The Power of a Praying Wife Devotional (47 page)

L
ORD
, I pray You will enable my husband to provide for his family. Give him the ability and desire to do what is necessary in order to accomplish that. When there is no work for him in his desired field, open his eyes to other ways to bring in income. Open new doors of opportunity for him to walk through. Show him how to better use the skills You have given him, or to develop new ones he didn’t even know he had. Help him to get better and better at what he does so that he is never put out to pasture or turned away from work. Enable him to be innovative and creative, and take away any pride in him that refuses to either ask for work or to let others know he needs more secure work.

I know You would not hold my husband responsible to provide for his family if You weren’t going to enable him to do so. Whenever he struggles in that area, I pray he will turn to You for that ability and opportunity. Help him to never be careless or uncaring about that, but to always diligently seek to do what needs to be done. Whenever I have work that is better paying or more secure than his, I pray he will be thankful and not threatened. Help him to remember that we are a team and we support each other. Give him the confidence to know that You will always have good work for him to do, and he must seek it after he first seeks You.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

90

A brother offended is harder
to win than a strong city,
and contentions are like the bars of a castle.

P
ROVERBS
18:19

B
EING CONTENTIOUS MEANS
having a tendency to argue or quarrel. Offending someone can sometimes be a difficult aspect of a relationship to mend because some people refuse to forgive and forget or simply let things go. The more offenses that pile up in a marriage relationship, the more quarrelsome and imprisoned you both become. They become like bars laid across a castle door, locking each other out. You must never sit by and let this happen in your marriage.

You don’t want either you or your husband to ever wander the cold, dark halls of isolation. You both need the warmth of love, compassion, understanding, and togetherness in order to survive. That’s why you must pray that any and all contentiousness between you and your husband be dissolved immediately by the power of the Holy Spirit.

If there is no contention between you and your husband now, pray that there never will be any in your future. Ask God to help you both avoid committing offenses against each other, with each subsequent offense placing another bar on the castle door. You not only end up locking the other person out, but also locking yourself in. And eventually these bars can be nearly impossible to remove without outside help. Everything you do in your marriage must build up and not tear down, must liberate and not imprison. The Spirit of God in you can, and will, help you do both.

My Prayer to God

L
ORD
, I pray that my husband and I will not allow a contentious spirit or attitude to flourish in us. Keep us from committing offenses that hurt or anger each other. Help us to not be oversensitive, and therefore unable to let careless words or thoughtless actions roll off our backs. Teach us to forgive quickly and let go of things we might hold against each other. Enable us to rise above our insecurities and weaknesses, and refuse to fall prey to this trap of the enemy for our demise. Help us refuse to entertain any evil spirit of contention that rises up between us.

Where we have allowed our flesh to give place to, or make room for, a contentious and argumentative spirit between us, I confess that before You as sin. I ask You to forgive us and soften our hardened hearts. Where we have put bars on the castle door of our marriage that keep us separated and imprisoned, I pray You would dissolve them so they can never be erected or established again. I know that it is “better to dwell in a corner of a housetop, than in a house shared with a contentious woman” (Proverbs 21:9). Help me to never be a woman that my husband wants to avoid. Draw us both over to Your way of relating to each other, where offenses are forgiven, released, and forgotten immediately. Thank You, Lord, that nothing is too hard for You—not even breaking down the bars on a castle door.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

91

Who can find a virtuous wife?
For her worth is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband safely trusts her;
so he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good and not evil
all the days of her life.

P
ROVERBS
31:10-12

T
HE EXAMPLE OF A VIRTUOUS WIFE
in the Bible is inspiring to live up to, but you must not try this alone. You need the enablement of the Holy Spirit. First of all, the word “virtuous” means to live a morally excellent life. How can we do that without the righteousness of Jesus covering us? Being clothed in His righteousness, endowed with the perfect beauty of the Lord, and filled with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit are foundational steps for a virtuous life.

Once you have that foundation in the Lord, as you look to Him and depend on His power, He helps you to become the woman you want to be. That is, He teaches you to successfully manage a home, to be wise with money, and to develop useful skills so you are never sitting around doing nothing. He teaches you to not
rely
on physical beauty, because you now have the excellent beauty of the Holy Spirit in you. But you don’t neglect your appearance, either. You take care of yourself and make an effort to stay healthy, strong, and attractive. These ideas and suggestions are found in the last half of Proverbs 31, and it is good to read that section of Scripture from time to time as a reminder—not of something you have to live up to, but of something God will help you attain.

Ask God to help you become a “virtuous wife.” The promise is that when you do, your husband will always think of you as a blessing in his life. Being a “virtuous wife” doesn’t mean becoming boring. It means becoming dynamic and full of life because you have the power of His Spirit in you. It will be the Lord’s beauty and perfection shining through you that is irresistible.

My Prayer to God