Do you need help when praying for your spouse?
Have you begun praying for your husband or wife and gotten sidetracked into telling God all the ways they irritate you?
Before you know it, rather than standing in the gap for your spouse, you’re sitting in judgment against them. Each time I “pray” this way, my heart for Bert becomes less soft and warm and more hard and cold. I feel less and less united with him.
Yet, the message of Mark 10:8-9 (ESV) is clear: ‘“And the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
In marriage, a man and a woman – two people – become a single unit. The most closely-knit team possible. The ultimate dream team.
“Yeah, right,” you say. “Not in my marriage.”
And I would answer, “Not in mine either, some of the time. Actually, a lot of the time.”
Yet when I subtly change the way I pray for Bert, I’m able to return to the one-flesh feeling. When my prayers for him head south, I add the words “my husband” to my prayers.
“Father, Bert is staying later and later at the office. It makes me so mad!” becomes, “Father, Bert is staying later and later at the office. Please help my husband know how much I love him.”
Strangely enough, whenever I talk to God about Bert and use the phrase “my husband,” I soften a little on the inside. The Holy Spirit will often shift my prayer in a more compassionate direction, causing me to bond with him.
Using these two words can be especially important when our spouse is going through a season of weakness or is in the midst of a trial. There’s something beautifully unifying when we intercede for our husband or wife this way. Beautiful in the way God transforms our feelings about our spouse. Unifying in the way God knits our spirit with our husband or wife’s spirit.
I’m thankful for God’s gentle correction about whom I’m praying for. He reminds me that I’m praying for… my husband. A part of me. A part of my flesh.
Because what therefore God has joined together, let not man … let not me … separate.
Sheryl H. Boldt, a Franklin County resident, is a faith columnist and the author of the blog www.TodayCanBeDifferent.net. You can reach her at SherylHBoldt@gmail.com.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.