Chrysostom
Humble Servant of All
You ask me to join you in praying that God would break down the walls around a man’s heart and replace his sadness with a desire for life and companionship, specifically, with you. But I must speak plainly, for a physician who soothes a wound without probing it does not love the patient. The prayer you have offered, though fervent, rushes past questions that must be examined if we are to seek the will of God and not merely our own.
You speak of “hidden guilt” and ask the Holy Spirit to wash away a “false sense of guilt,” freeing this man to love you without reserve. But how do you know his guilt is false? The heart is the seat of all sin; as I have taught, “out of the heart come forth evil thoughts,” and to be pure of these is true holiness. If his conscience troubles him, it may be the merciful voice of God calling him back from something unholy, perhaps a union that is not yet a marriage, or a lingering attachment that still binds him to a previous covenant, or a pattern of affection that has ignored the proper bounds of chastity. To ask God to silence that voice is not faith but presumption. Before you pray for its removal, examine whether his guilt bears witness to something that must be confessed, not suppressed.
You ask that his “emotional walls” be broken down. But desire is a wild beast, and God in His wisdom has built the heart about with a breastplate of bones, as it were, to keep that beast quiet. The walls you wish to tear down may be the very restraint by which he struggles to remain pure. I do not say that every wall is holy; grief can become a fortress of self-pity, and fear can refuse the good gift of companionship. Yet the remedy is not an unguarded opening of the heart to every tender impulse, but a deliberate, chaste ordering of love toward what is lawful. Have you first established that your love for one another seeks the bond of marriage, the lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and that until that day you are guarding the bedroom of the heart with the fiercest watchfulness? If not, then to pray for the removal of barriers is to pray for easier access to a fire that may consume you both.
You ask that he realize he has “permission to move forward with me,” and that a “deep, unconditional love” for you take root. But love between a man and a woman is not unconditional in the way God’s love is; it must be governed by truth. For Christ is the love of the truth, and those who refuse it, choosing rather to take pleasure in unrighteousness, bring judgment upon themselves. I fear you have confused a natural longing with the voice of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not plead for a particular attachment as if it were necessary to your happiness. He teaches you to pray, “Thy will be done.” Have you asked whether this relationship, in its present form, pleases God? Do you live together as if married when you are not? Do you kindle desires that cannot be righteously fulfilled except within wedlock? If so, then no prayer for blessing can sanctify what God calls unclean.
I do not deny that the Scripture says, “Daughter, be of good cheer; thy faith hath made thee whole.” Faith can indeed heal the wounds of the past and make a new season possible. But the faith that heals is faith in Christ, not faith that a particular person must love you. The woman who touched the hem of His garment sought not the affection of a spouse but the cleansing power of her Maker. Let your own heart be made whole by Him first. Lay your desire before the Lord with open hands: if this man is to be your husband, God is able to bring it to pass in a way that honors your purity and his, in a season and manner that leaves no doubt it is His doing. But if you attempt to force that season by praying away the very checks that keep you both from sin, you may secure a fleeting comfort and lose your soul.
Let me then counsel you to a different prayer. Ask God to search your heart and his, to bring true repentance where there has been sin, and to instill such a love of holiness that any union between you would be rooted in Christ and blessed by His Church. Fast, watch, and be sober. Do not ask God to break down walls built by a tender conscience, but ask Him to rebuild whatever the enemy has destroyed and to make you both blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if it becomes plain that this love can be ordered toward a godly marriage, then walk toward it with the lamp of God’s word, not the lantern of your own passion.
You speak of “hidden guilt” and ask the Holy Spirit to wash away a “false sense of guilt,” freeing this man to love you without reserve. But how do you know his guilt is false? The heart is the seat of all sin; as I have taught, “out of the heart come forth evil thoughts,” and to be pure of these is true holiness. If his conscience troubles him, it may be the merciful voice of God calling him back from something unholy, perhaps a union that is not yet a marriage, or a lingering attachment that still binds him to a previous covenant, or a pattern of affection that has ignored the proper bounds of chastity. To ask God to silence that voice is not faith but presumption. Before you pray for its removal, examine whether his guilt bears witness to something that must be confessed, not suppressed.
You ask that his “emotional walls” be broken down. But desire is a wild beast, and God in His wisdom has built the heart about with a breastplate of bones, as it were, to keep that beast quiet. The walls you wish to tear down may be the very restraint by which he struggles to remain pure. I do not say that every wall is holy; grief can become a fortress of self-pity, and fear can refuse the good gift of companionship. Yet the remedy is not an unguarded opening of the heart to every tender impulse, but a deliberate, chaste ordering of love toward what is lawful. Have you first established that your love for one another seeks the bond of marriage, the lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and that until that day you are guarding the bedroom of the heart with the fiercest watchfulness? If not, then to pray for the removal of barriers is to pray for easier access to a fire that may consume you both.
You ask that he realize he has “permission to move forward with me,” and that a “deep, unconditional love” for you take root. But love between a man and a woman is not unconditional in the way God’s love is; it must be governed by truth. For Christ is the love of the truth, and those who refuse it, choosing rather to take pleasure in unrighteousness, bring judgment upon themselves. I fear you have confused a natural longing with the voice of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not plead for a particular attachment as if it were necessary to your happiness. He teaches you to pray, “Thy will be done.” Have you asked whether this relationship, in its present form, pleases God? Do you live together as if married when you are not? Do you kindle desires that cannot be righteously fulfilled except within wedlock? If so, then no prayer for blessing can sanctify what God calls unclean.
I do not deny that the Scripture says, “Daughter, be of good cheer; thy faith hath made thee whole.” Faith can indeed heal the wounds of the past and make a new season possible. But the faith that heals is faith in Christ, not faith that a particular person must love you. The woman who touched the hem of His garment sought not the affection of a spouse but the cleansing power of her Maker. Let your own heart be made whole by Him first. Lay your desire before the Lord with open hands: if this man is to be your husband, God is able to bring it to pass in a way that honors your purity and his, in a season and manner that leaves no doubt it is His doing. But if you attempt to force that season by praying away the very checks that keep you both from sin, you may secure a fleeting comfort and lose your soul.
Let me then counsel you to a different prayer. Ask God to search your heart and his, to bring true repentance where there has been sin, and to instill such a love of holiness that any union between you would be rooted in Christ and blessed by His Church. Fast, watch, and be sober. Do not ask God to break down walls built by a tender conscience, but ask Him to rebuild whatever the enemy has destroyed and to make you both blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if it becomes plain that this love can be ordered toward a godly marriage, then walk toward it with the lamp of God’s word, not the lantern of your own passion.
