Understanding Who It Is You Are Praying To: How To Pray For Your Spouse – 4 of 8

Prayer is spiritual communication between man and God. A two-way relationship in which man should not only talk to God but also listen to him. Prayer to God is like a child’s conversation with his father is natural for a child to ask his father for the things he needs. Billy Graham,

Hey, we’re Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your host of the Marriage After God podcast. Before we jump into part four of our eight part series, we want to read a review that someone has left recently. His name is Jake. It says, finally, I was so excited this morning when I found out you guys were still active. I found your YouTube channel a few years back and loved the content. I never saw any new videos come up and figured y’all had stepped away from any kind of content creation and I was legit bummed. I never thought to check any other platforms, but now I have a lot of podcasts to catch up on. God bless YouTube. Your videos help me break through the awkwardness of being a man steeped in sin, making the about face and becoming a godly leader in my family. I always felt so awkward praying in front of my wife or talking about God or reading scripture aloud with her. You all helped me see that it was possible and it is better. Thank you. A million times.

Wow, that’s awesome. Again, it makes me want to start doing the videos again.

Oh yeah, I know. If you have had an opportunity to already leave us a star rating interview, we just want to say thank you. Thank you so much. Not only does this bless us from hearing from you, but it also helps other people find our podcasts. We also just want to encourage you, if you have not had a chance to leave a star rating or review, to take two seconds out of your time to do that today. It’s really easy. You just tap the star rating, give us whatever you feel inclined and then leave a written portion as well. Again, this just helps others find the podcast and know what we’re about and it also blesses us. So thank you guys so much for doing that.

Yeah, and you never know, we might be reading your review on the podcast, so you should do that.

True.

Okay, so we’re on part four of our eight part series and we’ve been going through the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew chapter six and breaking down each verse, seeing what principles we can pull out from Jesus’s own teaching on prayer to his disciples and seeing how we can apply those principles to our marriage. So today in part four, we’re going to be breaking down Matthew chapter six, verse nine. And up until this point, Jesus has been teaching us about how to pray. He’s been teaching us how to pray, when to pray, what to pray, but he hasn’t yet prayed. So we haven’t gotten to the actual Lord’s prayer yet,

The actual example.

But today we’re getting into the very first verse, the very first part of the actual, the world famous, most well-known prayer in the world, the Lord’s Prayer. And so that starts in verse nine. Why don’t you read that?

Pray then this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

So this is one little teeny line, one sentence from this prayer, but it’s actually got a lot in it.

So today we’re kind of answering the question, who are we praying to?

And I think this is probably something that we don’t think about that often because we just pray and we’re like, oh yeah, we’re praying to God. But there’s something very profound, very powerful to have a conscious recognition of who it is we are praying to. And so that’s what this whole episode’s about is talking about this first portion of Jesus’ prayer, of who it is he’s praying to,

Who’s

He teaching us to pray to?

Also to note right before he actually starts the prayer, our Father in heaven, he says pray then like this. So just to point out that he’s not saying pray this, pray this specific prayer which we can do. It is a good prayer and it it’s general but relevant over time. I mean,

People have repeated this prayer for generations since Jesus said it.

Yeah. And it’s a beautiful prayer, but Jesus isn’t saying that we only pray this prayer. He’s saying we’re praying like this. And so I just wanted to point out those two words before we jumped in.

Yeah, the word he’s making reference to like, Hey, here’s how you can pray. Here’s the template, here’s the format

(04:19)
Per se. And so we have to remember when we’re reading scripture to, we always hear this context, context, context matters. What is going on? What’s the context of this prayer? And so the context of this prayer is actually the disciples are coming to Jesus and they ask him directly, Jesus teach us to pray. John taught his disciples to pray. John taught his disciples, but we’re your disciples. Will you teach us? What’s interesting is you don’t know this if you were only to read Matthew chapter six, because it doesn’t say that the disciples came to him and asked. But if you go to Luke chapter 11, which is it’s another angle, it’s another perspective of the same event, of the same thing taking place, and it says this. Now, Jesus was praying in a certain place and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. And so we know that the context of the Lord’s prayer is him teaching how to pray. And so we can look at this prayer and say, this is a template for us to learn from. Jesus isn’t saying, here’s your prayer to pray. He’s saying, here’s how to pray. So that’s why he says pray like this.

