Sacred Intercession: The Power of Praying for Your Wife as Jesus Prays for His Church

When husband prays for his wife, he opens the gates of heaven and carries her over the threshold directly into the throne room of God. When husband prays for his wife, he prays for himself. Since they’re one, when husband prays for his wife, he lays himself down in order to raise her up. The question is, will he pray?

Hey, we’re Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your host of the Marriage After God podcast, and this week’s episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team, which is made up of listeners just like you, who faithfully and financially support this podcast and our daily marriage prayer emails. Thank you so much to our patron team for your support and your prayers. If you’ve been enjoying our weekly podcast and would like to join the patron team to help support this show, please visit marriage after god.com/patron.

All right, another episode. I was going to say another season, another episode,

Part

Two part. This is, yeah, part two

To the first

To last week’s episode, which was

We’re talking about pray,

How to pray for your husband, how to

Pray for your husband, today’s How to Pray for Your Wife.

Yeah. But before we do that, last week we mentioned that I had a competition coming up

And you guys were working really hard all month for it.

Yeah, we were going four, all of us were going four days a week to the gym because it’s kind of like when we’re doing a competition, the coach is like, we want, I want to hear four days a week to prep for it. So we did that. It’s been nice that we’re done with it now, but what’d you think of the competition?

Well, it’s really cool being there and seeing other people from other gyms participate. A bunch of different mats and matches going at the same time.

Yeah, they’re just back to back. Yeah, there’s like 10 different mats and all day every, there’s like a match going on every single match. It was pretty cool. It was a lot of fun. Me, Elliot and Olive all competed and we all got medals. You

Y’all got

Bronze. We all got bronze. We’re like the same. Awesome. Yeah,

That was

Very cool. It was really cool. Even cooler than that is our gym. We had about 23 people from our gym, kids and adults and all competing in every single one of them got a medal, so cool. Most of them got golds and then we got a few silvers and we got a few bronze, which

Is fun.

It is pretty neat

Because it’s one thing to go into the gym and train jujitsu and work out, but to work for something like that and to come out with victory, I was

Pretty proud of myself. I was a little bummed because I was so close to silver, but it’s okay. Next time I’m happy I got a medal. You just

Got to do it again.

It was really interesting actually because our kids have never done a competition. This I’ve never done one either. They didn’t

Seem nervous at

All. No, they didn’t seem nervous at all, but it was kind of interesting trying to encourage ’em. Cause I’m like, I don’t want to say I don’t care if you don’t get a medal. I kind of don’t. But I was like, yeah, I think it’d be awesome if you got a gold, but if you don’t get anything, I’m just so happy you did this

For me. It was win or lose, go have fun.

But it was trying to encourage ’em to do their best, but also it’s okay, whatever the outcome is and it was really cool.

Anyway, so are you going to do it again?

Yes, but I think you are going to do the next one, so I don’t know if I’m ready. You’re not, but that’s okay. I think you’ll do awesome. It’s not until I think September, so we’ll see. We’ll start working towards that, but all Elliot and Oliver are like, yeah, we’re going to do the next one. When’s the next one? I’m like, okay guys, let’s take a break for a little bit and then we’ll figure that out.

It’s been a fun family thing. Endeavor to do together.

Yeah, it’s, I’ve been loving it a lot.

Something that I wanted to share is I had this realization, we were driving in the car and Ededie, our three year old said, mom, look at that tree has flowers all over it and it’s springtime and it was full in full bloom. It was so beautiful. I think it was a crab apple or something like that, and there’s a lot

Of pretty blooming trees right now. She was

Just so excited and full of joy to share that moment with me as we’re driving and passing by this beautiful tree, and I was just in my mind thinking, wow, Lord, thank you that I have kids that want to engage with me and draw me in and pull me in. And she’s not the only one that’s been doing it. I’ve noticed in different ways and in different moments. All the kids take turns without knowing it and they say, Hey, mom, and they’ll share something with me, something that they think I’ll like or something that they’ll think I’m interested in and they share it with me. It’s almost, it’s really

Cool. A new, I’ve been noticing it too. It’s a new level of relationship.

