The Power of a Praying Wife Devotional (24 page)

L
ORD
, I pray You will help me to show respect toward my husband in the way You want me to. Where my respect for him has been lowered, I pray You would restore it. Where there have been things he has done, or not done, that have eroded my respect, I confess my judgmental attitude and lack of mercy. Where I have perceived in him a clear lack of respect for me, and this has diminished him in my eyes, I confess that to You as sin. For I know that reciprocity is not Your way, and getting even is never acceptable in Your eyes.

Help me to see my husband the way You do—as one of Your children. Reveal to me any time I have not esteemed him the way I should and this has contributed to a growing wall between us. Where I have closed off my heart to him in order to avoid being hurt, I confess that to You as well. Forgive me and teach me ways to show respect for him in a manner that will clearly communicate it. Enable me to dwell on the good in him and what he has done, and pray to You about the things that have troubled me.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

44

Where there is no vision, the people perish:
but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

P
ROVERBS
29:18
KJV

W
HEN YOUR HUSBAND
loses his vision for a bright tomorrow, it means he has lost sight of his purpose and his reason to get up in the morning. He has misplaced his sense of God’s calling on his life and his reason to keep fighting the good fight. (Or perhaps he never had a sense of his purpose and calling in the first place.) He may also have lost his reason to keep working and trying. He can even lose his drive to face the day. Having a husband who has lost sight of his future—or your future together—is not a good thing. The Bible says people can’t survive without a vision. That’s why the enemy of our soul comes to steal away the vision we have from God, so that he can kill our hope and destroy our sense of purpose. But your prayers for your husband to have a clear vision for his future and your future together can restore all that and make an enormous difference in his life.

Lack of vision happens gradually. It creeps in a day at a time, a thought at a time, a disappointment at a time. And it can happen to anyone. We get too busy. We get discouraged or exhausted. We work too hard for too long. We try to do right, but things keep going wrong. This could be happening to your husband right now without either of you even realizing it. If you’re not certain how your husband feels about the future, ask him and then pray accordingly. If you can tell he has lost his vision, your prayer can help him find it and be able to hear from God again.

My Prayer to God

L
ORD
, I pray You would give my husband a clear and strong vision for the future—not only
his
future, but also our future together as a couple. If the many challenges he has faced, or the disappointments he has experienced, have accumulated enough to take away his sense of hopeful anticipation, I pray You would help him to see that his future is in You and not in outside circumstances. Give him the understanding he needs to know that the value of his life and purpose are not determined by external situations. Enable him to see that success is not in how well things are going at the moment, but it’s in how close he walks with You in prayer and in Your Word. Help him to understand that true vision for his life and our lives together comes only from You.

When my husband is feeling hopeless, I pray he would realize that his hope is found in You. Where his vision has become clouded because of futile thoughts, wrong actions, or advanced apathy, I pray You would enable him to comprehend that he is wholly dependent upon You for proper thinking and right actions. Where he has overworked or overworried, I pray You would revive him again. Even if he doesn’t know specifics about his future, help him recognize that he has a bright one. Don’t allow him to waste away in his own disappointments. Restore his spiritual sight so he can see that his future is found in You.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

45

Did He not make them one,
having a remnant of the Spirit?
And why one? He seeks godly offspring.
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
and let none deal treacherously
with the wife of his youth.

M
ALACHI
2:15

T
HE PURPOSE OF A FAMILY
—a husband, wife, and children—is to glorify God. For those of you who do not have children, for whatever reason, I am not mentioning this to make you feel bad or self-conscious about that. Paul did not have children or a wife because God had another plan for him. Perhaps He has another plan for you. He used Paul in a powerful way that would not have been possible if he was a husband and a father. He is surely using you in that same way. If you have peace about not having children, then God has something else for you to do. If you don’t have peace, then ask God to either give you a child or else give you the peace you need about not having a child. He will do that.

With that said, the simple truth about the purpose of marriage is to have “godly offspring” who will grow up to glorify Him. The message in this section of Scripture is that the husband is not to “deal treacherously” with his wife and treat her badly, because the Lord sees all that goes on in your marriage (Malachi 2:13-14). He knows how your husband treats you, as well as how you treat him. But God lays the responsibility right in the husband’s lap. He expects the husband to honor the covenant of marriage by treating his wife well.

You both made a covenant before God when you married, and now you are
one
in His sight. And it is your husband’s responsibility to love you as he loves himself because you are part of him and he is part of you. When he does that, you can glorify God by having godly children—or raising up spiritual children—and not ending up in divorce court. Family is a great calling and a high purpose, and God wants you both to never forget it.

My Prayer to God