So he starts out the prayer, our Father in heaven, and he’s directing his prayer to the Lord to God. When we start off praying, what do we say?

Yeah, well, often we say, dear Lord, we’ll say, dear God, often when I’m writing my prayers, I force myself to write out Father

Or heavenly Father

Or heavenly Father because I want to, this is kind of what we’re talking about today, is I want to reposition my mind of like, man, who is it relationally that I’m to? Because one of the most important places to start when we pray is the understanding of who we’re praying to and not just shooting one off into the atmosphere

Or talking to ourselves, which it can kind of feel like sometimes that you just talking loud or

Talking to each other. That’s actually a very good point,

But we’d even tell our kids when we’re teaching them, we’re praying to the creator of the universe. We want to let the kids know that he has our attention, that we’re giving him our attention,

And we always want to remind them that they’re not just saying words to with their eyes closed,

Like

You said, we’re not just saying something into the air as a ritual or as something that we do. We say, Hey, you’re actually talking to your creator. He’s your heavenly Father. I’m your earthly dad,

But

He’s your spiritual dad. He’s your heavenly Father.

Yeah. Acknowledging who it is that we’re praying to. It’s the most important part of the prayer because it shows you where your heart posture is before the Lord.

Right? Well, and when we do that, that posture, it’s like, what’s our position? It’s as children, what’s our place? Definitely as young as children of God, we’re beneath him and he’s above us. It’s all this perspective of where we’re at with him, but it’s very relational too. And I know that there’s a lot of listeners that would probably really encouraged by this, just like our children are encouraged by this because another thing, we’ve probably mentioned this in the past, we always tell our kids not just who they’re praying to, but what his opinion of them is what he loves. And we say, God loves hearing from you that

He does hear you. He

Does hear you. He’s listening to you. And so we just sound him like he loves hearing you, which is a really big deal for our children to know that God loves hearing from them

And it’s comforting,

It’s super comforting, and it’s a really big deal that they know that we love hearing from them as their earthly parents. So our listeners, you listening, did you know that God loves hearing from you as his child and he desires to hear from you as his child? And so I think that’s the main emphasis that Jesus is bringing here in this prince, starting off in this way, saying, our Father, our father, and I love that

Sometimes in thinking about our children and how, let’s say one of our kids comes to you, let’s say Elliot because he’s a little bit older and he’ll talk to you a certain way, and I say, Hey, you can’t talk to your dad like that. And I just remind him who it is that he’s talking to.

You

Don’t come to your dad with frustration the way that you just, it’s almost disrespectful the way that you just said what you said. Can you change how you said it? And I think it’s important to remember that when we’re praying to God, we’re not just going to him for a sounding board, someone to hear our frustrations. We’re going to him because we believe who he is, that he is who he says he is and that he is listening, that he does love us and that he wants to hear us. But I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s okay to go to God and your frustration and to share with him your heart in that way, but remember who it is that you’re talking to.

I think the same concept is just as relevant, not just between your communication and relationship with God or with your children, or I should say their relationship, you but in marriage. So how many times do we have a conversation and we start off, we have a harsh startup, or we come not in the right tone or attitude or we forget that we are talking to our spouse. We forget that we’re talking to our wife or our husband who is our lover and our friend. Do you desire to pray more for your spouse? Do you desire to pray more with your spouse? We understand that you may not know where to start or maybe you feel uncomfortable praying or maybe you don’t know what to pray, or maybe you simply want to add something more to your current prayer life. This is why we wrote the Marriage Gift 365 prayers for Our Marriage.

(10:06)
We desire that it would be used as a daily reminder and catalyst for you and your spouse to grow a dynamic and consistent prayer life together. This book is a compilation of 365 unique and powerful prayers that cover a range of diverse topics that every marriage deals with. You can read it alone or ideally you read it with your spouse. Also, we hope that the topics that are brought up in these prayers would become a starting point for deeper and more intimate conversations with your spouse and a desire to seek God on these matters together. Visit the marriage gift.com today and order your copy and give your marriage the greatest gift, powerful and meaningful prayer. Visit the marriage gift.com today in the way

We

Communicate.

