16 On Your Knees
It’s the thing that many couples miss. It is so simple, so biblically logical, but it seems to slip through the cracks in the lives of many couples. If it is true that all the horizontal skirmishes a husband and wife have are rooted in a deeper war for the heart, and if it is true that a marriage must be fixed vertically before it is ever fixed horizontally, then the place where you win the war for marriage is on your knees. Perhaps there is no more important command for marriage in all the Bible than the simple words of Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
If marriage is a flawed person living with a flawed person in a fallen world, and if the war for control of our hearts still rages, then we cannot and must not quit seeking God’s help for our marriage. This side of heaven there is nothing more important for our marriage than to pray without ceasing. There is never a moment in our marriage when we are not in need of the rescuing, enabling, delivering grace of the Redeemer. There is never a moment when we do not need his wisdom, strength, and forgiveness. There is never a time when we have grown up enough that we no longer need his mercy. This side of heaven we will never graduate from the school of grace.
Every day we face things that we had not anticipated we would face. Every day, temptations, sometimes subtle and sometimes powerful, greet us. Every day we sin against our spouses and are sinned against by them in some way. Every day the fallen world, in all its brokenness, presses in on us and makes life more difficult and complicated than it was originally designed to be. Every day we are greeted with the seductive voice of the kingdom of self, wooing us to live for nothing bigger than our wants, our needs, and our feelings.
Every day we are called to fight what is wrong and give ourselves to what is right. Every day we are called to humbly examine ourselves and to commit ourselves to change. Every day there are things in our marriage that need to be uprooted, and every day there are new and better things that need to be planted. Every day there is some issue for which we need the insight of biblical wisdom. Every day we must surrender what we want to the better agenda of what God has commanded. Every day we must fight to be good stewards of the blessings we have been given. Every day we must identify the places where we must say no and the places where we must say yes.
Every day we are called to love each other in ways that are practical and specific. Every day we must live with open eyes and an open heart. Every day we must fight the things that distract us from loving, serving, and nurturing one another. Every day we need to act in sacrificial love toward one another, even though we are busy or tired. Every day we must work to protect the unity, understanding, and love of our marriage. Every day in some way we are called to love when the other person doesn’t deserve it. Every day we are called to give to our husband or wife the same grace that God has given us. Every day we must be motivated not only by our own interests but also by the interests of our spouse. Every day we are called to have a myriad of conversations in a way that gives grace and builds up the other person. Every day we must resist keeping a record of wrongs and instead genuinely forgive. Every day we need to look for ways to communicate encouragement, appreciation, and respect. Every day we are called to lay something down in order to capture an opportunity to love.
WHAT MARRIAGE IS MEANT TO DO
Now, let’s be honest. You and I are not up to the task. Consider the call of this book. Consider the paragraphs above. Could you honestly look at yourself in the mirror of God’s Word and say, “I do all these things well”? As I have written this book, I have been convicted once again about the many places I fall short. I have been convicted about the places where my words and actions are more formed by the kingdom of self than by the kingdom of God. I have been convicted of my impatience, that desire for marriage to be instantly easier than it now is. I have been convicted that I don’t always speak in a way that is gracious. There are times when winning a discussion (read: argument) is more important to me than the unity of my marriage. I am convicted of ways in which I am still demanding and self-centered. I have been convicted that in my heart the war still goes on.
No, I know I can’t stand up and say, “I do all these things well.” In fact when I consider God’s call for marriage, I think, “The bar is too high; I’ll never reach it!” But hear what I am about to say next: this is exactly what marriage is meant to do. It is meant to be a tool in God’s hands to expose your heart and to drive you to the end of yourself. Marriage is meant to expose your self-focus and self-reliance. It is meant to convince you that you are needier than you thought you were and to encourage you that God’s grace has more power to transform than you thought it did. Marriage is meant to teach you how to give, love, serve, forgive, support, encourage, and wait.
Think of it this way: although you are to be married for life, your marriage is not a destination. Your marriage is not an end in itself. No, the radical thing that the Bible teaches about all that is going on is that no experience or relationship in the here and now is an end in itself. Everything we are going through now is a God-designed and God-controlled means to an end. Your marriage is not a destination; no, it is a toll of preparation for a final destination. You will never understand your marriage struggles and your personal needs in the midst of them until you understand this. So God is not only working to form your marriage into what he designed it to be; no, more foundationally he is working to reform you into what you were created to be. It is only as we grow and change that our marriages can thrive.
