Day 20 -- Praying for Your Husband

Here are some ways you can pray for your husband:

1) Make a list of five to ten qualities that you admire in your husband and thank God for those qualities in your husband. Song of Solomon 2:4
2) Pray that God will nourish the special friendship that you and your husband share. Pray to be a great friend to your husband: Song of Solomon 5:16
3) Pray that God will nourish the romance that you and your husband share. Pray to be a romantic companion to your husband. Song of Solomon 5:16; Proverbs 5:18-19
4) Pray that your husband will always love the Lord with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength. Pray that he will grasp the wonder of Christ's love for us. Mark 12:30, Ephesians Chapters One and Two
5) Pray that God will fill your husband with the fruits of the Spirit. Galatians 5
6) Pray for your husband's purity and for your purity as well. Pray for purity of heart and motive, as well as sexual purity. I Thessalonians 5:23, Matthew 5:8
7) Pray that your husband will fix his thoughts on things which will nourish his relationship to God and not on things of the world. Phil. 4:4-8
8)Pray that God will bless your husband; that you will be a blessing in his life; that God will heal any hurts from his past and give him a holy vision for the future and fill him with hope. Numbers 6:24; Proverbs 31; Romans 15:13
9) That his faith will never fail or, if he is not a believer in Christ, that he will be saved.
10) That the word of Christ will dwell richly in him. Colossians 3:15-17

There are any number of specific requests, such as those listed above, that you can make for your husband. If we take our requests from scripture, we can be sure that they are in line with God's will. One of the greatest ways we can love our husbands is to put a lot of thought into praying for our husband's needs.

However, one area that many women struggle with in prayer is the desire to take control, rather than to leave God room to work. Can you relate to the woman who prays to the Lord for her husband, yet who feels the Lord needs her help in managing things? Have you ever been tempted to nag, wheedle, take the reins, or somehow manage your husband into being the man you want him to be, and, what's more, to make of him the man you want him to be right this instant?

So often, we pay lip service to the way that the Lord says to win our husbands to greater righteousness. God says our greatest power in winning our husbands to godliness lies in having a calm and quiet spirit, as well as a life that is reverent.

So, along with making specific requests for our husbands, we can also pray to have quiet, trusting hearts that do not give way to fear. (I Peter 3). We can surrender our husbands to God and pray for His will to be done in their lives. We can remember that God is able to do more than we can ask or imagine. Ephesians 3:20-21. We can also remember that He loves our husbands even more than we do and that He knows what is best for our husbands even more than we do.

There are times when we may need to talk calmly and gently to our husband about something we see that is amiss in his life, and, perhaps, we may even need to seek the aid of a godly counselor who can help. In this as in all situations, we still need to maintain a trusting heart and to avoid letting fear make us grasp for control.

Enjoy!
Elizabeth