Yeah, totally. I’ve experienced that in our marriage where maybe I’m on the end where I feel like, why are you talking to me like that? And your wife, I want you to come to me with gentleness and understanding and

Are you mad at me? Yeah, just

Like a reverence that I’m your wife

And

Vice versa. I know that there’s been times that I’ve approached you and you’re like, why are you talking to me like this? I desire respect from you, or I desire you to understand where I’m at. And instead we let our initial fleshly responses come out of us with no control.

So in communicating to your spouse, having that understanding, just like if you were praying and you said, dear father, and you’re addressing him as father, coming to your wife and doing the same thing, dear wife, dear, dear lover, dear friend, dear partner, dear myself, because you’re one with each other, it will change the way you approach them. They’re not just your friend on the outside, they’re your spouse. So it’s a different starting point than we might be used to. So to go just a little bit further with this, again, Jesus starts off this iconic prayer with recognizing who God is in relationship to himself self,

(12:12)
Just like we’ve been talking about as heavenly Father. He doesn’t say Lord, he doesn’t say creator. He doesn’t say master, although God is absolutely all of those things, and he wouldn’t be wrong to call him those. And we can pray those things like we said, we say, dear Lord, dear God in our prayers, but Jesus makes a point to teach his disciples of who God is in relationship to us and focusing on that and pointing out that relational aspect. A thought I just had about this is there’s lots of people in this world right now, spiritual people that pray to God, but they’re not praying to our heavenly Father. They’re not praying to the God of the Bible. They’re not praying to their creator, they’re praying to a God or whatever they’ve designed. There’s people that could be praying in that way, but there’s something very special and intimate about recognizing who he is to us that he’s our father. And so again, it’s not wrong to pray to God and say, dear God, there’s an awesome emphasis on this idea of who he is and just recognizing that. So even if you pray dear God, you can still have an understanding in your heart of like, man, I’m talking to my heavenly Father right now.

One of the things that we were thinking about in considering that aspect of a father and why it’s so comforting, we were thinking about our children and how they’ll run to the bedroom in the middle of the night and they share with you about a bad dream, and they ask us, we pray for me. And so just understanding that they come to you for their feelings to be validated, to be comforted, to be understood and to be led. And that’s a really cool picture of what we do to God when we pray

And we can have that same perspective of running to God as a little child

In

The middle of the night and knocking on that door that’s always open actually because of what Christ did on the cross. And we can share our fears and our struggles and our rejoicing with him, and we can thank him and love him in our prayers.

Yeah, it is really cool in thinking about fatherhood and his relation to us. We know it’s a universal thing. Everybody has a father,

Whether they know him or not,

Whether they know him or not, and understands the ideal father, right?

Yeah.

What would you say to encourage people who maybe struggle in their perspective of a father, maybe someone who has had a rocky relationship with their father and perceives God that same light or has a bitter taste in their mouth because of an experience with their father or something like that? You know what I’m saying?

Yeah. I think it’d be safe to say that we would shape naturally inside of us a perspective of God based off of our perspective of our earthly fathers, because that’s what our earthly fathers and mothers are supposed to be, a representation to us of Christ and the church of God, and they’re our first experience with God’s nature if they’re believers, right? That’s I think, how God designed it. So I think there could be an unconscious association of like, oh, my father was always harsh with me or always judged me or always, whatever you put the keywords in of what your father was toward you, maybe absent, gone, unloving, hurtful or worse, and maybe we have this fearfulness or this sensitivity especially to this word father. And so recognizing God as our heavenly Father and maybe feeling similar things towards him, oh, my earthly father saw me this way. That’s probably how God sees me. Again, it’s probably a subconscious, unconscious thing that you’re doing. And again, I think it’s another reason why Jesus prays this way saying, well, we all have earthly fathers, but our heavenly Father is the right one, is the good one, is the one that is the example that no father could live up to, and he’s the safest one to go to with that concern that you can,

That’s

Good. You can trust him. And so my encouragement would be to everyone listening, first of all ask God, Hey, do I have a perspective of you that’s been shaped by my earthly father that you want to change in me? Because I think God wants to have his perspective, or I should say he wants us to see him through who he is, not through who earthly fathers are.

