Chrysostom
Beloved of All
We have received your prayer request and we join with you in prayer in the name of Jesus Christ with love and thanksgiving that you have brought this desire before God.
Your longing to meet a woman whom God intends for you to love and to enter with her into marriage is good and honorable. Scripture teaches that marriage is a bond ordained by God, it is honorable and pure, and its profit is to preserve the body in holiness and to keep us from impurity. Holiness in this area means living in a chaste and orderly way, whether unmarried in purity while waiting, or married in faithfulness to your own wife alone, not permitting any union outside that covenant.
We pray for you that God, according to His wisdom and mercy, will lead you to the wife He has for you, a woman who shares faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation and who desires a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman as God designed it. We ask that He will make practical ways for you to meet and to get to know each other in a manner that is full of chasteness, gravity and order, with the presence and counsel of mature and faithful people around you, and that your getting to know one another would be marked by peace, patience and respect.
We also pray that God will form in both of you a steadfast love that does not quickly give up, but that perseveres in what is right and holy. May He give you both hearts that follow peace with all people and holiness, and that do not make provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts, but care for the body in health and give the greatest energy to spiritual things, to prayer, to watchfulness and to every good work.
While you wait, we encourage you to use this time well. The Scriptures remind us that Isaac waited until he was forty and passed that time in virginity, and young men under grace are called to even greater self restraint. Keep yourself from what is unrestrained and wanton, whether in impurity, in excess, or in careless living, and give yourself to prayer, to work, to caring for your household and your character, and to serving others. If God wills to grant what you ask, He is able to do miracles, and even when He leads in a slower or different way than we expect, His provision is always good.
So we pray: Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, look upon our brother with compassion. If it is Your will, lead him to meet the woman You have prepared for him to love and marry. Give them practical opportunities to meet and to know each other rightly, give her a sincere interest in knowing him and a faithful love that endures, and give him the same toward her. Keep you both pure until and within marriage, and build your future home, if God grants it, upon faith, faithfulness and love that reflects Christ and His Church. Grant miracles as You see fit, and above all grant contentment, holiness and trust in Your perfect timing. Amen.
May the Lord bless you and keep you, guide your steps, and establish you in His love and truth as you continue to seek Him.
Your longing to meet a woman whom God intends for you to love and to enter with her into marriage is good and honorable. Scripture teaches that marriage is a bond ordained by God, it is honorable and pure, and its profit is to preserve the body in holiness and to keep us from impurity. Holiness in this area means living in a chaste and orderly way, whether unmarried in purity while waiting, or married in faithfulness to your own wife alone, not permitting any union outside that covenant.
We pray for you that God, according to His wisdom and mercy, will lead you to the wife He has for you, a woman who shares faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation and who desires a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman as God designed it. We ask that He will make practical ways for you to meet and to get to know each other in a manner that is full of chasteness, gravity and order, with the presence and counsel of mature and faithful people around you, and that your getting to know one another would be marked by peace, patience and respect.
We also pray that God will form in both of you a steadfast love that does not quickly give up, but that perseveres in what is right and holy. May He give you both hearts that follow peace with all people and holiness, and that do not make provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts, but care for the body in health and give the greatest energy to spiritual things, to prayer, to watchfulness and to every good work.
While you wait, we encourage you to use this time well. The Scriptures remind us that Isaac waited until he was forty and passed that time in virginity, and young men under grace are called to even greater self restraint. Keep yourself from what is unrestrained and wanton, whether in impurity, in excess, or in careless living, and give yourself to prayer, to work, to caring for your household and your character, and to serving others. If God wills to grant what you ask, He is able to do miracles, and even when He leads in a slower or different way than we expect, His provision is always good.
So we pray: Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, look upon our brother with compassion. If it is Your will, lead him to meet the woman You have prepared for him to love and marry. Give them practical opportunities to meet and to know each other rightly, give her a sincere interest in knowing him and a faithful love that endures, and give him the same toward her. Keep you both pure until and within marriage, and build your future home, if God grants it, upon faith, faithfulness and love that reflects Christ and His Church. Grant miracles as You see fit, and above all grant contentment, holiness and trust in Your perfect timing. Amen.
May the Lord bless you and keep you, guide your steps, and establish you in His love and truth as you continue to seek Him.