They know me and it’s very specific to me.

Things that you would like that

I would like. Yeah. Yeah. I just think it’s really cool.

I think it’s cool that you’d recognize that. That’s really beautiful.

I was trying to, not nothing to figure out, but I was thinking, is it because I’ve poured intentional time into my relationship with them and am I that way where I seek opportunity to show them and share with them and engage with them in that way and they’re learned it? Or is it just a way that kids are all kids are like that? I think

It’s both. I think they saw it. You are very inviting. You always want to show them something, experience something with them, and so I think they reciprocate and I think it’s also in their hearts, they love us and they’re learning a new level of relationship with us. It’s

Cool.

It remind manifesting in this way.

Yeah. It remind me of an episode we did a while back about the art of sharing and how in marriage, oh yeah. We can find things that we

A handful episodes ago

About each other and know about each other and take the initiative and interest in that thing because if you like something then I can find something to about it. Do you remember that? That was really cool. So it just made me think in parenting we can have the same sort of layer of relationship,

A little tip for all of us. Something I’ve been, I try and do with, so Elliot, he does this alone time where he just plays by himself and he’s very imaginative and he calls it as one by six time and he’s just imagining and he’s playing out a story in his head and out outside of his himself.

And it’s a one by six time because it’s a one by six Lego.

It’s a Lego that he uses as his, I don’t know what you call a totem. He imagines that thing as to

Be a bunch of

Different things, whatever is he’s imagining and I’ll come out and be like, so what’s the story? Yeah, I’ll try. But he gets embarrassed when I ask him buddy. I try and ask him, I want to know what’s going on. I’m, and I’ll assume maybe it’s a game he was watch or a movie he saw or something he just heard about because he likes to take those things that he is, take ’em further and take ’em further in his own story in his head. But I try and ask him, Hey, what is that about? I want to know what’s going on. He kind of invites me into that. It’s like a special time. So that’s cool. Well, we’re in episode or part two of praying for Your Spouse. Last week we talked about praying how to pray for your husband. So hold on a second.

You good? When you were talking about Elliot’s one by six time, you start by saying you were going to give a little tip or something.

Oh yeah, I was a, oh yeah. Well that what I was getting at is asking like, Hey, what’s that about? I was trying to embed myself in his little moment. Got you. Yeah, because he may not just draw me into it because he is doing his own thing, but

Inserting yourself and

Yeah, I was like, Hey, what, drawing out a pin, what are you imagining? What are you playing right now? What’s the story? Who are the characters? I try and ask him after

We moved on, I felt unresolved. Yeah, thank you. I

Forgot to tie in. It’s okay. The part about the tip.

Okay. But

Back to the main subject,

The important stuff

Part two of this series about praying, this episode’s about praying for your wife. So this is geared towards the husbands and the importance of a husband praying for her, his wife. Cool.

Yeah, let’s

Dig in. So I thought about mean, we kind of mentioned this last episode and we always mention this because I don’t think we can get enough of just reiterating what it means to pray, why we pray. And so I wanted to start off with just understanding the role of prayer in the believers’ life, the importance of prayer in our faith as Christians, as people who love God, who follow God, who believe in His son Jesus, who read his word. We love God. So prayer has a role in our lives as we always say, it’s not simply asking God for things, although that’s a part of it, it coming to him with our requests. But I thought we can look at some scriptures about what the role of prayer is in the believer’s life. So why don’t you start with the first one?

The first one’s communication. It’s the gift of communication and communi with God. Prayer is the primary means by which we communicate with him. And Philippians four, six says, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with let your request be made known to God. And so it, there’s this stepping into his presence and sharing yourself with him.

Yeah, I look at that word, everything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. So it’s communication, it’s requesting and it’s thanksgiving. This is how we communicate with God. We go directly to him. We talked about it last episode, that we no longer need a high priest, that someone in a temple somewhere. We have Christ as the only mediator between God and man. And because of him we have direct access to the Father and we can go boldly to him. So yeah.

Do you feel like it’s hard for some people to see it that way because we don’t hear God’s audible voice responding in that moment, like a conversation? Oh yeah. What would be the encouragement to them in how to practically sit and meditate in prayer without that aspect?