So I just want to add to this real quick, because you said the word shape, that our perspective of God can be shaped by our interactions with our earthly father. And I think for some people, maybe you listening can feel a little bit resistant to go to prayer because of that, because of those negative effects that you’ve had and negative perspectives you’ve had of who a father is and what a father does. And I just want to encourage you guys that I was listening to a sermon by Paul Washer and he was saying that a prayer life must be based on the knowledge of who God is and founded on the knowledge of who God is. And I love that. And this is an encouragement to you who may be a little bit nervous, trepidatious, scared to go into an intimate prayer life with the Lord and recognizing him as your father, your heavenly Father, but to go to his word first and discover who he is.

When

You have a foundation of who God is, then when you go to pray to him, you know exactly who you’re praying to. And I just loved his encouragement there. And then he says that you develop the mind of Christ, and as you practice prayer, you begin to pray biblically. And so you can see how God’s word not only reveals who God is, but it starts to shape you just that same word

Through

Experience. And then you have his perspective of your relationship with him and who you are in relationship to him.

And I feel like this is got to be such a really amazingly freeing concept of recognizing what a good father is in God and that he has made us his children. It says in two Corinthians six 18, it says, and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me. So the freedom in knowing that we’re his children, and I would imagine so many people probably have some level of maybe feeling insecure or unworthy to come to their heavenly Father because they felt that way about their earthly father, or he’s inaccessible and he is, and you are worthy and capable to go and stand before your father. And he’s made a way through Jesus for us to come to him boldly it says, which is a beautiful thing.

There’s one other kid story that I wanted to share. Edith, our three-year-old, I noticed that when she was praying, she would jump right into thank you for everything. It’s really

Good. Yeah, she gets excited

And I always slow her down. I say, Edie, don’t forget who you’re praying to. And I tell her, I say, repeat after me, dear Lord.

And

It’s just good. It’s good to recognize who it is that we’re praying to, that we’re not just spouting off emotions or wants or desires or complaints or even praises and things of gratitude. Those are good things, but let’s not forget who it is that we’re praying to

The next thing Jesus says in this one line. So again, this whole thing, we’ve only been talking about that first few lines, first few words of that, this part of the prayer, but the next part of the prayer, he focuses on the holiness of God. So not only is he Father, but he’s holy, like you were saying, recognizing who he is. God’s holiness needs to be remembered in our prayers, his perfection, his holiness, his goodness, what he’s accomplished.

Do you want to break down what you mean? Because from the verse itself, it says, hallowed be your name, and does everyone know that that means holiness?

Yeah, hallowed be your name. It means that his name is set apart, that it’s above all that it is special and it should not be tainted or just used in any random way, but it should be recognized as like, oh, this name is set apart. And this is what the Jewish people always did. They would even the priest would once a year whisper the name of God under their breath to keep it special and safe, but Jesus is our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. He’s like, you’re my father and your name is holy.

Your

Character is holy. That’s what name means the character of God, the name of God, what he has chosen to show himself as to us in his character. And so recognizing in our prayers what he has done, what he has accomplished, that he alone is holy, that he alone is righteous, that he alone has done the amazing and mighty work of salvation in our life through Jesus Christ. And so all of that is wrapped up in this phrase, Halle, be your name, that your name is holy Lord, that your name is set apart, that your name is above all that your character is to be worshiped. Your character is to be recognized,

Which helps us to set that posture before the Lord too. When you’re going to him and you’re going to pray and you’re going to share your heart with him and share praises with him and share requests of him, you’re first recognizing who he is and what he’s about. He’s holy. That is who he is. And I think it’s really powerful for us to humble ourselves and know that and to believe that.

