The Power of a Praying Wife Devotional (7 page)

L
ORD
, whenever there is deliberate and lasting silence between my husband and me, and it is raising a wall between us and causing a separation of hearts, I pray You would smash it down. I know it does not line up with Your view of us as being one. Soften any hardness of our hearts and heal the hurts that cause us to withdraw from each other for self-protection. Take away any attempts to punish through silence. Help us to rise above our own selfishness. Cause us to be so full of Your Spirit instead of ourselves that we forget we have silently agreed to not speak.

I also pray that when either of us has decided to withhold communication—where even though we have not stopped speaking completely, we still only communicate the absolute minimum in order to get along—keep us from being willing to settle for this deplorable lack of compassion and love. Help us to trust each other enough to share our thoughts and feelings in a calm and hopeful manner. Where one of us is volatile and can be easily set off, I pray You would squelch that rebellious spirit and convict the soul that gives it a safe harbor. Dissolve any silent divide between us and fill us both with Your Spirit of love, peace, and unity.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

10

May the God of patience and
comfort grant you to be
like-minded toward one another,
according to Christ Jesus,
that you may with one mind and one mouth
glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

R
OMANS
15:5-6

E
VEN THE MOST PERFECT OF PEOPLE
can irritate you sometimes. The greatest of houseguests can stay too long. The best of friends can be too frank. But when your husband repeatedly does something that irritates you, it can become unbearable. We all do things that would be annoying to some people if they were around us all the time. Because a husband and wife live so closely together, they each have the potential to irritate each other. That’s why this is a matter worth committing to prayer.

If your husband does anything that irritates you, ask God to give you an abundance of patience and help you rise above it. I know this can seem very petty, but a small irritation can become a major issue after a while. The Bible says that it is our glory “to overlook a transgression” (Proverbs 19:11). It works to our benefit when we do. But sometimes, after years of overlooking the same transgression, we don’t have it in ourselves to overlook it anymore. We need the power of God enabling us to do so. It’s part of becoming like-minded and living in unity.

If you are at the point where your husband is doing something you cannot bear to live with for the rest of your life, ask the God of peace to prepare the way in both of your hearts to talk it out. Don’t live constantly irritated. Ask God to help you let go of things that don’t matter, but work together with your husband on the things that do. Pray that God will show you anything
you
do that irritates your husband. There is a way for two people to live in peace and satisfaction, and you must ask God to help you find it.

My Prayer to God

L
ORD
, I bring to You the things that irritate me about my husband. I know there must be things I do to irritate him as well, so I pray You would help us both to be more considerate of each other. Neither of us wants to become critical and petty, but we need Your help in order to work this out. Enable us to become like-minded toward each other according to Your Word. Where either of us has irritating habits that need to be broken, help us to become free of them. Help me to overlook his faults, and help him to overlook mine.

Give me greater patience and tolerance and the kind of peace in my heart that allows inconsequential things to roll off my back. At the same time, teach me to address in love the things that need to be confronted. I don’t want to be a wife who seethes in silence, building up like a pressure cooker ready to explode. Take away all pent-up emotions in me and evaporate any critical attitude I have acquired because of them. Help me to not continue on another moment with irritation in my heart, but rather to submit everything to You for Your correction. Lift me above the things that could bring us both down. Enable us to learn to live together in total peace.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

11

Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruit.

P
ROVERBS
18:21

M
ANY MEN DON’T FULLY COMPREHEND
the power and impact of their words. Just by reason of being male, a man’s voice has the strength to be intimidating. A man can say something casually, carelessly, or insensitively without even realizing that he has frightened or hurt someone. Not all men use their voice to that degree, but many do. A man has the power to heal or harm the heart of those to whom he speaks, and never is that more true than within his marriage and family.

What your husband says to you or your children—and the way he says it—can build up or tear down. His words can strengthen family relationships or break them apart. You cannot have a successful and fulfilling marriage when your husband is careless or thoughtless in the words he speaks or the manner in which he speaks them. When a husband speaks hurtful words to his wife, he strikes her soul with a damaging blow far greater than he may realize. If your husband ever does that, pray he will understand his potential to intimidate or even wound.

Ask God to help your husband hear what he is saying and the way he says it even
before
he says it. The book of Proverbs says, “He who guards his mouth preserves his life, but he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction” (13:3). Pray that God will fill your husband’s heart with an abundance of His love, patience, kindness, and goodness so that they overflow in the words he speaks to you and your children. If your husband has never hurt another with his words, then thank God for that and pray he never will. Pray that his gentle spirit will rub off on the other men around him.

My Prayer to God