So, feeling weak and unable is a good thing. The thing that keeps each of us from growing is not our assessment of weakness. The grace of God is greater than any weakness we may experience. No, the thing that keeps us from growing is our delusion of strength. When we think we are righteous and strong, we do not seek the help that God so tenderly and faithfully offers. Our marriage is not damaged by cries of weakness but by pronouncements of strength. Our marriage is harmed by our reliance on our own wisdom, righteousness, and strength. In the biblical model, weakness is the portal to strength. It is when I admit that I am weak that I seek the help of a God of incalculable power, who is near me and willingly meets me in my time of need.
THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF PRAYER
Here is where prayer is so important and so powerful. Prayer makes no sense unless two things are true. First, our lives do not belong to us. Since we have been created by God, everything we are, everything we have, and every situation and relationship in which we live belongs to him. Because we are his creatures, our number-one calling in every area of life is to worship him. Everything we do and say in every situation and relationship of our lives must be done in recognition of his existence and for the purpose of his glory. We were created for his pleasure, and we are called to live in constant worship of him. So, everything in our lives has verticality to it. Everything we do must be done in recognition of God’s presence and his rightful ownership of our lives. We must live in our marriage in a way that is distinctively and comprehensively Godward, even in the most mundane moments of life.
There is a second thing that must be true for prayer to make any sense. It is that sin makes us comprehensively needy. Every area of our personhood has been in some way damaged by sin. We don’t desire what we should. We don’t think as we should. We don’t speak as we should. We don’t act as we should. We need help. We need rescue. We need wisdom. We need forgiveness. We need strength.
So, here is what prayer does for you and your marriage. In a way that is powerfully protective and relationally transforming, each time you pray, you are reminded of the context of your marriage. The context of your marriage is not a situation or a location. The context of your marriage is a person. The context of your marriage is God. He is above, around, below, and in you. He created everything that makes up your existence. He controls every situation and relationship you are in. It is his power that keeps you and your world together. He has written the story of your life and your marriage. His plan, purpose, and will are meant to be the reason for all you do in your marriage. He alone offers the help that reaches to the deepest areas of your personal and relational need. He is the rightful owner of you, your life, and your marriage. He is the conceiver and creator of your marriage, and because he is, he is best able to diagnose what is broken and to cure what needs to be fixed. He is the only reliable one who can define what is right or wrong, good or bad, true or false, and wise or foolish. He is not only near you, but because of the cross of Jesus Christ, he is now living inside you by his Spirit. He is your life and the hope of your marriage. He is your counselor, protector, advocate, teacher, guide, and friend. He surrounds you with his love and bathes you in his grace. It really is that “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God is the context of your marriage.
But prayer does something else; it reminds us of the reality of our marriage. The reality of our marriage is a constant, moment-by-moment dance of sin and grace. Every day, sin rears its ugly head, and every day, grace gives us what we need to deal with sin. In the same way that we cannot understand marriage without understanding God’s existence, his ownership, and his power, we cannot understand what we experience in marriage and how to deal with it unless we understand sin and grace. Sin is the reason for all the struggles of marriage, and grace is the only reliable hope of being able to deal with them.
Because of the fact that sin still remains in you and in your world, you need to be reconciled to God every day, and every day you need to be reconciled to one another. Every day you do something that offends God in some way, and every day you do something that offends one another. As we have observed before, these dynamics of sin, struggle, and rescue take place in the smallest and most mundane moments of daily life, moments so normal and in all ways so unremarkable that they pass by without getting our attention. We get used to the daily pace of our lives, we get used to our daily schedule, and we get used to our daily relationships and responsibilities. At some point we quit observing and we quit examining, and we settle into the routine, day piling upon day, month piling upon month, year piling upon year.
This is why couples look back during one of those moments that God sends to get their attention once again, and they ask, “What happened to us? How in the world did we end up here?” It feels to them that they have driven into some kind of marital fog. It feels that what was once bright and sunny has suddenly gone dark. But nothing has been sudden. The changes of their marriage have taken place in progressive, little steps. In those unremarkable moments that occur in every marriage, wrong thoughts, desires, words, and actions changed the character and direction of their marriage; they took place in little moments, and no one was paying attention.
