw it up from the depths of your own heart as water from a well, but to ask Christ to work it in you by His Spirit. Weep over this sin, not like a child who has done wrong and keeps away from his father in sullen dread, but like a penitent child who lays his head in his father’s bosom and sobs out his grief there, because he has offended such a loving father who is so ready to forgive.
The very desire you have for a wife is among those marks of God’s goodness that ought to lead you to Him, not to a reader of fate. He has set this natural, godly longing in your heart, and He means you to bring it to His throne, not to a den of inquiry. A man who is afraid often runs into worse dangers than those from which he seeks to escape; you fled from the quiet waiting of faith and plunged yourself into the sea of superstition to escape the river of uncertainty. Now you are afraid lest you should be deceived, lest your hope be deferred, lest God’s timing be a burden rather than a blessing. But the lover of God’s law is filled with great peace, and nothing shall offend him. God’s law bids you trust Him and forbids you to seek after familiar spirits. Stand in awe of that law, and the result will be a self-contained peace, so that you are satisfied from Him and drink water from the cistern of your own experience with Him, not from the broken pipes of astrologers. You need not fear but that you have a repentance unto life if you now hate this sin with an everlasting hatred and turn from it to the living God. Faith in Christ is perfectly consistent with this repentance; indeed, they are inseparable companions. To lay hold of Jesus now for the forgiveness of this very transgression is to find that He is exalted to give both repentance and remission.
Let your cry be now, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Come to Him with your future. Your times are in His hand, not in the movements of planets. He who sends the springtime swelling in the hidden bulbs will bring His purposes to bud in their proper season. You are not to pry into the concealed calendar of the Almighty with a forbidden instrument. The business of your soul is to walk by faith from the wicket gate to the celestial city, and your right-hand companion all the journey through must be repentance, not a despairing terror over a predicted lateness, but a daily turning from self and sin to the wisest and kindest Husband of our souls, who knows when and how to give the earthly gift. Fear not. To trust Him for the forgiveness of this past folly and then to trust Him for the ordering of your future household is to honor His truthfulness and immutability. He will come to discern between the righteous and the wicked; He will come graciously to adjudge His people their reward according to their works. Wait upon Him. The little oak within the acorn possesses all that is needful for its future, though it does not know when the summer weather will float over it. Your life is hid with Christ in God; when He who is our Life shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory. And until then, every right desire, brought before Him in true repentance and living faith, is safe.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. God bless me to prosper, walk in excellent health, and never stop growing in the love, grace, wisdom, and knowledge of Christ Jesus. God bless me to know You in truth, fall in love with You with all my heart, mind, soul, body, and strength and never fall out of love with You. God, bless me to have an ever growing closer stronger, more intimate relationship with You. Bless me with the love, desire, strength, and the spirit of obedience to always delight myself in You, seek first Your kingdom, Your righteousness, and to always respect and obey You. Bless me to know You, so that I can trust You with all my heart, acknowledge You in all my ways, and lean not to my own understanding. Bless me with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in all You have called me to do. 
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