Also, I just read your message again and there's a number of things wrong with your theology. First of all you're saying that if I believe something will happen for me then it will. This is not a black and white promise in life though of course having faith helps. For example, many Christians believe they or a friend will be healed of cancer but they're not healed and they die. They believed, they tell people and speak that belief out loud over their life- I'm going to be healed, God will hear my prayers and he will heal me... And then they die. So no, having faith doesn't guarantee an answered prayer.
If you think... and believe... like that when you pray for someone with cancer, you can expect to get what you believe for. James 1 has a section about asking for wisdom. James says to ask in faith without doubting. For he that doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.
The Bible says that he that comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
If you pray for a husband, you are supposed to believe that God will answer you. It doesn't happen just because you believe it will, but because you trust God and God responds to your faith, and to your requests made in faith.
I had prayed about getting married for years, but I was overseas by myself at Christmas and made me want to get married soon all that much more. So I started praying really intensely about it over the next few months. I wrote down what I thought the Lord was showing me. At certain point, it seemed the Lord was telling me I'd meet her that month. I'd forgotten about this, but I saw my journal a few months back and I wrote down that I believed the Lord was showing me that she was 23 years old. That's how old my wife was when I met her that February.
I was praying if the Lord had a wife out there for me someday, to speed it up and let me meet her sooner. I prayed, probably back in December before she found out her then boyfriend had another girlfriend, that if she were dating someone else to gently break them up for me without hurting her too badly. Stuff like that. You need to pray 'strong' prayers like the kind that James 5 says are effective in that part about Elijah.
Also, a man being the wifes spiritual leader is a man made myth. There is no one between a woman and God.
I'm a conservative Christian man. Of course I am married now and 'safe' and all that, so I'll share my perspective. I was a virgin at marriage and wanted a godly woman. If I were single and wife hunting, and I read this and the few sentences that followed, and you had been in my consideration set, you might drop out if I heard that or read it in a dating profile or whatever. I didn't too deeply about such things back then, but at least I wanted a woman who acknowledged the requirements Ephesians 5 and I Peter 3 gives for wives.
The Bible doesn't call a husband a 'spiritual leader.' In some unbelieving couples, the wife converts and her husband is still an unbeliever. He isn't her 'spiritual leader.' But it is good if a Christian husband is a 'spiritual leader.' The Bible doesn't say that the husband is 'the spiritual leader' or 'the priest.' It says that he is the head of the wife.
As for no one between woman and God, look at I Corinthians 11, the opening section. God is the Head of Christ. Christ is the Head of man. Man is the head of the woman. There is an order there. A lot of godly men looking for wives want one who embraces that.
I also think it is important to marry a Christian woman who embraces her role in marriage as per Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, I Peter 3, I Corinthians 11, and a few verses in Titus whose reference I don't remember off the top of my head. If she doesn't, if she's a feminist (even if she calls it 'egalitarian') I see that as a high risk situation. I wouldn't want to enter into a marriage where the wife was not on the same page. I also consider it to be ultra high risk for divorce. I was looking for a woman who would stay with me for life. A woman who is liberal about one aspect of marriage could be liberal about the divorce aspect. It is enough of a challenge to walk out your roles in marriage as husband and wife when you both agree, in theory, on the Biblical basics of what those roles entails. If a prospect for marriage doesn't embrace that, that's even tougher.
Another thing to consider is that if God has a man for you, there could be some areas of your life he is working on to prepare you to meet him. It could have to do with habits, beliefs, philosophies about marriage. Those are areas to pray about, too.
She, like a man, will answer for herself.
I don't disagree with this. God spoke directly to Eve for her wrong doing. But a woman is also responsible before God for respecting the role that God put her husband in as her husband. An adult man will have to answer to God directly. He can't expect that his parents would answer for him. But He will also have to be responsible before God for honoring his parents. Just because he will answer to God himself doesn't mean he doesn't have to honor his parents, and honor God by honoring His parents.
Adam and eve ruled together before sin, Adam ruled over her afterwards.
