Pastor Francis Chan has shared his thoughts on how girls can gauge if a boyfriend is marriage material.
The Crazy Love authored offered his advice after bringing to mind one instance when his eldest daughter brought a boy home.
"My daughter did bring home a guy a few months ago from college and some of my friends asked her, they said 'Hey, how serious are you with him?' and they told me her answer was so weird," he said during an Ask Pastor John podcast.
"They said her answer was 'I just want to hang out with him long enough to see if God answers his prayers.' That's a weird answer but in her mind that was her gauge."
Chan said that prayer is a good indicator of faith, and it shows just how strong a person's relationship is with God. "Prayer is conditional," he said. "We see in Scripture God often hates our prayers. He says, 'I'm not listening to that; it's a bunch of noise to me.' You know, if there's doubting or selfishness or unrepentance, insincerity, it's a lack of reverence."
On the flipside, God does want to hear the prayers of those who love Him, know Him, and are walking with Him. He shared the Bible verse John 15:7, which shows that God answers the prayers of the faithful. It says: "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you."
Chan stressed that it is important for couples to enter into a marriage with God in mind, because there are so many distractions that keep their focus away from the kingdom.
Apart from prayer, Chan tried not to offer any other indicators to determine a man's readiness to get married. "I don't want to get too much into specific actions – that can be almost religious," he said. "It's more, gosh does this guy, does he really know Him, does he really love Jesus and is he truly known by Him to where that prayer life is so deep and rich."