We all do it. It’s not that we suddenly quit loving one another. No, that’s not what typically happens. Marriages don’t typically change with an explosion. Marriages typically change by the process of erosion. Even where marital explosions take place, they usually take place at the end of a long process of erosion. The movement of a marriage from an active commitment to an active lifestyle of unity, understanding, and love rarely takes place in one step. Rather, this movement takes place in ten thousand little steps. The problem is that as these changes are taking place we tend to be asleep at the wheel. What we once committed to value and protect has progressively become the thing we take for granted. What we were once deeply appreciative of, we have become used to having over the long haul. The person that was so much the focus of our affection and attention has morphed into little more than the person that we live with—you know, a part of our environment and daily schedule. I can’t tell you how many wives have said to me, “When he is at home, he acts as though I’m not even there.”
What does this have to do with prayer? Well, prayer not only attaches you to the wonderful resources of a God of grace, who is present, powerfully near, and willing, but prayer reminds you of what you are (needy) and what God is (gracious). Prayer awakens you from your sleep and calls you to pay attention again. Prayer is about affirming weaknesses and blessings. Prayer is about getting your identity and God’s glory right. Prayer confronts you with what is and preaches to you about what is important. Prayer is a very important part of a lifestyle of paying attention.
WHEN DID WE QUIT NOTICING?
Bryan and Martina were so excited that they were actually getting married. Neither had had much of a social life in college. Bryan had told himself that he had given up on the “relationship thing,” and Martina had been afraid to let a relationship with a man go beyond the casual. They were both well into their careers when they met. Bryan was on a sales call to Martina’s firm. Martina was the person responsible for potentially purchasing what Bryan was attempting to sell. On his third visit to discuss with Martina her company’s product needs, Bryan became aware that he liked being with Martina.
On the next visit, while mumbling embarrassed apologies for stepping over workplace boundaries, Bryan asked Martina if she would have coffee with him sometime. To his surprise, she said yes. Bryan had been thinking about this for awhile. This was not going to be a boring latte-at-Starbucks mini-date. No, Bryan had decided to take her to the cool, local coffee place with the unmatched furniture, the offbeat lamps, and those killer caramel brownies. Martina was mad at herself for agreeing to get together so easily, but after their date she couldn’t believe what a good time they had had, and she couldn’t wait for Bryan to ask her out again.
Well, Martina hadn’t had to wait. To her shock, Bryan called her as she was putting the key in her condo door, and their next date was on. They were both aware, as their relationship progressed, that they had pretty much given up on love. They were both deeply appreciative of the fact that God had written their stories together, they were very thankful for one another, and they were very committed to building and protecting the relationship that they both treasured.
Their wedding day was a blur of activity and emotion. Both Bryan and Martina were emotional all day long because they could not believe that it was actually happening. They could not believe they had found each other. They could not believe they had fallen in love. They could not believe they were actually getting married. They could not believe they would be spending their lives together. They were both filled with a sense of privilege.
Few couples go into marriage with the level of intentionality that Bryan and Martina did. They were not about to mess this thing up. They knew that if they were going to have a marriage that was mature and sturdy enough to last, no matter what, they had to commit to the lifestyle of relational work that makes every good marriage a good marriage. It wasn’t a burden to them. With joy they determined to pay attention and to deal with the stuff that would get in the way of what their marriage was and could potentially be. And they had done it. In the early years, the attentiveness and the intentionality helped them form, by God’s grace, a marriage that really was a place of unity, love, and understanding.
But, in a subtle process of change, two things happened. They got comfortable and they got busy. Bryan got so used to loving Martina that he quit being as conscious of his love and expressing it so often to her. Martina got so used to being appreciative of Bryan that she quit looking for those moments to express her thankfulness. Over time they went from attention and action to assumption and passivity. But Martina and Bryan were pretty much blind to the changes, because something else had taken place: they had become very busy.
Together Bryan and Martina got tired of condo life, so they purchased a single-family home of their own. The problem was that they could only afford a fixer-upper. If their new home was ever going to be comfortable and livable, it was going to demand lots of work, and since it was an old home, it would always need lots of care and maintenance. Along with this, Bryan and Martina were the parents of twin English bulldogs and three beautiful, little girls. And there was something else: through a series of promotions Bryan was now the regional director of his division at his company. His work days were very demanding, and he had to travel more than he had anticipated when he took the position. He came home exhausted every evening and wanted little more than some downtime.
