Praying for Our Marriages

We need to pray for our friends’ marriages.

When I was single and longing for a husband, I read a book by Candice Waters called Get Married. The book encouraged its readers to ask their friends and older women in their church to pray they’d find a husband. I think I asked every single member of my church to pray God would send a husband for me. 

After Brandon and I met and eventually married I stopped asking people to pray for my marriage. I think a big part of this was that I felt God answered my prayer and that was it. Plus, I grew up thinking that asking people to pray for you meant something was wrong with you. We weren’t sick, and I didn’t want to ask others to pray for us because they might think we were on the verge of divorce, or something awful was happening.  

I’ve learned a valuable lesson, though. Friends, we need to be praying for our marriages AND our friends’ marriages. Philippians 2:4 says, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also the interests of others.”

Over the past few months, I have been inundated with stories of infidelity and marriages on the brink of divorce. A friend’s mother commented that I’ve reached the age where seeing divorce and infidelity among my friends happens all the time. It sure feels like it. The people I’ve witnessed, heard about and heard from are friends from elementary school, high school and youth group. I went to college with some, and others I worked alongside. I ache for them. I ache they’ve had to endure such heartache. My heart is heavy that their marriages are so tumultuous. My heart is heavy that I didn’t know or do anything to help in time; I didn’t pray for their marriages. 

None of us are safe from the lies of Satan. When we’re walking down the aisle, happily having our pictures taken, most of us are not thinking about divorce or the hard times ahead. We have to be vigilant of Satan’s attacks. We have to pray for our marriages. We need to pray for our friends’ marriages, too.

“Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:11-12

I’m going to start praying for my friends’ marriages. And I’m going to start asking people to pray for mine. We need to be supporting each other - not just in the bad times, but the good times, too.