Prayer cannot be overvalued in your marriage. It is vital for you and your wife to be disciplined in prayer. If prayer is not a daily and purposeful part of your marriage, you, as the husband, are loving your wife poorly. Here are several ways that husbands need to step up and lead their wives well in the area of prayer.
Pray for your wife
Husbands, we need to pray for our wives continually. Their emotional, spiritual, and physical health depend on it. Who is going to pray for their needs if we aren’t praying for them? Of course, to pray well for your wife, you need to communicate well with her. Take some time to sit down with her and ask her how you can pray for her.
Some ways you could pray for your wife:
- That she will have wisdom and discernment in the choices she makes (Colossians 1:9-10)
- That she will not be anxious over things but give them up to Jesus (Matthew 6:25-34)
- Much of Jesus’ prayer for the church in John 17 would transition well to prayer for your wife
Pray with your wife
It is just as important to pray with your wife as it is to pray for your wife. Personally, this is one of my most inconsistent approaches to prayer. Many husbands that I have spoken with have also experienced a strong internal struggle related to this discipline. While there is often a prompt by the Holy Spirit to pray with my wife, I have found that those prompts are almost always met by an ungodly desire to resist prayer. This resistance to pray with my wife is unhealthy and it causes me to lover her poorly. There is no better way for your wife and you to commune together with God than to spend time together in prayer.
Lead your wife in prayer
Kristie and I have both experienced ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ in our personal prayer lives over the years. In times when I have been less than disciplined in my prayer life, the Holy Spirit has encouraged and convicted me through Kristie’s personal prayer life. The same is true for her. I am convinced this goes back to being yoked together as one. Our personal prayer lives have an element of being contagious. I think this is a good thing. Husbands, when you take the lead to make prayer a regular part of your life, the Holy Spirit will use this to encourage your wife to do the same. You have a scriptural mandate to lead your wife well (Ephesians 5:23, 1 Corinthians 11:3). Do not neglect that duty in your personal prayer life.
Follow Jesus’ example towards the church: pray for your wife, pray with your wife and lead your wife well in prayer.
This is part of a series of posts centered on loving our wives as Christ loved the church.