Well, I think one of God’s main mean, we learned this, I think it’s in Hebrews chapter one that we have, his word is as his main means of communicating to us. It used to be by prophets and it used to be by other means. But now he has communicate, it says he, he’s spoken to us through his son and the Bible tells us that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God and the word became flesh and welcome among man. So

Do you think that prayer and reading the word should be something done in tandem together?

Yeah, I think they’re connected, but I also, I was mentioning to the guys this morning, I was emphasizing the fact that the Holy Spirit is a person. It’s the spirit of God, a person of the holy Trinity living inside of us and the spirit of God does speak to us. We may not hear an audible voice, we may not hear, I mean some people have, but he uses his word to speak to us. He brings to remembrance things that his word says, and he’s never going to lead us to go contrary to his word. So I do, even if you’re not praying and not necessarily reading the word, I believe the Holy Spirit does speak to us and brings recalls in our minds, brings to remembrance, brings to the in front of our faces what God has already said. And he may say it in various ways, but he says what God says to us. So

We need to be open to the ways that he is speaking to us and

Being more sensitive to it, listening, hearing what God is saying. But yeah, so prayer is our, it’s mode of communicating with God and in doing so it stops us to be with him and hear from him. So

Prayers not just our mouths moving, but also our ears engaging

And it’s our S ears, our spiritual eyes, our spiritual mouths, our prayer and to

Be still and to be silent and to be quiet is prayer. Those are all of prayer. Yep. Okay,

The next part, role of prayer, purpose of prayers is dependence on God, which kind of is what we were just talking about. It demonstrates our dependence on God for all things. Proverbs three, five and six, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lead on your own understanding all your ways. Acknowledge him and he’ll make straight your path. So I

Go ahead, sorry. No, you go.

I was going to say recognizing. Acknowledging that’s what that means. Acknowledge like, oh, this is the truth and I’m going to receive that. We need him and he makes our straight our path straight going to

Say I, I got this picture when you said the word dependence. I saw my daily life. I have five kids and we homeschool. And so I’m just home with them a lot. And so I have a lot of little people coming to me constantly. Mom, mom, mom, mom, I need this. Hey mom, what do you think about this? Hey mom, did you know da da da? And or they’re just screaming. And as you said, the word dependent, I just realized how dependent children are upon their parents for time, attention, wisdom, safety, safety provision, everything all the time. It’s 24 7. I joke with my friends that we only hear probably 10% of our conversations because we’re constantly getting interrupted just with how many kids we have and trying to talk when we’re also spending time together with our kids. Anyways, that dependence of a child to their parent reminded me of our dependence on God and how it should be.

This leads perfectly into this next verse about just illustrating this beautiful picture of acknowledging our dependence on Christ. It’s second Corinthians 12, eight through 10. This is Paul, and it says three times I pleaded with the Lord about this and he’s talking about this thorn in his side. He doesn’t say what it is, but he says, I have this thorn in my side. The Lord gave me one. But he said to me, God said to him, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness so that the power of Christ may rest upon me for the sake of Christ. Then I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities for when I am weak, that I am strong. So it starts off with this. There’s this thorn, there’s this thing that’s like, God, I need you to remove this. I need your help and his resp in God’s responses. I am enough for you. My grace is sufficient. Whether I take that thing away or not, my grace is sufficient. And so this is what Christ wants is this is what prayer does is it leads us to a place of like, oh, I need to be dependent on you. You’re not going to necessarily take away this thing. This thing has to be here, but I have you thank you.

And moving on towards the end of that verse, it’s like, and regardless of that thing, there’s also going to be this thing and that thing. There’s always going to be something hard that we’re going through or facing. And I like Paul’s attitude towards the end of accepting it.

When I’m weak, I’m strong because in my weakness I can rely on the strength of Christ.

The next one is seeking God’s will the next purpose of prayer. So through prayer, we seek God’s will and guidance, and part of that dependence is relying on him to lead us and to help us navigate whether it’s a circumstance or just life.

Well, I’m believing he will. Right? Which goes to this next verse, you

Going to James one, five says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given to him.