Martina was thankful for Bryan, but between household chores (which Bryan seemed oblivious to) and the care for and activities of the girls and the dogs, there just didn’t seem to be enough time in the day for her to do all of that and also pay much attention to Bryan. No, they hadn’t stopped loving one another, but they had quit paying much attention, and they surely had forsaken their commitment to do daily what was necessary to build and protect their marriage. Their marriage had become a relationship of inattention, distance, and distraction. When this happens in any marriage, sin, with all its self-orientation, irritation, and impatience is given room for expression and growth. And this is exactly what happened to Bryan and Martina.
Little disagreements and unsolved conflicts grew into major battles. lService morphed into impatient selfishness. Appreciation devolved into irritation. A willingness to serve and wait disintegrated into impatient demands. Forgiveness gave way to criticism and judgment. Peace gave way to anger and tension. Bryan and Martina had quit paying attention and had quit working on their relationship. What once was had not been enhanced and maintained. The commitments they had made had been progressively forsaken. Their marriage was like a garden without attention; the weeds had simply overwhelmed the flowers. Martina and Bryan needed help; their marriage needed prayer.
THE POWER AND PROTECTION OF
MARITAL PRAYER
In our marriage, prayer pushes us in all the right directions. It reminds us of the kinds of things we have said are so important to a marriage of unity, understanding, and love. Daily prayer reinforces all the commitments we are tempted to forsake but that are vital to maintain. Prayer opens our eyes and our heart. Prayer is a necessary ingredient of a healthy marriage. On our knees is the best posture for our marriage.
Using the Lord’s Prayer as a model, here are some things that prayer does in you and will do through you in the heart of your spouse.
Our Father in heaven . . .” (Matt. 6:9). Prayer reminds you that “in your marriage, you are never left alone to the resources of your own strength and wisdom. Bryan and Martina not only lost sight of one another and the commitments they had made to their marriage—daily, active love—but they forgot their Lord as well. Yes, they continued to go to church, and they wouldn’t have thought of forsaking their faith, but in the hallways, bedrooms, and family rooms of everyday life, they had begun to feel that it was all up to them, all on their shoulders. Part of the slow devolution of their marriage was a view of the responsibilities, opportunities, struggles, and blessings of marriage that did not include God. Here is why this is so devastating to any marriage: when your forget God’s presence, promises, and provisions, either you tend to get overwhelmed and give up, or you try to do God’s job. Neither is a workable option.
Perhaps the most powerful way in which daily prayer for your marriage not only has the power to transform your marriage, but to transform you as well, is this: prayer reminds you that you are never alone. Prayer reminds you that you are never left to your own righteousness, wisdom, and strength. Prayer reminds you that each location or situation where your marriage exists is not only inhabited by God but, even more encouragingly, that each is ruled by him. The one who controls the situations in which your marriage lives is not only a God of awesome power but is the definition of everything wise, true, faithful, gracious, loving, forgiving, good, and kind.
But there is even more that the Lord’s Prayer confronts you with. It is that this God who is powerful and near is your Father by grace. If you are God’s child, there is never a moment when you are outside the circle of his fathering care. Like a father, he loves you and is committed to faithfully providing what is best for you. When you are facing those disappointing moments of marital struggle, when you’re not sure what to think, let alone what to do, prayer can rescue you from hopelessness and alienation. Prayer encourages you to say, “I am not sure how we got here, and I am not sure what we are being called to do, but there is one thing I am sure of—I am never, ever alone because I have a Father in heaven who is always with me.”
Acknowledging God will protect you from yourself. It will protect you from discouragement and fear and the passivity that always follows. It will protect you from the pride of self-reliance and self-sovereignty. If you are ever to have a marriage of unity, understanding, and love, you must begin with this humble admission: you have no ability whatsoever to produce the most important things that make a wonderful marriage. The changes of thought, desire, word, and action that re-create, rebuild, mature, and protect your marriage are always gifts of God’s grace. As you choose to do things God’s way, he progressively rescues you from your own self-interest and forms you into a person who really does find joy in loving another. It is only a God of love who will ever be able to change a fundamentally self-oriented, impatient, demanding human being into a person who not only desires to love but actually does it. There is a word for this in the Bible—grace.
