A Future Husband List

Spiritual Lessons

While growing up, have you ever known girls who made their "future husband lists"?  I knew a few.  The first time I considered doing one was after I read Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin's list in their book "So Much More".  (Highly recommend that book!)

Since then I've also talked to young women who think having a "list" is a silly foolish thing to do.  I recently had a discussion about the pros and cons to having a list and why I do.  I thought I would share with you some of these thoughts.

A Future Husband List

Good Idea or No?

Having requirements and hopes has been such a help to me.  In the past, if I wondered about a certain young man I was able to keep myself level headed because I could compare him to my honest hopes and expectations.  It's amazing what can be "justified" when we feel like we are interested in someone!  More recently it has helped me to realize what type of woman I need to be if I expect such a husband.  Plus it has given me specific things to pray for my man. My "list" isn't a shopping list with requirements, but more of a prayer for my future man.

It's a personal thing to share, but I think I would like to share that prayer with you.  To encourage you and to maybe inspire you to do the same!

My Prayer for My Man

• I pray that You Jesus will save him and You assure him of his salvation.
• That You create a real and evident mature relationship with You in him.
• That You would make it his certain conviction that the KJV is the English translation of the Word of God and that You would establish correct doctrinal beliefs in his heart.
• That without a shadow of a doubt, You would be first in his heart, then family, the the church, then country.
• That You create him to be a man I can respect naturally.
• That You give him Your love for children and make him instinctively a protective man who considers children, not offspring or burdens, but human lives to mold, and blessings with a desire to raise as many or as few as You tell us and to be open minded about adopting and to commit our childrens training to You.
• That You would give him a burning desire to be financially faithful and that You would make him a better steward with money than I am. But that You'd give him a sensitive and generous heart.
• Jesus, I pray that You'd instill my man with a vision. Something he can even pass down to his children. Something that You can (and please will) equip me to encourage and help him attain. Something that furthers Your kingdom in some way. Something greater than he alone can achieve, but needs You (and me :) ) to strengthen him in. Something I can cheerfully follow knowing it is Your will.
• Please give him an irreproachable character. Noticeable fruit. Make him a man in my father's eyes.
• Please establish a strong Christian worldview, making him at least one step ahead of me in politics and education.
• Please mold him into a man that can easily meld into my family and gain their hearts.
• Please give him an enthusiasm and deep appreciation for godly music. And an enjoyment of singing.
• Please establish habitual humility. And a frankness, and reality in his personality. Please establish Your confidence in Him, Holy Spirit. And an appreciation and ability to distinguish real beauty and modesty.
• Jesus I ask that You create a strong sense of manliness in him. Confidence. Leadership. That anyone who sees him would know without a doubt – there's a man. Please convict him now of any childish or effeminate ways.
• And Father, please, with all my heart I desire and pray that You give him a passionate desire to be healthy for You and his family's sake. That he would be well balanced in this issue and inspire me to be also. That he would appreciate that attribute about me.
• I pray that You would give him a sweet gentleman's heart and that a chivalrous nature would be a desire, ever before him, to attain.
• I pray, and with full assurance know, You will make him into a Spiritual leader who desires to pray with me, inspire me and lead me forward. A man who habitually reads good authors and enjoys a healthy spiritual diet and meditates on Phil. 4:8 “food”. Someone who holds this standard as important...even imperative.
• A man who can laugh and cry. A man who desires to express his emotions without embarrassment.
• A good work ethic.
• Someone unafraid to spend quality one on one time with me and enjoys it, craves it and makes the effort to do so.
• Please give him a hospitable heart.
• I give You the choice whether to establish a steady, command or visionary dominance in his character. You know best. But Father, would you please allow him to have some adventurous spirit?
• Also, I ask that You would keep him from becoming obsessed with sports. And that You would give Him a love for some of the same passions I have. And an acceptance of Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday celebrating.
• And a few hopes – that he would dance with me. Not afraid of showing affection towards me, even publicly, that he would crave wooing my heart. That he would enjoy health. He would be a Psalm 112 man. A perfect man (Ps.37). And a non-conformist Caleb.
• That You would teach me to be a woman worthy of such a man, and show me ways to start honoring him right now.   

I would just like to encourage you that there are godly men out there. It can be discouraging to feel like the godly male species is extinct.  But I know several godly good young men.  And what is better -- if we have a God who has destined us to be helpmeets, He must have a godly man handpicked for you.

This worry seems to be a widespread discouragement to Christian girls.  But we have to remember how big our God is.  If He is sufficient in creating a universe, He definitely is able to create and keep a godly man for you.  Our duty is to be faithful in what He has called us to.  With our focus and attention on Him and His kingdom, our singlhood years will be profitable and useful, and certainly not a bore.

The world sees singlhood as "standby".  We are unmarried because we are abnormally sheltered or prudish, self righteous girls with naive goals.   The church wonders at us and feels sympathetic to our plight.  "Don't worry, Prince Charming is right around the corner."

Are we on standby?  Is singlehood a plight?  Or a stage to survive?  Certainly not!  We are kept as treasures.  We do wait for one man, and one man only.  But singlehood is a beautiful productive season of womanhood.  We are not half-persons.  We are not broken.  We are not waiting for life to begin.  Paul even called this time a "better" than married life.  (1 Cor. 7).  It's to be embraced.  Prince Charming might not be around the corner.  Who knows what God has in store for your life.  Even those of us who are certain we are called to be wives someday, have no idea when "someday" is.  What if He has work for you to do as a single until you are 35?  Should this cause anxiety?  Not at all.  He purposes and plans.  We faithfully obey.

  We are to do our man good all our days. (Proverbs 31:12).  It's possible.  We are not to pine for him, worry over his existence, or hunt him down.  Our duty is to do him good.  Praying for him would be a good start.