Yeah. And there’s the next verse after this actually says, but let him not doubt for if he doubts. He’s like a waved toss to and fro. And yeah, that person should double minded request shouldn’t accept it or shouldn’t expect, I mean to say is anything from God because they, they’re not believing. So yeah, it goes back to this idea that we believe he’s going to help us. We believe he’s going to give us wisdom.

This is a personal part of prayer that I really love is that obviously I have a will and I have things and desires that I want a certain way, but when I go to God in prayer, I share those things with him. But I’m also willing to submit myself in humbleness and say, but not my will, yours, I want you. And in that moment, but also over time, he molds me and he shapes me. Any guides me to align with his will.

Yeah, that was really good. The next role of prayer in the believer’s life is confession of repentance. Again, we brought this up last time also, but it’s, it’s important. Prayer is the means by which we confess. It’s our way of God already knows and he’s also already forgiven us. But as coming to him and saying, oh, I messed up.

It’s a recognition of your sin.

Yeah, it’s humility. Yeah. We talked about First John one, nine says, if we confess our sins, he’s faithful and he’s just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So we should do that. We should be practices of repentance. What’s the next one?

Intercession. We are called to pray for others and intercede for them on their behalf. First Timothy two, one says, first of all, then I urge that supplications prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for all people. And I would say especially marriage, to be able to intercede for each other is a gift. And I don’t know, I’ve really enjoyed the opportunities that we’ve had in marriage to pray for one another and to intercede for one another. And you’ve prayed for me and over our marriage, especially in times when I felt like I couldn’t or was really struggling with something and you stepped in and you interceded and that feels good. I

Immediately had a memory of a movie we saw a long time ago. It was called Hacksaw Ridge, I think that was what it was called, about a soldier who didn’t want to, didn’t believe in shooting. And he climbed up a ridge to go save a bunch of soldiers. And he brought one at a time back. And these are soldiers that couldn’t do, they were injured, they were wounded, they were some dead, and he brings them all back and he doesn’t, and he survives. And I was just thinking like you said, even when those times you couldn’t, it’s like that soldiers of lifting up and taking and doing what you couldn’t do in that moment and which

Is what Jesus does for us.

Exactly. We’re going to talk about an intercession a little bit more because it’s powerful, this idea, but two more in this section expressing gratitude. So one of the rules of prayers to express gratitude, we just read it earlier about Thanksgiving, but verse that Selenium five 18 says, give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. We talked, we brought it up last time, but it’s so important to remember what the will of one. This is one of the will of God is that we give thanks this if you want to like, oh, what’s God’s will for my life that you’re thankful.

So I love how you said earlier how God speaks through his word. And so if I was praying, God, I want your will to be done in my life, and then I go and read this, it’s like he shows you, he answers your prayer and you’re

Like, oh, I haven’t been thankful. I’ve been discontent. I’ve been, yeah, I’ve been unthankful. And then the last one, why don’t you read that

Spiritual warfare, prayer is a key part of spiritual warfare As believers can pray for God’s protection and strength against spiritual forces.

If we don’t believe that there’s a spiritual realm and we’re missing something because we’re, we’re praying to God in the spirit and we know about the devil, we know about the Bible talks about the spiritual realm, and it’d be foolish for us to pretend that it doesn’t exist as believers, but we’re not responsible just to take it on our own. We pray to God, we go to him and we trust him for Ephesians six 18, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplications. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplications for all the saints.

There it is. That intercession again.

Yeah. So we’re interceding for the saints. We’re praying that they remain vigilant, diligent, aware that we pres persevere, that we’re prepared, all these things. And so prayer, this is just a little synopsis of why prayer is important for believers. Yeah, it’s good. So let’s move on to this next section. Remember I said we were going to talk about interceding a little bit more? Yeah, I thought it was an for men. Okay. Because we were talking also about this morning. We’re very task oriented. It’s when we want to do something for you, it’s tasks. It’s like, I want to do this, I want to do that. And so it’s sometimes harder for us to jump into emotional things. We can, it’s not impossible, but we we’re task oriented. So for the husbands interceding, this is a mentality of what we are as warriors, as protectors, as someone who’s going to stand up and do something for their spouse, for their wife.