Prayer reminds you that you have been graced with a Father’s love and that love will not let you go until it has changed you in every way that is needed.
“Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9–10). Prayer reminds you that God’s purpose for your marriage is always bigger than your marriage. You will never understand your marriage or be content in it until you understand that your marriage is part of something bigger that is meant to define and shape your marriage and how you respond to it. Remember one of the major themes of this book: marriages break down because people have no bigger vision for their lives then the establishment of their own little kingdoms. When there is no larger kingdom to unify a husband and wife, their marriage sadly becomes a war between the kingdom purposes of the wife and the kingdom purposes of the husband. Whether they know it or not, each will be working in the mundane moments of life to realize their dream for their life.
Bryan and Martina lost sight of a world bigger than their marriage and of a kingdom bigger than their individual kingdoms of one. Martina’s kingdom dream had to do with the things she had always wanted to experience as a mom and the dreams she had always held for her children. All she wanted was for Bryan to participate in the delivery of her kingdom dreams, and if he did, she would feel loved and be happy. Increasingly, Bryan’s kingdom dream was located outside their home. More and more he was taken by the dream of potential success and power that was available at work. Bryan wanted Martina to do everything she could to support his career dreams, no matter what it cost on the family front. The problem was that Martina and Bryan’s kingdoms were in conflict. Martina’s dream for her children demanded that Bryan not spend so much time and energy at work, and Bryan’s career dreams demanded that Martina forsake her plans for him and the family.
Prayer reminds you that real life is found only ever when you forsake your little kingdom of one for the bigger and better call of the kingdom of God. Prayer reminds you that God gives you his grace, not so much for the purpose of making your kingdom work but to welcome you to a better kingdom. Every time you pray, you are acknowledging God’s rule over you and your life. Prayer is an act of submitting your purposes to God’s. Prayer is all about confessing the self-focus and self-sovereignty of sin. Prayer is a willing offering of your life and all it contains to the loving and wise authority of God. Prayer is an active part of what it means to live for a bigger kingdom than your own.
Real unity begins when a husband and wife quit trying to be sovereign over their lives. Real unity begins when a husband and wife quit trying to set the agenda for their marriage and begin, in practical everyday ways, to pursue God’s agenda together. Real marital unity begins when a husband and wife quit being kings and begin to willingly and joyfully submit to the plans, purposes, and call of the same King. The more each one individually loves and serves the King of kings, the more they will be drawn together, sharing one dream and its practical implications for their everyday life together. Prayer reminds you of a King greater than you and a kingdom better than your own.
“Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt. 6:11). Prayer requires you to see yourself as needy. The prayer for something as normal as bread for the day makes no sense unless it pictures something true about you. We are needy and dependent. We were never hardwired for an independent, self-sufficient existence. Prayer makes no sense at all unless it is really true that you are dependent upon God for the basic necessities of life. Prayer always requires you to acknowledge personal inability, weakness, and need. Daily prayer acknowledges daily need. Daily prayer acknowledges God’s call for you to be content with what he gives you today and to trust tomorrow into his hands. And if you are dependent on God for something as basic as bread, then there is a whole catalog of things necessary for your life that you are unable, in and of yourself, to provide.
I cannot and do not control all the things that need to be controlled in order to guarantee that I will have a job that can support my family. I do not rule all the circumstances that must be in place to ensure that my family has an adequate home to live in. I do not control all the things that will result in my family being healthy and safe. I do not determine all the things that must be in place for my children to have a good school to attend. I do not exercise authority over the things that will ensure that we have a solid church to attend. There are many important needs in my life that I do not have the power to independently meet.
But there is more. If your marriage is to be a place where real unity, understanding, and love shape the character of every day, then there are things that you and your husband or wife need to be and to do. But you can’t become these things or do these things by yourself. You do not have the ability to turn yourself into a person who is loving, kind, patient, thankful, gentle, forgiving, faithful, and self-controlling. And you surely have no power whatsoever to ensure that your spouse will be that kind of person. These essential character qualities of a good marriage are only ever the fruit of the transforming work of the Spirit of God in your heart. They only come as he progressively delivers you from you and forms you into the likeness of Jesus.
Prayer yanks you out of your delusions of self-sufficiency and reminds you of how deeply needy you really are. Prayer reminds you that you will never be what you need to be and do what you are called to do without divine rescue and restoration. Prayer humbles you, and as it does, it makes you more patient and more understanding of your spouse. No one is more patient with the weaknesses and needs of another than the person who has admitted that he is also deeply needy.
