Prayer is our means of communication with our Heavenly Father. The Bible teaches us a lot about prayer, but what I want to highlight in this blog is that God wants to answer our prayers with all His love, and I have experienced that in my own life.
I think the power of prayer is often underestimated, but also perseverance in prayer. We are often inclined to give up when we pray for something and do not see an immediate answer or change. Whether that is because we live in a “microwave society” where everything has to happen immediately and at the push of a button, I do not know.
I myself think that it certainly has something to do with it. We no longer have patience and everything has to be “quickly quickly”. But our God is not of this world and is outside of time. We can have a plan in mind or a certain time in which we would like to see change, but that does not mean that this is also God’s timing.I have experienced that you can make all your desires known to God, and as long as they are all in line with His Word, He will want to give it all to you with love, at His right timing.
Twenty-nine points
A year ago, God gave me a promise: He had someone for me – a man after His own heart and a Biblical marriage. At that time, I was alone, coming out of a difficult, ungodly, and unequal yoked relationship. I wanted nothing more than to experience how it should be, a Biblical marriage. From this promise that God gave me, came a desire to thoroughly investigate the Word: How does God see a Biblical marriage, a relationship between a man and a woman in which God is in the middle? And how does God see an unequal yoke? What about intimacy while you are not married, and if God already has someone for me, how do I prepare myself well for that?
The desire to be “ready” and to recognize when the time would come, arose. I wanted to be ready spiritually, emotionally, financially, and practically for the moment God would send me this man. I wanted to know exactly what God’s Word said about it so I would not fall for lies or false “loves” from the enemy. Likewise, I wanted to hear God’s voice clearly so that when the time came, I would hear God’s voice and guidance about it with full 100%.
A time of recovery began. Old wounds were brought to light by God and restored in me, and I grew and grew in my relationship with Him. To get everything in order for myself, I made a list: What do I look for in a man? What do I pay attention to? What do I find important? Which qualities do I find important, and even more, what do I never want again?
In the end, this resulted in an overview with twenty-nine points. Not from the assumption that my future husband would have to meet a set of requirements, but more to get everything I had experienced in previous relationships and did not want to experience again in a row. After drawing up this overview, I thought to myself, “Hey, this is all in line with God’s Word.” Points such as “someone must be a born-again Christian” seem logical, you might say, but you wouldn’t believe how many people sweep this aside as soon as they put on those rose-colored glasses. 
Since I had experienced this myself and now knew exactly what the Bible says about unequal yoked, this was really the number one point on my overview. It was important to me that the person had God first in his life, was loyal, had a permanent church community, and served in it. Also, I wanted to see some fruits of the Spirit in his character and how he stands in life.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 4:6-7
Persevering in prayer
These are just a few of the points. There were also some personal points regarding appearance or how someone should be in life for me. Eventually I brought the whole list to God in prayer. After all, He had made a promise to me and His Word also says; bring all your requests to Him (Philippians 4:6-7, Psalm 37:4) and so I did.
“Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” – Psalm 37:4
For a year, I prayed almost daily for this and thanked God in advance, He had promised it to me, and all His promises are Yes and Amen (2 Corinthians 1:20). By now, I knew His character well enough to know that He is faithful to what He says and His promises. So I knew that He would bring me this man in His time, who and when that would be, I had no idea. It could take a few months, a year, a few years, or decades, I had no clue.
In the meantime, I asked myself, “What do I do if it takes years, do I let it go, do I give up if it would take longer than I would like or do I continue to persevere in prayer?”
For me, there was really no other option than to persevere in prayer, and so I decided then and there, to continue doing so. Giving up the dream and desire for a Biblical marriage and serving God together with my husband, was a “no-go” for me.
And so I continued to pray daily, especially to give thanks for what was to come, not knowing that my future husband was doing the same! He, too, had expressed all his desires to God. And in the meantime, unbeknownst to us, God was at work. He was restoring both of us from many wounds in our past. He was growing us both in our relationship with Him and helping us to build our lives firmly on Christ. We were both learning about our identity and authority in Christ and were doing many things, like attending all kinds of conferences, meetings and studies.
The prayer of a righteous man availed much (James 5:16). We both, separately, were able to experience in that period that this is really so. We are His children (Romans 8:16, John 1:12, 1 John 3:10), He is our Father. If we ourselves want to give our own children all the good that lies in our power, how much more does our Heavenly Father want to give us what lies in His power?
“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” - John 1:12
God is faithful
Finally, after a year, God let our paths cross, and we met. All our prayers were answered, and for me, that included over twenty-nine points, LOL 😉! Everything I needed, desired and prayed for a year – all important things but also trivial things – I had brought to God, and He had answered every point! Weeks after our first meeting, God still reminded me daily of things that I had also spoken to God “in passing”, in which He had also been faithful and had also answered.
I want to encourage you with this; nothing is too crazy for God! Be honest with Him. He already knows what is going on in your heart and in your thoughts, but He wants so much that you yourself, of your own free will, make this known to Him. He wants to take care of you. He wants to give you all the desires of your heart.
Search His Word, know His character, and bring everything to Him. But also persevere in prayer, do not let yourself be robbed! Do not go along with disappointments when you do not see things happening yet or when it takes longer than you wanted.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” - Jeremiah 29:11
Rest in the knowledge that His timing is so much better than yours. The reason you may not see things manifesting yet may be because it is not time yet. Perhaps you yourself are not ready for what you are waiting and praying for.
Sometimes we don’t know the reasons, and we don’t need to. As long as you know, that you know, that you know, that you know (no this is not a typo, LOL), to the depths of your soul, Who your Heavenly Father is, what His character is, and you know that He is good, you don’t need to know more because, with that, you also know that everything He does is good and will be for your good. (Jeremiah 29:11)
Keep dreaming, keep praying!