In I Timothy, Paul makes his case from the creation prior to the fall. If you will notice, women still have pain in childbirth. That did not disappear for Christians after Christ died on the cross-- unless those women folk have a huge conspiracy to fool us men. But I've been in the delivery room, and I can't see but how that would hurt pretty bad. It hurts just watching.
It is not Gods plan for women that men have greater authority in their union. If that is not what you mean then I apologize but the wording you chose is generally meant that way in christian circles.
The philosophy you hold to is something to pray about and read the passage I mentioned honestly, asking God to give you insight. Be realistic, too. The authors of scripture were not 21st century feminists or egalitarians.
You should also consider if you would really like a Bible-believing Christian man, that he may be looking for a woman with a certain set of values and beliefs when it comes to marriage. If you don't fit that mold, you are going to have a hard time attracting that kind of man. When you pray for a husband, God is hearing those potential husbands' prayers, too, about what kind of wives they want.
To elaborate and connect that with singleness, I have observed young men stalling on marriage or even a girlfriend in church because they don't feel like they are the authority yet.... and they're right because they never will be.
I haven't noticed that. But I can't blame them if they don't think the dynamic of their relationship will fit the Biblical ideal in marriage. But some of these young men should consider the woman's attitude toward her father and discuss whether that will transfer after marriage. She doesn't owe a boyfriend much more in the way of respect than she does any other man before marriage or engagement. If she is disrespectful toward her father and toward her boyfriend, it makes sense for a man to find someone else.
So we're waiting for them to simply take us out to lunch and they won't because they don't know how to be our spiritual leaders which they're not supposed to be! It's a lose lose situation.
Maybe that's it. Maybe there are tens of thousands of guys looking for women with certain traits and values, but only thousands of women with those traits and values.
Lastly, 'lowering your standards' is not always a bad thing in real life as I have heard countless stories of christian couples hating life together and others being very happy and content. Is it Gods will for us to love and be loved or be religious?
Some people feel 'happy' growing far from God. If you marry an unbeliever from a western country whose not abusive or a control freak, you may have a lot of 'independence' in your marriage, and if that makes you happy, you may feel happy. If he is too wimpy, though, and doesn't show any leadership in the marriage, you may grow to not respect him. And you might hear about a lot of women being 'happy' lowering their standards when it comes to divorce. You may then consider divorce to 'be realistic' and then take your children out of your husband's life and go live just below the poverty level off of child support and food stamps. And your husband can go move back in with his parents so he can afford to pay the child support. Lowering standards could lead you to marry another husband, and repeat the cycle. Then you could be 'happy' watching your kids grow up to become atheists, Buddhists, and secular people who care little for God.
Don't lower standards when it comes to marriage.
I am very glad I married a woman who fears the Lord. If we have a disagreement or conflict, it frees us both of a lot of worry. I am confident that if she gets upset with me about something, it's not permanent. I don't have to stay awake at night wondering if my marriage is going to fall apart, if she will leave me. Why? Because she fears the Lord, and she knows that wouldn't be right. She also knows she must forgive. She knows if I get upset with her, I'll forgive her, too.
I can trust her to go out shopping all day without meeting up with a boyfriend. I can trust her to be faithful. She knows if I work late at night, I'm not in some strip club having a dirty dance or off with a girlfriend somewhere. If there is some area where I want her to hange in our relationship, I can pray about it. I posted a testimony a couple of years ago about how I prayed a half a dozen or more detailed things I wanted the Lord to speak to my wife about. A couple of days later, she told me how the Lord had spoken to her about several things, and went through my prayer list, but in much more detail. She repented of several things. And she prays for God to get through to me on things, too.
We pray about things in our marriage and our life. We can pray together for other people. We pray alone, too. We each have someone to support us in ministry. We are both on the same page about going to church, that we need to teach our children the word of God. We have common values about our faith, about marriage, about sexuality, about caring for one another that we teach to our children.
How many of these things would you have in your marriage if you marry someone who is not a Christian?