Somewhere in the early days of good commitments, wise choices, and loving responses, Bryan and Martina quit seeing themselves as needy, and the result was devastating to their marriage. At some point they felt that they had figured it out. More and more it seemed to them that they had arrived. They didn’t know it, but they were turning gifts of God’s grace into an occasion for personal and marital pride. There were times when they would wonder together why certain couples they knew just didn’t seem to be able to get their acts together. But this pride in their wisdom, ability, and strength was subtle and deceptive. It almost always is. No, they never announced, in some moment of theological change, “We don’t need God anymore.” And they didn’t quit praying before a meal and at the end of the day, but their prayers were more a spiritual routine than an indicator of what they really believed about themselves and God. They never quit participating in the programs and ministries of their church, but there was a clear separation between the Sunday celebration of God’s grace and the self-sufficiency of the rest of the week.
In fact, in a real way, Bryan and Martina quit praying, because they quit seeing themselves as needy. Sure, they would mumble well-rehearsed religious phrases with heads bowed and eyes closed. But these “prayers” were no more true prayers than the prayer of the Pharisee in the temple in Christ’s illustration in Luke 18. Their prayers were devoid of a deep sense of personal need, and because they were, they were also devoid of heartfelt appreciation and celebration.
I wish I could say that I have never been in this position, but I have. Much of the trouble that we experienced in the early years of our marriage was due to my pride and my impatience with Luella, who was “not as righteous and mature as me.” My prayers were more an act of external religiosity than they were an honest expression of the cries of a needy heart.
Real prayer transforms you as it requires you to acknowledge how fundamentally needy you actually are.
“Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors ” (Matt.6:12). Prayer reminds you of God’s daily call to give the same grace to your spouse as God has given to you. Prayer requires you to love others as you have been loved. Prayer makes no sense if it is not rooted in recognition that God has placed his love on you even though you could never have earned, achieved, or deserved it. Prayer makes sense only when it is rooted in the reality that you have been gifted every day with patient forgiveness and empowering grace. Prayer humbles you as it forces you to acknowledge that the most valuable thing in your existence, the love of God, is the thing that you had no capacity whatsoever to earn. And as prayer calls you to celebrate undeserved love, it requires you to commit yourself to love others in the same way. There is a direct connection between self-righteousness and an inability and unwillingness to love others.
It is a contradiction to seek God’s help yet be unwilling to help your husband or wife. It is a contradiction to celebrate God’s love yet refuse to love your spouse. It is a contradiction to be deeply aware of your moment-by-moment need of grace yet unwilling to give grace to the person you live with and say that you love. It is a contradiction to know that your only real hope in life is God’s forgiveness yet refuse to forgive your husband or your wife. It is a contradiction to know that God will only listen to your requests because he is patient and kind and then turn and respond to your spouse in irritation and impatience.
It makes no sense to participate in an act that, by its very nature, recognizes that you have been blessed by divine love and grace yet to have no practical commitment to love and grace in your marriage. It makes no sense to celebrate God’s forgiveness and then refuse to forgive your spouse in those moments when forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration are so obviously and practically needed. As prayer calls you to celebrate vertical forgiveness, it requires you to offer horizontal forgiveness as well.
Prayer reminds you of God’s call to love. It reminds you that you have been designed to live a lifestyle of willing self-sacrifice for the good of another. Prayer reminds you that successful living is all about loving God above all else and loving your neighbor as yourself. Prayer reminds you that your marriage is always about the daily dynamics of a sinner living with a sinner, and because it is, there is no more important commitment in all of marriage than the commitment to forgive. Prayer reminds you that in your marriage there is never a day when you aren’t called to give one another grace that has not been deserved or earned.
Here is the thing that happened to Martina and Bryan and that happens to many of us as well. Pay attention to the cycle that I am about to describe. As Martina and Bryan lost sight of their daily need for forgiveness, they quit being so willing to forgive one another. As they quit forgiving one another and putting away their offenses, they began to keep a record of the other’s wrongs. As they kept a daily record of wrongs, they were increasingly aware of how much their life was affected by the weakness and failure of the other. As they carried this awareness with them, they became increasingly irritated, impatient, and intolerant with one another. So, since they were not fighters, they dealt with their disappointment with one another by protecting themselves from one another with distance and busyness.
