Most women I know aren’t praying for an ordinary marriage. They’re praying for God’s best, and there’s nothing wrong with praying that way. In fact, I hope you never settle for less than God’s best. But here’s a question I had to ask myself one day: Do I really know what God’s best is.
At first, I thought I did. I had my own list. I knew the kind of man I wanted God to send into my life. But the longer I walked with Christ, the more I realized something: I was defining God’s best by my own preferences instead of by His purpose, His Will, and His plan. One of the greatest lessons we learn as followers of Jesus Christ is that our will and God’s Will are not always the same thing.
Not only do we limit ourselves when we try to get ahead of God’s plan for our lives, but we also limit how we believe He can answer our prayers. Sometimes we become so focused on what we’re asking God to do that we forget He has a process. Our Heavenly Father is a God of order, and there’s no skipping His order or the preparation He knows we need. When it comes to positioning ourselves for God’s best, our first order of business is having the right heart posture. We have to recognize that our way of doing things isn’t the best way unless we’re following the words of our Master Jesus in Matthew 6:33 (NLT), “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” This means total surrender—not just the parts of our lives we don’t mind Him touching.
When we think we know best, we close ourselves off to possibilities because we’ve already decided what God’s answer should look like. We begin expecting God to work within the limits we’ve created instead of allowing Him to work according to His perfect Will. And that hinders our faith. Jesus said in John 8:32 (NKJV), “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” We can’t move in freedom the way our Heavenly Father wants if we’re still being deceived.
Romans 10:17 reminds us that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Faith is built on truth. And truth always brings us into God’s order. As we submit to His order through obedience, our hearts become aligned with His purpose. That alignment prepares us to recognize and walk in what He has already prepared for us.
If we’re not completely sold out to the reality of our Heavenly Father’s excellence, we can convince ourselves that our own choices and decisions will lead us to a better place than following His Will. But that could never be true. God’s plans have always been greater than ours, even when we couldn’t see where they were leading.
When we talk about removing the limitations off God, we have to understand something important: God was never limited in the first place. He cannot be stopped, restricted, or prevented from accomplishing His Will. The limitations we often place are not on God—they are on ourselves. We limit our participation, our understanding, our readiness, and even our ability to recognize what He is doing in our lives. Sometimes God works in mysterious ways, and we don’t always understand because His vision is so much greater than ours.
This is why surrender matters so much. We have to trust that our Heavenly Father sees what we cannot see and knows what we do not know. His preparation is not punishment. His timing is not rejection. His process is not Him withholding something good from us. He is a loving Father who desires to prepare us to receive what He knows is best. So it’s always about His best, not our version of it. A good practice that’s really good for our faith—stop telling God what your blessing has to look like. Stop measuring His faithfulness by your timeline. The best that any of us could ever hope to achieve is to trust God, follow His Word, and allow Him to lead. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Stop Limiting God to Your Expectations”, written by Kim Times for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.