(21:38)
And this concept of intercessory, have you not heard of about this intercession, all it means is doing something on behalf of someone else. So you brought up earlier, Jennifer, there’s even times that I feel like I couldn’t, like I’m, if I’m doing it, I’m doing it for you. I’m doing, I’m interceding for you. I’m doing on your behalf. Lord, she doesn’t know how to communicate right now. I pray that she would just know that you love her. I pray that she would know that you’re with her. I pray that she would’ve peace right now. That’s something that you could have prayed for yourself, but in the moment, couldn’t just able to, willing to whatever it was. I can do that thing for you whenever I want, as often as I want. And so husbands are called to spiritually lead covering their wives. This is one way to do that, leading in prayer, leading in being someone who’s like I, that quote in the beginning that I shared about carrying you into the throne of God.

(22:40)
I’m not physically doing it. I’m doing it spiritually. This is the idea of intercessions. And so I wanted to look at the ultimate intercessor. Jesus. So Luke 22, verse 31 and 32, it says, Simon Simon, this is Jesus talking to one of his closest and loved disciples, Peter, his name’s Simon, also Simon Simon. Behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat. So Jesus knows, let go the devil, Satan, he wants you. He’s coming for you. He wants to trick you. He wants to deceive you. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And I love this. He not only prays that he won’t fail this test, that’s a coming that the enemy’s bringing to him. He says, and when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. So not only does he know how he’s going to respond, that he’s going to a failure, three of them, he’s going to deny him three times, even tells him, you are going to deny me three times just after this verse. Peter’s like, no, I’m going to go to prison with you. He’s like, no, you’re going to deny me three times, even before morning. And so he knows all this, but it says, I prayed for you, I prayed for you. And this is just a good example, which we’re going to do more of this. We’re going to give examples of how Jesus prayed for his bride later. But sometimes I, I’ve, I feel like, oh, I’m not going to, why would I pray that they’re not going to change? Have you ever thought that?

Yeah. In the exhaustion of, I’ve prayed so many times and I haven’t seen change or Yeah, there’s a sort of giving up almost of like, wow,

Must not work. Yeah, you’re not. Yeah. Is he? It’s a lack of faith. Yeah, it’s a lack of faith. But Jesus had faith in Peter. Jesus also knew what Peter was going to do, and Jesus also prayed for him, which is another encouragement of we can pray for our wives regardless if we see the fruit of it right away, regardless if we think that they’re going to do the opposite of what we’re praying. If there’s change, we’re we’re praying for if we want them to have peace and comfort and joy and they can’t have joy or they haven’t had it. Or we can pray and trust that the holy Spirit’s going to move and work and then we can keep praying.

(25:13)
And I love that Jesus did that. But what’s awesome is he says that you may not fail his faith. And so we know the story, even though he denied Jesus three times. I don’t think that his prayer just says a little side note, I don’t think Jesus was praying that Peter wouldn’t deny him three times. It says that Satan has you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. So they came and in the midst of his fear and his anxieties and this turmoil, he says, oh, I don’t know him. I don’t know him. But what happened when Jesus came back to him and he said, Peter, do you love me?

(25:58)
And if you want to do a little study at one point, you should contrast this scenario with Peter. And with Judas Peter’s faith didn’t fail. He failed. He denied. But he came back. He kept believing. He never stopped. And so it says, when you have turned again, when you’ve turned your face back to me, when you’ve recognized your sin, when you listened to the Holy Spirit, when you, and it says in that moment, he recognized what he did and he was ashamed. He knew it right then. So I, there’s something really cool about that. But that’s a little side note. So why don’t you go into the next section?

Sure. I just know how to transition. Well,

So I know I’m talking a lot in this episode. No, it’s good. But I think I’m, I’m trying to talk to the men. So I think it’s okay

Also,

Not that it’s not common that I don’t talk about. Cause do

Talk a lot. There have been a couple of times you’ve mentioned, when I talked to the guys this morning or we were talking about you, I just want to make a note. You do a men’s group once a week in the middle of the week and you guys meet together, chat, pray.