A mutual commitment to give grace daily is the only hope for a marriage of a sinner to a sinner, which is the only kind of marriage there is. Prayer reminds us of God’s call to love and forgive, and it reminds us that this call is most needed when it is most undeserved.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matt. 6:13). Prayer reminds you that your biggest marital struggles exist inside, not outside, of you. Real prayer always leaves you humbled because real prayer requires you to admit who you really are. We would all like to think we are fundamentally good people whose biggest struggles in life exist outside, not inside, of us. But prayer confronts us with a humbling reality: we are only hooked by the evil outside of us because of the evil inside of us.
Prayer requires us to face the fact that no matter what we suffer in our marriage, the deepest, most abiding dilemma of our life exists inside, not outside, of us. Prayer requires us to face the dark and devastating reality of our sin and how it distorts what we think, desire, say, and do. Prayer requires us to acknowledge that we need rescue and protection because we carry around something inside ourselves that tempts us away from what is right toward what is wrong. Prayer humbles us as it welcomes us to admit that we carry around something inside that is self-focused and antisocial and therefore destructive to our relationships.
Prayer requires us to confess that the biggest problem in our marriage, the one thing we cannot escape by changes of situation and location, is ourselves! It is our sin that seduces, deceives, and entraps us again and again. It is our sin that causes us to want things we should not want, to think things we should not think, to say things we should not say, and to do things we should not do. Prayer calls us to quit blaming our husband or wife for our words and actions. Prayer welcomes us to accept responsibility for our behavior and, as we do, to receive forgiveness and help.
Prayer destroys the finger-pointing, it’s-your-fault, blame game that paralyzes many marriages. When the husband is deeply persuaded that the hope of the marriage is to get the wife fixed, and the wife is deeply persuaded that the future of the marriage is to get the husband fixed, you can be sure that their marriage will not change. It is only when both confess that it is the sin inside them that leads them to do what is wrong in their marriage—not the failure of the other—that each hungers for growth and change and then reaches out for God’s help.
The more Bryan and Martina pointed to one another as the cause of their attitudes and actions, the more their marriage got stuck and change seemed remote and impossible. Change in a marriage always begins with looking within, and that is exactly where prayer calls us to look. The celebration of a Savior, which lies at the heart of prayer, makes sense only when we acknowledge that we cannot escape from the sin inside us. When we acknowledge our sin, we quit blaming our spouse and begin getting serious about getting help. In marriage, prayer reminds you again and again that your biggest, most abiding problem is you.
“For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” Prayer reminds you that the key to a marriage of unity, under- standing, and love is rooted in an allegiance to God’s kingdom and not your own. True, heartfelt prayer ends as it begins—with recognition of God’s kingship and his glory. Prayer reminds you that life is not about you. Prayer reminds you that the center of your universe is a place reserved for God and God alone. Prayer reminds you that real peace, satisfaction, and contentment come when you live for a greater glory than your own. Prayer reminds you that the hope of marriage is not found in a husband and wife conspiring to build their own kingdom but in submitting together to the wisdom and rule of a better King. Prayer calls you away from the kingdom of self, which is so destructive to everything a marriage is intended to be, and welcomes you to the kingdom of God, where a God of love rules in love.
STILL IN THE BATTLE, STILL
RECOGNIZING NEED
No matter how long you have been married, no matter how much you have learned, grown, and changed, you must stay in the battle (that war that rages in your heart between the kingdom of self and the kingdom of God), and you must continue to admit your need. Every day there is evidence that sin stills lives inside you, and as long as it does you must not let down your guard, you must not allow yourself to think that you have arrived, and you must not permit yourself to coast. The war will someday end and the fight will someday be over, because sin will someday be finally defeated, but today the sin still lives within you and the battle must still be fought.
But you don’t fight alone. As you commit to watch and pray, God graces you with his forgiveness, protection, wisdom, and strength. He loves you with everlasting love. He never grows tired of you or weary with your struggles. He never throws your failures in your face or uses your sins against you. He shed the blood of his Son so that in your struggles, you would have the forgiveness and power you need.
When you pray for your marriage, you remind yourself that you are not alone. When you pray, you remind yourself that grace has invaded your marriage, and because it has, there is hope. There really is.