Your words rush forth like a swollen stream, but the true channel of prayer is not in the multitude of words or the vehemence of demands. The Lord is not deaf that you must shout, nor hard of heart that you must compel Him by sheer volume. Consider the nature of prayer: it is the tell-tale of spiritual life. If your prayer is filled with "I must have" and "I declare," where is the holy fear that bows before the sovereignty of the Covenant God? To fear the Lord is to know the grandeur of His character, and in that fear to trust, not to dictate terms, but to cast ourselves upon His wisdom. You speak of what you need greatly, but have you considered that the answer may come after God’s fashion and not your own? The ship longest at sea comes home with the heaviest freight, and the prayer tried by waiting often brings the richest blessing. You cry out for the right one, for a home, for happiness, these are not wicked desires in themselves, yet they must be laid upon the altar with open hands. Do you seek the Giver or only His gifts? True joy dwells where dwells the living God, and nowhere else. If you would have joy that uplifts and cannot be brought down, you must find it not in a creature, however fair, but in the Creator. He that has joy in his barn floor may see it bare; he that has joy in his children may bury that joy in the grave. But the soul whose trust is in the Lord shall never lack for joy, for the Lord Himself is that joy.
You speak of years of praying, and it seems your heart is weary. Yet remember, the failure we sometimes see in prayer may be caused by sin, not necessarily gross transgression, but the subtle restraint of unbelief. You ask, but do you believe? Or do you attribute answers to accident rather than to grace? Get the promise and then offer the prayer. What is the promise for a spouse? That a prudent wife is from the Lord, yes, but the promise is not a blank cheque for any person upon the earth. The promise is that no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly. Are you walking uprightly? Are you content to receive a mate who is like-minded in the faith, or have you painted a portrait from your own fancies and demanded that God fill the frame? Fancies in prayer are of no service; they must be cast out. The Spirit helps our infirmities, teaching us to pray according to the Father’s will, not our own.
That cry, “I get the right 1, I have to be lifted up greatly”, has in it a perilous ring of self-exaltation. It is not the posture of the publican, who would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much, but fervency is not feverishness. It is the earnestness of a soul that knows its need and rests upon the merits of Christ alone. You plead the blood of Jesus; that is well, for there is no other ground of acceptance. But beware of treating that precious blood as a charm to secure your own will. The blood speaks better things, it says, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” It was through the bloody sweat of Gethsemane that the Son yielded Himself to the Father’s cup. Shall we wave the banner of the blood while our heart remains stiff-necked?
Think upon intercessory prayer. The sweetest prayer God ever hears is that which pleads for others. When the Lord turned again the captivity of Job, it was when he prayed for his friends. Your prayers have circled long about your own condition; try now the prayer that reaches out. Pray for the church, for the lost, for the afflicted, and while you are yet speaking, as with Daniel, the answer may come, not only in the thing sought, but in the sweet peace of heart that surpasses it.
And what if the answer tarries? It becomes you not to grow weary. “Will he always call upon God?” That is the test. In seasons of joy and sorrow alike, the hypocrite will let prayer drop. But the true child of God prays on. If you have not liberty in prayer, pray till you get liberty. Put up with no makeshifts. A form prayer is a leg of wood, it will not carry you far. Fall upon your knees, even in your chamber, and pour out your soul. Not the surface prayer, like sacred masquerading, but prayer inwrought into the warp and woof of your being. Then, though the answer delay, remember Christ’s own prayer in Gethsemane was not answered by the cup passing away, but by strength to drink it. God answers punctually at the very tick of the clock of wisdom, not before, nor after.
I hear your longing for a home and for appreciation. These are natural and God-given desires. But remember, you are already a child of the Most High if you have received Christ. In that lies a paradise cocooned: Abba, Father. Is He not a home? In His presence there is fullness of joy, even though your earthly habitation be a single room. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Not necessarily the exact thing you have drawn up in your mind, but the precise good your Father knows you need.
So then, lay hold anew upon the promises. Plead them with humble boldness. Add force to your petitions, knock, and keep on knocking until the door opens. Yet let your knocking be as one who stands at mercy’s door, not as one who beats upon a foe’s gate. The Lord will not suffer you to ask again and again for a good thing and refuse it, if it is indeed for your good and His glory. But He may refine the request, shift the desire, and in the meantime work in you that peaceable fruit of righteousness which is the truest answer to prayer.
Let us not doubt that He who spared not His own Son will with Him freely give us all things. But let that “all things” be defined by Him, not by our hasty appetites. And do not think that happiness is a stranger to affliction or a companion only to wedlock. Shout for joy even now, as you trust in the Lord, for He is your exceedingly great reward. If the right one comes, praise Him; if the tarrying continues, praise Him still. The Lord will give grace and glory. Go now, not with a list of demands, but with tears of gratitude for what He has already done for your soul, and with childlike reliance for the morrow.
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. 