These are men from our church.

Yeah. Front. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify. We’re

Going, yeah, we’re going through Hebrews and then we get into really interesting conversations on subjects and that’s cool. So

That’d be an encouragement for all you do guys who are listening.

Yeah. Get into a guys group, go read the Bible with each other and talk. You

Don’t really need an agenda, right? Just

No, we actually first our, we’re just talking about our what’s going on in our lives. And then we get into the word and we talk about what it’s saying and what it means and how it ties to other scripture. We build

Up that camaraderie. Okay, sorry, that was a total side note. Keep going.

So the next part is this idea of the biblical mandate to love and respect your wife, to love and honor your spouse, your wife, husbands. So this command, so it’s not a command to husbands pray for your wifes necessarily, but if you read Ephesians 5 25 is says, husbands love your wives as Christ love the church and gave himself up for her.

So if we look at how Christ loved,

Yes. So we can extrapolate from this that one of the things that Christ did for the church was pray, was pray for it, pray for her. And so you can see this in John chapter 17. It’s called the high priestly prayer. You should go read it. But in this prayer, he prays for many things for his church. He’s praying for his disciples. And then he’s also praying for the all that would believe through the testimony that the disciples give. So all of us Christians, you listener and me speaking who read the word of God, and we read this, he is praying for his disciples. But then he goes on and he expands and he says, and I also pray for all who will believe in their testimony, which is us. So as the bride, we can look to the groom, we can look to the son of God, we can look to Jesus and say, well, how did he pray for his bride? And I think we can pull some stuff from that. Men husbands. So here’s a few of those things. First he prayed, and you can read this in John chapter 17, verses 21 through 23. He prayed for unity and not just unity of the followers between each other, but unity with Christ. Just as Christ is unified with God, just as God is unified with Christ, that we would be unified with each other and with him. So unity, I mean, what is marriage? It’s the

Being United Union. Yeah, yeah. Union of a husband and wife.

Yeah. Becoming one. Yeah. That’s what the Bible teaches, that when a husband, a and wife become one, a husband, therefore a husband leaves his parents and they become one. We we’re unified. So a husband, we could be praying just like Jesus did for his church, for our unity and our marriages. This is a great thing that we should be, that we’ll refocus as when we’re having turmoil, when we’re in a disagreement, an argument, oh, well, if you we’re on the same team,

If you think about how Jesus told Peter that the enemy wanted you, when I think about marriages, I feel like the enemy just wants to tear us apart. He sees the unity and he just wants to separate, separate, separate.

And just wolves will go and take the weakest one that’s tagging, tagging or what? Don’t the word lagging behind the pack like that. That’s what the enemy wants to do. He’s seeking. He’s like, oh, I want to pull this apart because we’re stronger together. So praying for unity. Next thing he prayed for was protection. We kind of talked about this earlier with prayer. What a protection. Jesus prays for his followers protection because he knows not only what they’re immediately about to go through these disciples of His. And also if you read in ax the immediate turmoil and persecution, that’s going to happen in the first century church, right when the church is forming, there’s persecution and scattering and destruction. So he knows what’s about to take place immediately. But he also prays that they’re kept from the evil one, temptation protection physically, emotionally, spiritually, that we can be praying for our spouse like

Men mentally from lies,

Mentally

Believing lies.

I don’t know how often my prayer life has been geared around praying for you to believe truth. Because when you’re going through just the hormones, I mean different pregnancies and all the things I’m sure many of the women can understand, those hormones are pretty powerful. And they can make you feel lots of ways and think certain things and believe certain things. And a lot of my prayers have been praying that you wouldn’t be deceive praying that you would believe the truth, praying that you would remember this truth over what you currently feel. And that’s what husbands should be doing because you’re going to go through those kinds of things.

And just for clarification, we’re not lumping all of that under the umbrella of the hormones made me done. Oh no, no. You were just attributing to some of the, that’s one changes you’ve seen in me. But there’s been other reasons too that I’ve struggled with doubt or insecurities or believing lies.

