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Prayer for Husbands

Lord,

How we thank and praise You for Your wisdom and Your design for godly masculinity, godly femininity, and godly marriage. Your wisdom is infinitely higher than our own.

We humble ourselves before You and acknowledge that You know what is best in everything and we do not. We gather together across the world, joining our hearts to lift up our dear husbands and brothers in Christ to You in prayer.

Cause us to be the wives our husbands need. Use us to inspire them, encourage them, honor them, and bless them. Let us be a safe harbor for our husbands. Let us be a place of peace, acceptance, security, trust, loyalty, godly love, honor, and genuine respect for them.

Let us be nurturing and overflowing with kindness, patience, gentleness, self-control, goodness, joy, peace, selflessness, generosity, grace, forgiveness, godly wisdom, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Remove any tendency in our hearts to be like the Pharisees and to try to make our husbands obey a bunch of man made rules. Let us extend the same grace, mercy, understanding, and favor to our husbands that You do.

The enemy wants to destroy our husbands and our families. He wants to tear down their God-given leadership. He wants to ensnare them in sin. He wants to paralyze them into passivity or apathy. He wants to coerce them into selfishness and harshness.

The enemy wants men and women to be either too passive or too aggressive. He wants anything but Your plan for our husbands and our marriages. Help us not to cooperate with the enemy – but let us cooperate with You, Lord.

Open our eyes to the ways we can build up our husbands, cherish them, pray for them, empower them, honor them, live a godly life in front of them, and pour out Your love through our lives into their lives.

Let our husbands be strong in the Lord. Let them stand firm in the truth of the Gospel. Draw those who do not know You or who have wandered far from You back to Yourself, God!

Let them be men who are Spirit-filled, courageous, bold, on fire for You, and completely devoted to Christ. Let them be holy men who desire to please Christ above all things.

Let them have Your wisdom to lead and love us and our children for Your purposes to be accomplished and Your will to be done in our lives individually and as a corporate church.

We trust our husbands into Your hands for Your Spirit to work in them to form them into godly men. Let them do what is right. Let them not give way to fear. Let them love with your love. Let them understand all that Christ has done for them and let them learn to access all the riches of heaven in prayer.

Transform them to be more and more like Christ. Use them to change this world for the Kingdom. Use them to shine for Jesus in our families, churches, neighborhoods, work places, and countries.

Let this generation of men forsake all sin, and every addiction and impure thing and take up their crosses individually and follow You wholeheartedly. Let them be faithful to You. That is the only thing that matters.

In the Name and power of Christ,

Amen!

 

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Stay In Peace

It's how we handle what we deal with that speaks to the world. It's how we handle what we're dealing with that declares if we truly have faith or not...

 

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Combating Unhappiness

"Comparison is the thief of joy," were words from Theodore Roosevelt and they feel very relevant in a competitive world.

 

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Deciphering Disrespect

I didn’t do the super disrespectful things that I saw a lot of wives doing. I wasn’t at a “Jerry Springer Show” guest level of obnoxiousness. I thought of myself as a good wife.

My disrespect was more subtle and maybe even socially acceptable in our culture. But it was still very hurtful. A marriage can’t thrive without both people treating each other with love, honor, and respect. I had no idea that I was disrespecting him.

Disrespect in Action

• I undermined his authority as a dad and overrode the decisions he made as a parent.
• I had a critical spirit and looked down on him like I was so much more spiritual than he was.
• I asked him to lead or make decisions or for his thoughts but when he didn’t immediately respond, I steamrolled him and took over. (I didn’t realize his type of introverted personality generally takes some time to process and think through things.)
• I had a negative attitude and complained about him a lot to his face and to everyone else in my life.
• I tried to pressure and force him to do what I thought we should do.
• I was contentious and argumentative.
• I believed I was, essentially, always right and if he didn’t agree with me he must be wrong.
• I subconsciously expected him to basically do anything I wanted.
• I answered for him if we were with other people and I didn’t think he answered fast enough.
• I treated him like he was a little kid and I was his mom as if he couldn’t manage his life without my instructions.
• I didn’t think he had any wisdom to share with me.
• I approached him with a whole lot of pride and self-righteousness in my heart.
• I assumed the absolute worst about his motives, wrongly, and acted like my wrong assumptions were facts. (Later I discovered how completely off-base I was.)
• I acted like his prosecuting attorney rather than his friend and teammate.
• I wanted his attention and time constantly and got offended if he had other things he wanted to do.
• I raised my voice at him in exasperation.
• I spoke with an angry/irritated mama tone of voice a lot.

