Letter to a Brother - Marriage (Page 2)

Praying Together

You husbands in the same way, live with your wives…as heirs together of the grace of life so that your prayers will not be hindered. 1 Peter 3:7b

It was early in the morning when I arrived at the pastor’s apartment in New York City, I wanted to stop by and catch up with the pastor and his wife; they were not expecting me. After their greetings and providing me with a cup of coffee Pastor Alvarez said, “Brother Bob, please excuse us for a while, my wife and I haven’t prayed together yet, so we are going back into our bedroom to pray and we’ll be back when we’re finished.”

The above happened almost fifty years ago, but I still remember it. Ralph and Carmen Alvarez were putting first things first in their marriage; after making their guest comfortable they were going to do what they did every day – they were going to pray together as husband and wife.   

One of the questions I often ask married Christians is “Do you pray with your spouse?” Less than one out of ten say “Yes.” People might respond, “We say ‘grace’ before meals,” but they know that’s not what I’m asking, they know I’m asking if they pray together regularly about their marriage, about their lives, and for the needs of others. Are they giving thanks to God for His blessings? Are they praying for the salvation of others? Are they praying together for those who need healing? Are they praying for God’s direction in their lives?

There are two areas that Christians tend to get irritated about when I explore them in a conversation, two areas that Christians often get plan angry about – one is sharing the Good News of Jesus with others and the other is praying with a spouse. Christians have excuse after excuse about why they don’t share Jesus with others, and they have excuse after excuse about why they cannot pray with their Christian wife or Christian husband. I have had discussions with husbands who will get angry with me for not accepting their excuses – some will go away angry and come back days later to say that they’ve tried it and it’s working, others will avoid the subject in the future and hope that I don’t bring it up again.

If, as Peter writes, husbands and wives are heirs together of the grace of life, doesn’t it make sense that husbands and wives ought to pray together? After all, isn’t prayer one of our most intimate connections with God? And if husbands and wives are one flesh, one person, then shouldn’t that one person be praying and experiencing intimacy with God – not just as individuals but as husband and wife?

There is a vulnerability in prayer in that when we pray with our spouses there is no room for façade, no room for posturing or religious pretending, no place for denial of sin if the spouses have mistreated each other. Confession of sin is necessary when a husband has wronged his wife or a wife has wronged her husband. Confession of sin is also necessary when the husband and wife have wronged others. A husband and wife in prayer can also be a place of tenderness as they give thanks to God for His love and mercy in their lives and as they thank Him for each other and their marriage. Praying for children and grandchildren, friends and neighbors and coworkers, others in need, missions, community…the list goes on in terms of what a husband and wife can pray for.

Praying together is an act of worship, it is a marriage of a man and woman joined as one in Jesus Christ, communing with the God who created them – their two hearts becoming one altar on which they offer up love for God, receiving together the grace of life.

Why is it so difficult for husbands and wives to pray together? Two reasons often are “expectations” and “forgiveness and acceptance”. Many people are uncomfortable praying aloud in church or in small groups because they think that verbal prayer has to be a certain way, sound a certain way, and use certain words in a certain order – how often do people who pray around others change their tone of voice and type of language when they pray! It’s as if one moment they are speaking American English and the next they are speaking British English – what happened? It’s as if we change from everyday language to holy language – we go from being ourselves to being someone else. I think our kind heavenly Father would rather us be ourselves when we commune with Him than try to be someone or something else. A prayer façade might work in church or a small group, but hopefully it won’t work with a spouse – after all, the spouse knows who we are, the spouse knows how we typically talk…as does our heavenly Father.

But I think the issue of forgiveness, coupled with acceptance, is often the biggest issue in a husband and wife praying together – because we’ve all hurt our spouse at one time or another, and we’re never quite so vulnerable as when we pray. Also, spouses see imperfection and sin in one another, after all, we’ve all come short of the glory of God, there is none righteous, no not one (Romans 3:23). A fear is that one spouse will think his or her spouse a hypocrite, or that one spouse has not really forgiven the other, or that even if one has forgiven the other that acceptance and love is being withheld – because while one spouse may forgive the other can he or she really forget the harsh word, the unkind action, the sin introduced into the marriage, the repeated destructive behavior?

No one said that praying together is easy, any more than individual prayer is always easy – asking forgiveness is not easy, repentance is not easy, submitting to God and to one another is not easy. Yet, healing and forgiveness and changes in attitudes and behavior can be experienced when husbands and wives weave prayer into the fabric of their marriage. When a husband and wife pray together it is not only the husband’s heart that is exposed to God, nor only the wife’s heart that is exposed, but it is particularly the heart of the marriage, of the husband and wife, that is exposed to our Lord Jesus and it is that heart, found in the unity of person, that Jesus can speak to and mold and draw to Himself.

Questions to Ponder:

If you and your spouse do not pray together, please take the opportunity to do so now. Simply join hands and begin praying. Here are some things that can be part of your prayer:

Thank God for each other and thank Him for your marriage. Pray for needs within your marriage, pray for guidance, pray that God will use your marriage as a blessing to others and to draw others to Jesus Christ. Pray for needs within your family, your circle of friends, your coworkers. Pray for the salvation of others by name. Pray that God will teach you as husband and wife to love Him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourselves. Commit all that you have and all that you are to Him. Pray for those in distress across the world as a result of natural disasters, war, and famine. Pray for national, state, and local leaders. Don’t be afraid to have moments of silence in your prayer as your hearts listen to the Holy Spirit.

If you and your spouse do pray together, and you do not do so daily, please make a commitment to begin daily prayer together right now – right now in prayer ask God to help you make time for daily prayer.