And so we, that’s something that Jesus prayed for his church. And to be honest, we should be praying for the church that the doesn’t be deceived by sin, by the enemy, by false teaching. That we can stand strong, that we can decipher truth from lies. And then we should be praying for our wives protection over their hearts and minds. Yeah, that’s good. That’s a big one. So another one, Jesus prayed for the sanctification of the church.

How would you simplify

That? So sanctification is the process of becoming more like Christ. This happens in many, many ways. God’s a genius in how he does all this. And he orchestrates everything. And when it says that he uses all things for our good, he does. As long as we’re believing in him, as long as we’re following him, all those things get used for our good. And so sanctifying our praying for the sanctification of our wife. It’s something that they should be praying for us too, of course, but praying that they are growing to become more like Christ that they are, which

Happens through reading his word and understanding it

And believing it and believing it and then practicing it and being held accountable when we all walk contrary to it. But that’s a part of it’s just praying for the sanctification of our wives. Just like Jesus prayed for his church. Here’s some other ones. Two more. Of course, this is not the extent of list you should go read. No, but it’s

Cool how you broke it down like this. I really like

It. So praying for joy. Jesus prayed for joy for his followers Des designing that they would desiring, that they would be filled full with a full measure of his joy within them. The Bible also tells us that the joy of Lord is our strength. So praying that you’d be filled with joy. I mean, I know how I, there’s, there’s many times that I’m not joyful. I like you came home tonight, I was a little perturbed. It wasn’t a horrible night, but I was not in a stinky mood. I’m, there’s times I don’t have joy and I feel weak and I So you’re the same way, right? No, never. You’re always joyful. No, be pray, praying for joy not only does if you have joy, you’re going to have more strength because it’s God’s joy and that’s your strength. But you’re also going to have more peace and you’re going to be lighter and you’re going to be like, your days will be better.

(34:58)
So praying for your wife, praying for joy for them. Amazing. The amazing thing about this, we kind of talked about this on this, the first part of this with praying for your husband about how these types of prayers change us. So me praying that you’d be more joyful and then me coming out and having an attitude with you. Yeah. Isn’t that going to help you have joy? Excuse me, that so me praying that for you is going to affect you, affect me. Be like, oh, I should be lighter right now because my wife seems, maybe she feels heavy for some, or maybe she’s had a hard day. I could participate in that joy growing or joy planting, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, it’s cool. So all of these, and then the last one is, Jesus prayed for his church to have his mission in mind, to have his purpose in mind. And so we could be praying for our wives, for their roles and their influence in the world. Whether that’s their workplace communities, most importantly their family and children, like praying, how you’re in, how you influence those around you, that we

Have the right perspective of what it is that we’re doing

Now. You’d shine as lights for Christ. That’s cool wherever you’re at. So those are a handful of things. Of course, that’s not the only list of things to be praying for your wife, but I just thought it’d be really cool to look at, like I said, the ultimate intercessor, the one who currently prays for us at the right hand of God, who prayed for us in John chapter 17 and taught us to pray in the gospels.

I love how you highlighted his example of him praying for the church and broke it down how a husband can pray for his wife. I just think that’s really beautiful. And personally, I just, I’m really grateful for you and your willingness to pray over me and for our marriage. And all these years pouring into prayer for us has been a large part of our foundation in our marriage that has kept us strong. And it’s also been a really huge comfort for me when I know that you’re willing to pray out loud to God about me or about us. And I get to hear it. It’s comforting. And it helps me build trust in you because I know that you are submitting yourself to him, but you’re also looking out for me. And it’s this really cool picture of the unity of us Three, you mean and God. And so I just wanted to share that cause I think it hope it encourages you husbands to have the courage to pray for your wife. Pray out loud for her, pray without ceasing for her. And know that any little bit of prayer for her, for your marriage is a comfort. It builds trust, it builds, it cultivates love. And it’s really beautiful. It’s powerful.