Yeah, I think probably the best example of the heart postures we might be able to have is when it comes to forgiveness

(22:11)
And the Bible, we’re going to get to this in another episode on this, in this podcast, actually in this series, but there’s this story. There’s this parable of the servant that owes 10,000 talents to the king, and he goes, and he’s begging, he’s going before the king, recognizing the king’s power, what he’s capable of and what he’s done. And he’s saying, can’t do this, will you? I can’t do this. And the king forgives him and says, okay, I’m going to wipe your slate clean. That’s kind of this posture is like, oh, God’s character. He’s wiped our slate clean. How do we approach someone who’s done that? Do we have a heart that forgets so quickly and goes out and then requires the smaller thing from our brother and sister who is also under that king is also under that God who’s also could be forgiven? Or do we have a posture of like, man, this is the one who has set me free. This is the one who deserves my everything. This is the one who’s wiped my slate clean. I think that’s the posture that Jesus is teaching us when it says hallelu your name,

That’s really good. You also have a note here that it says that when we recognize that God is holy, he is neither on your side or your spouse’s side. He’s on his own side. And I think that this is a good note for marriage because sometimes we can go to prayer and we we’re praying in that war room for our marriage and for our spouse, but there’s a little bit of, it’s a one-sided perspective of a situation or a character trait that needs to be worked on that we see clearly in the other person. And I thought that was a really cool picture, that God is neutral in the sense that he wants his will to be done, not yours, not mine,

But

He has a design and a perfect plan for marriage that he wants us to desire and that we want him to lead us through.

And if we come to him knowing that it’s his character and it’s his holiness, then we go to him in that posture and say, okay, Lord, here’s what I desire. But like we said, I think it was in the last episode, but not my will be done, God, I want truly, I want your will. Find the plank in my eye. Help me to see clearly so that I can lovingly and respectfully and with honor help my spouse with the spec in their own.

I think understanding and recognizing these things will help us as we pray to be sensitive to hear and understand what God has for us.

Yeah, I just love that you pointed out that posture of being sensitive to him, of recognizing who he is and that it’s his side

That

We want to be on, not the other way around. That’s really good.

Also, when you think of holiness, you always hear that it means set apart. Being holy means to be set apart. And when we consider and recognize God’s holiness, we are recognizing that his holiness stands out in this world. While this world blasphemes God and mocks God and turns their back to God, we are willing to acknowledge his authority, his power,

His

Divine nature, and we believe it. I think that’s really necessary and powerful. Another episode I was listening to on because I wanted to know more about this hallowed beer name, I thought it was really interesting. And so there’s actually quite a few sermons if you guys wanted to do a little

Digging,

I did a YouTube search, and so these pastors popped up, but I was listening to John Piper and he says this about this portion of the prayer, when we lose our grip on the greatness of God, his name, his kingdom and his global will, we lose a divine equilibrium in life and we become increasingly vulnerable to those problems, overwhelming us meaning. So when he’s teaching about the Lord’s Prayer, he breaks up the first three petitions and the second three petitions. So there’s six total hallowed be your name as the beginning of the first three,

Which

Are all about God.

And

Then the second set is all about us. So it’s our daily bread. And

Very similar to the 10 Commandments, starting off with who got God

Exactly. Then

Us.

Yeah, it was actually really cool to listen. That’s

Awesome.

But I love this quote and I wrote it down for you guys because when we go to God in prayer and we don’t take a minute to recognize his authority, his holiness, who he is, his greatness, his name, and here he says His global, will we lose that equilibrium or balance in life? And what do we do? We end up being, we think our problems are the worst of them and that there’s no solution for them. And our prayers become complaints instead of belief that God actually cares about them or can hear us and wants to walk us through them and help us navigate them.

I think that’s a really good point because our natural inclination is to operate in a way that our name is holy, that who we are is right

And

Righteous, and that we are on the throne and that we always say God’s still on the throne, but every day our natural inclination is to put us on the throne. And so the very beginning of this prayer is hell it be your

Name,

God I’m

Not. It sets him in right position.

I’m not you or you. And so yeah, it immediately reminds us, oh, I’m not God. You are.

