As I glanced in my rearview mirror, I could see the huge red fire truck bearing down on me... lights flashing aggressively.

Hastily, I made it out of the way just in time.

But then something odd struck me... the sirens were not blaring. There wasn't an emergency. What was going on?

Then I looked closely. And what I saw?

A lovely young girl with hair like burnished gold... maybe 19, 21, dressed in sparkling white bridal garment... along with a sharply dressed, smiling young man. Holding hands together and standing in the back of the open-air truck they were waving and smiling at the crowd.

Whoa! This young couple newly married just hired a fire truck for the evening drive around town!

I joined the crowd and waved back. The spectacle just brightened the whole place and drew smiles of joy from the face of everyone.

At that moment it dawned on me what a precious joyful thing a successful dating could lead to...

This was 6:15pm Thursday evening.

Another Time, Another Place

Different set of people.

By 7 am Sunday morning in church I was jolted back to hard cold reality... like someone poured a bucket of ice-cold water on me.

It happened when I innocently asked a brother how his family was doing ...

"She's gone... walked out on me with the kids," came the sad reply.

"Y...you m..mean..." I stammered trying to contain my shock. Not these ones. They always seemed so happy... always smiling.

"She just said she felt like she was in prison or something. Packed up with our 2 kids and left for Arizona," he said sighing wearily.

Then a thought struck me.

"I'm so sorry to hear that." I began.

"That's okay, thanks," he said.

"Excuse me for asking this...is there any pattern like this in your family... or hers?"

"Not mine," he said gently but firmly, "in her family no one stays married for long."

Hmmm.

Before that week was over I had heard of 5 more similar cases.

What could be going wrong?

Shocking Revelations

In our ministry years back we did an in-depth spiritual research into disintegrating relationships and up came certain shocking revelations.

Some of them were not pretty.

In fact, the problem starts with one of the oldest and most successful strategies in the book - confusion of tongues.

For students of the Bible, this age-old weapon was first used by God Himself against the builders of the tower of babel in the book of Genesis 11.

It is such an effective weapon that it can create suspicion, misunderstanding and general confusion in a relationship... in no time at all.

The man and woman begin to disagree on practically everything... no one is listening to the other and before long communication breaks down... then terrible things begin to happen from there.

So we leant to pray the prayer of the psalmist, "O Lord, divide the tongues of all those targeting my marriage for destruction." - see Ps 55:9.

In some relationships, We also uncovered a pattern of:

* breakup or divorce either in the man's family or on the woman's side or both.

* marital problems transferred from one generation to another...

* hidden spiritual "marriages" in place.

* invisible marks of hatred placed on the man or woman. This makes one repulsive to the other and vice versa - after only a few years of marriage.

* warning signals ignored or simply not understood. Sometimes these warnings came through dreams.

etc.

To give you an example, once we found a man who was deeply in love with his date... and they got married - for 6 months.

Then all of a sudden he couldn't stand the sight of her. No one could think of anything wrong that she had done.

Eventually he walked out on her.

She went for counselling... no solution.

Her friends took her to all kinds of "prophets." She went to see 5 different therapists, 2 psychics and even a hypnotist.

Nothing worked.

She went into prayer asking God for a more compatible person to date.

No response.

As she put it she had desperately prayed to God to send her that special someone with whom she could glorify and give Him praise... no answer.

In fact all she seemed to be getting turned out to be nothing but "wolves in sheep's clothing."

She gave up... not knowing how to navigate the tricky minefield of finding a sincere, godfearing man to share her love with.

Then the Lord had mercy on her.

One day, a friend at work invited her to a Friday night prayer meeting.

It was an anointed session... and miracles were happening.

During the prayers one sister noticed an invisible mark on her forehead... a tiny star-shaped symbol that was not visible to the naked eye.

She stopped the prayers and raised this singular prayer point just for her:

"Blood of Jesus, wipe off all handwriting of hatred and rejection from my life in the name of Jesus."

They prayed it 3 hot times, praised the LORD for the answer and moved right on to the next prayer point.

Result?

That same weekend the husband called for the very first time since the breakup.

12 more sessions of anointed prayers (with fasting) followed ...and hubby came home.

Do you happen to know anyone whose relationship is not all it could be, maybe a friend or even a relative?

* Or the marriage is on the verge of hitting the rocks

* Or has broken down already

* Or tell-tale signs of wear and tear are beginning to show

* Or someone believing the LORD for a godly spouse

* Or any couple just trying to safeguard their marriage

* Or a close friend just fed up with the boredom and loneliness of the single life?

Do them a favor... learn to pray for them. I mean the type of prayer that works.

Because there are prayers that work like little hinges that move big doors.

These are prayers of spiritual:

* housecleaning
* restoration
* prevention

And they help you reap the benefits of a successful dating for a long time to come...to the fullest.

Just as God has planned it.

Don't settle for less!

Elisha Goodman is an online prayer coach and author of five books, including his free book: Passion Prayer of Jesus the Christ. His f.ree online prayer coaching ministry (http://www.firesprings.com) has helped thousand all over the world to grow spiritually as well as in the areas of health, wealth and relationships. Thousands participated in his recent 21-day Prayer Marathon that witnessed the blossoming of new relatioships, manifestation of new cars, houses, money, and emotional and physical healing. For more on his coaching sessions here: http://www.firesprings.com/dnabook.htm