Thank you. Good. Yeah. I want to share one more thing. There’s been times in our marriage, so, well, first of all, I don’t don’t pray all the time and everyth about everything. There’s seasons that I’m, I’m much more loose on it. And then there’s seasons. I’m like, oh man, I need to be back praying for. I just want all the men to know that. It’s not like I’ve, I’ve got the perfect prayer life with you. But it is definitely something that we’ve been consistent in just in general over the years. But one thing that I wanted to bring up to the guys, the husbands that are listening is there’s been times that I see something and I’m sure, and you’ve been this like, oh, that’s something, Lord, that I, I’d love to see change in my wife. Going back to sanctification, going back to mission minded, going back to all these different types of things.

(39:08)
Doesn’t necessarily mean it was something sinful, but it’s like, Hey, this is something I, I’d love for her to grow in, just like we all do. And I practiced not even saying anything to you, not coming to me. I want you to change in this area. I want this to change. I want that to change. But just starting to pray about it privately, just constantly when it comes to mind. Oh Lord, that is something I’ve been praying for. Hey, Lord, would you help my wife in this area? Would you encourage my wife with this? Would you remind her of this? If there’s something holding her back from this? And so many times that I’ve done that, I never had to say anything. Not that magically you change by something happens. Holy Spirit is speaking to you. And those private prayers I see answered in your life, that’s really cool.

(40:02)
And I just want to encourage the men that these are things that we could be doing is we can be going to our prayer closet. It could be something that’s on our hearts and minds, and without ever having to say something, trying to control the situation, trying to manufacture transformation. Instead, we can go to the Lord and truly, genuinely seek his will for you. And so whatever that specific thing is that you want to pray about, either God will change your heart on the matter or will reveal to you his answer on it in another way. That’s good. So like I said, I don’t want to make it sound like this is a mag trick to change your wife however you want. Doesn’t work that way. That’s not what prayer is. We’re talking to God. But we can go privately to him and we can pray for things that are on our hearts. And maybe there’s a moment that God wants us to share it out loud and maybe not. Maybe we keep it to ourselves and we just keep praying and we watch God work and trust that he will.

That’s so good. Our resources that we wrote for you guys, 31 prayers for my wife and 31 prayers for my husband. The subtitle is Seeing God move in her heart and seeing God move in his heart. And what I love about that is as you start to pray for your spouse, you do start to see God move in your heart, in their heart. And I think it’s because as you’re praying for specific things, your eyes are opened to seeing those things and seeing how God’s moving in their lives.

On the lookout,

You’re on the lookout. You’re made aware. And so I just wanted to bring that up as an encouragement. If you guys feel like you need a resource, something to be a catalyst for your prayer life or you know, just feel like I don’t know where to start. They’re so easy. It’s one page and you just, there’s 31 topics that you can pray for your spouse, all unique.

And then there’s also journal pages. So you can write out either prayer answers or your own prayer itself. And you can get those at shop dot marriage after god.com. Yep. Well, that concludes our episode. Cool. So why don’t you share the growth spurt and then pray for

Us. So at the end of every episode, we just share a growth spurt, something to challenge you with that helps you, helps your marriage. And this month, for the month of May, we’re doing warmup from winter with a workout. And so go do something active with your spouse. It could be something as simple as a walk or run or a marathon if you wanted to do that, but there’s so many different types of classes available or a bike ride. I mean, there’s just, the list is endless kayaking. I’m sure water’s starting to warm up by now. Yeah,

You can just go play. Oh wait, did you mention pickleball?

Oh, I love pickleball. I think we mentioned that last week or the step boards.

Oh, a couple of weeks ago we did a church at the park. Oh

Yeah, that was We play. We did volleyball. That was so much fun.

Volleyball’s.

Awesome. That was great. So anyways, warm up with a workout with your spouse.

All right. Why don’t you pray for us?

Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of prayer. Thank you for allowing us to come to you in prayer and share our hearts with you, our concerns, our fears, and our praises. We pray we would grow in how we pray, and we ask you to help us to pray more often, increase our faith. We pray we would lay aside our pride and make time to pray for one another in marriage. We pray we would intercede for each other and love each other by lifting up our needs to you. In prayer, we pray that prayer would be such a normal part of our lives, that we never skip a day of it. May you be glorified in us and through us and through our marriage. In Jesus’ name, amen.