And as a testimony to this, have you guys ever seen Christian men and women walk through really hard things and you’re like, man, how are you so steadfast? How is your faith so strong? How do you believe? And you know that they weep. You know that they struggle and wrestle with doubt and frustrations over the circumstances that they’re in, and yet they can remain steadfast. It’s because they believe who God is and they have a reference for his holiness and knowing that he is on the throne and not they have him in right position. And I think that’s what sets them apart and that’s where the testimony comes from.

That was good. So to conclude this first portion of this, the Lord’s Prayer is recognizing that God is our Father, he’s relational, we’re his children and he desires us to come to him. And then the second part is recognizing that he alone is holy, that his name and his character stands above all, and that we can go to him and trust that character as God often said in the Old Testament, like, look what I’ve done, remember where I have brought you what I have accomplished. And so we can do that when we come to him in prayer.

And just again, as a reminder and an encouragement, if you have some negative feelings towards what a father is and what a father does, we just want to encourage you to start in the word because the word of God will not only reveal to you who God is, but it will transform your mind and shape it in a way that helps you go to him and helps you enter into that spiritual intimacy of prayer that is so wildly, profoundly important and valuable to a Christian’s life. We need to be praying, we need to be praying for our children. We need to be praying for our marriages. And so we just wanted to encourage you with that today,

Speaking of testimony of prayer. So last night we get a text from someone just explaining how they were going through something pretty serious with their spouse and just struggling. And they’re like, I don’t know what to do. And asking us just to pray for them. And so me and Jennifer just started talking. We’re like, man, what do we do? How do we deal with these sorts of things? This is hard.

And that came in the midst, honest, if we can be honest with you guys, in the midst of us finally communicating after an all day kind of quietness

Struggle we were having

Because we were having a struggle in our marriage. And so we had finally gotten to bed that night and we’re talking through quiet with

Each other.

We were talking through these things and trying to share our perspectives on the matter because sometimes you can’t get to that right away whether work or kids or whatever. And so we waited, finally got to share our hearts on it, and then we get this text and the first thing it made me think of is marriage is always under attack and we need to be prayerful for these things. But go ahead.

Well, and so we were talking and there’s this for a little bit, we’re discussing what can we do? How do we help? Should I reach out? What do we do? And Jennifer, you just started praying and you just prayed for them. And then we started praying for other people that we know that are going through things, and it was really awesome. And then we went to bed, and the next day we get a text from this person saying, man, the Holy Spirit was really moving, and there’s been reconciliation. And we were like, praise God. How cool is that?

They said, thank you for being there. Even though we weren’t physically there, they knew that we were there spiritually, that we cared enough to pray for their marriage

And believe that God is going to move in them,

And

They are. And so we want to encourage you. This is a real thing that God’s given us to be able to come to him, and especially how special it is to do it for others and on their behalf. So I just want to share that.

Very cool. So that kind of sums up this episode today. When we end an episode, we always like to pray. And we’ve been doing this really cool thing for this series where we share a prayer from the Marriage gift, which is our newest book, and it’s a devotional with 365 very unique prayers for marriage supported by a verse from the Bible. And so today’s we are going to read from you, is 44, and it says, Lord, we need you. And the verse that goes along with it is Hebrews four 16. Let us then with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Dear Lord, in this moment, we humble ourselves and draw near to your throne of grace and confidence. Thank you for mercy and grace in our times of need.

(32:23)
Lord, we need you as our provider. We need you as our protector. We need you as our healer. We need you as our redeemer. We need you as our peacekeeper. We need you as our navigator. We need you as our savior, Lord, we need you in every capacity that exists, and we praise you for being our helper, Lord, us how to love and how to communicate better, transform our hearts and continually refine us. Lord, we need you every day. Please cover us with your peace and fill us with your strength so that we may persevere in every way. Lord, we ask you to use us today to fulfill your purpose. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Amen. If you haven’t already, please visit the marriage gift.com and check out our newest book, the Marriage Gift, 365 Prayers for Our Marriage. We want to see marriages be praying, praying more. We love you all. See you next week.