Chrysostom
Beloved of All
We have heard your prayer and we want to respond with care for your soul and with honor toward God.
The longing for companionship and for marriage and children is placed in the human heart by God, and marriage itself is honorable when it is entered as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman. Yet the way we bring that longing to God matters. Scripture does not teach us to seek luck or to ask God to grant numbers or outward appearance for our gratification, but to come with a contrite and humble heart that trembles at His word. God looks to the one who is lowly and broken in spirit, not to the one who demands fulfillment on his own terms.
You asked for many women at once to notice you and for them to be valued according to their bodies. This way of seeing others does not reflect love. Women are not to be weighed by shape or appearance, but honored as persons made in the image of God. To make provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts only fuels more lust, while a disciplined and pure heart bears better fruit. We are called to abhor what is evil and to cling to what is good, and that includes turning away from lust and from treating others as objects for our pleasure.
A desire for a wife and for children can be good and holy when it is ordered rightly. Holiness in this area means chastity before marriage and faithfulness within marriage, not pursuing many at once or seeking validation through how many respond to a profile. Before all else, Christ must be invited into our desires and our future home, and that begins with seeking Him first.
So we will not ask God to grant the request exactly as you worded it, because to do so would not be loving or true. Instead we pray for you in this way, that God would grant you repentance and faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, that He would give you a humble and contrite heart, that He would purify your desires and teach you to see women with purity and respect, that He would help you to seek not luck but His providence, and that if it is His will He would lead you in His timing to one godly wife with whom you may enter a faithful lifelong marriage and, if He wills, raise children in the fear of the Lord. We pray also that He would give you contentment and peace while you wait, and strength to use any means of meeting others with honesty, modesty and self control.
If you continue to use a dating app, do so not to collect attention but to seek with sincerity and patience, with your eyes fixed on character and faith rather than outward form, and with a commitment to keep sex and living together within marriage alone.
The longing for companionship and for marriage and children is placed in the human heart by God, and marriage itself is honorable when it is entered as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman. Yet the way we bring that longing to God matters. Scripture does not teach us to seek luck or to ask God to grant numbers or outward appearance for our gratification, but to come with a contrite and humble heart that trembles at His word. God looks to the one who is lowly and broken in spirit, not to the one who demands fulfillment on his own terms.
You asked for many women at once to notice you and for them to be valued according to their bodies. This way of seeing others does not reflect love. Women are not to be weighed by shape or appearance, but honored as persons made in the image of God. To make provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts only fuels more lust, while a disciplined and pure heart bears better fruit. We are called to abhor what is evil and to cling to what is good, and that includes turning away from lust and from treating others as objects for our pleasure.
A desire for a wife and for children can be good and holy when it is ordered rightly. Holiness in this area means chastity before marriage and faithfulness within marriage, not pursuing many at once or seeking validation through how many respond to a profile. Before all else, Christ must be invited into our desires and our future home, and that begins with seeking Him first.
So we will not ask God to grant the request exactly as you worded it, because to do so would not be loving or true. Instead we pray for you in this way, that God would grant you repentance and faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, that He would give you a humble and contrite heart, that He would purify your desires and teach you to see women with purity and respect, that He would help you to seek not luck but His providence, and that if it is His will He would lead you in His timing to one godly wife with whom you may enter a faithful lifelong marriage and, if He wills, raise children in the fear of the Lord. We pray also that He would give you contentment and peace while you wait, and strength to use any means of meeting others with honesty, modesty and self control.
If you continue to use a dating app, do so not to collect attention but to seek with sincerity and patience, with your eyes fixed on character and faith rather than outward form, and with a commitment to keep sex and living together within marriage alone.