Then I was shocked that he shut down and really didn’t enjoy spending time with me. I thought he was very unloving and he was the one who needed to change. Greg didn’t confront me about the things I was doing that were disrespectful. And I seriously couldn’t see it. My pride blinded me.

Deception

Boy was I in for a surprise when I began to pray in October of 2008 that God would show me if I was doing anything to help create the wall in our marriage. That thought had never occurred to me. I thought I had been the most perfect Christian wife.

I mean, I read my Bible every day. I only listened to Christian music. I was at church 3 times per week. I could quote tons of verses from the Bible. I really did love my husband and wanted our marriage to be strong. I thought I was helping our marriage and pushing us toward God.

In reality, I was repelling my husband. He didn’t feel emotionally safe with me and he shouldn’t have. I wasn’t emotionally safe.

I just had no clue how much damage I was causing or that I was even doing anything wrong. And I had no idea how much I was grieving the heart of the Lord.

All this stuff was my sinful nature being in control. I didn’t have the fruit of the Spirit blossoming in my life (Gal. 5:22-33). I wasn’t loving Greg with the divine agape love of Christ (1 Cor. 13:4-8).

God Stepped In

That is because I wasn’t fully yielded to the Lordship of Christ. I kind of missed that part of Christianity. I said, “Jesus is my Savior and Lord,” but I didn’t live for Him as LORD of my life.

I wasn’t dying to my old sinful self and desires. I was all about my will, self-exaltation, self-justification, and self-seeking. I said I trusted God, but the fruit of my life revealed that I was trusting myself — not God.

I’m so thankful the Lord so graciously opened my eyes in December of 2008 to my mountain of sin so I could humble myself and repent and receive Jesus’ forgiveness.

I also immediately repented to Greg and decided to try to understand how to be a better wife to him. Even though he couldn’t explain what respect/disrespect was and I had no clue. I decided I was going to find out! Whatever it took.

He forgave me. Like in 3 seconds. For over 14 years of constant disrespect and hurting him. That blew my mind!

I couldn’t forgive him for small things. I held onto resentment and bitterness for years. Maybe he was more spiritual than I thought. And maybe more spiritual than I was.

I finally saw that I didn’t have any righteousness or goodness in myself. I needed Jesus to help me desperately! It took time for him to feel emotionally/spiritually safe with me. I needed to show the fruit of repentance, too.

Doing It God's Way

Then I decided I wanted Jesus to be in charge, not me. I decided to let Him sit on the throne of my life and trust His wisdom and His Word from that moment on.

I determined I was going to seek His will and His path for me and do things His way even if it didn’t make sense to me at first. And I would trust Him with the results.

It was scary at first! Giving up my illusion of control. I kind of felt like I was leaping off of a huge spiritual cliff, to trust God completely instead of myself. But it was the best decision I have ever made.

That was the beginning of my journey of spiritual healing and growth. And the beginning of God’s healing for our marriage. Now that I have tasted and seen how good God and His ways are, I never want to go back to my human wisdom or living for self again.

 

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25 Ways to Respect Yourself for Women

For a godly woman/wife, respect goes in every direction:

• respect for God (the highest level of respect)
• respect for myself (my new self) in Christ as stewards of the life with which God has gifted us
• respect for others (men, women, and children)
• respect for my husband in particular
• respect for God-given authority (bosses, teachers, pastors, government officials, etc…)

Some of us respect ourselves but not others. Some respect others but not ourselves. When we are missing respect in one of these directions, things get dysfunctional. Let’s get respect going in every way!

Respecting Yourself

What does it mean to respect myself? Here are some practical examples.

1. I acknowledge that I am made in God’s image and have immeasurable worth because God created me and because Jesus loves me and died for me.
2. I respect my body by acknowledging that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and being thankful for my body, taking good care of it – not hating or abusing it. I live my life to honor God – it is all about Him now, not about me.
3. I respect my sexuality and my body by dressing modestly and not revealing anything that would be inappropriate in public and by enjoying my sexuality in proper context with my husband.
4. I respect my life and spiritual, emotional, and physical health by seeking to walk in God’s ways and His wisdom knowing that sin would destroy me on every level.
5. I am thankful for the gifts, talents, and abilities God has given me and I seek to be a good steward of them all.
6. I love myself in a godly way, not a selfish way, because I know that God loves me. I receive God’s love for me gladly.
7. I can receive the love of other people including my husband.
8. I know that my perspective, desires, needs, feelings, and concerns are often important and I am able to share these respectfully when appropriate but I do not have to have my way – I am careful not to exalt self or cater to my pride.
9. I receive that God’s Word and His promises apply to me, too, not just to others.
10. I take good care of my body, mind, soul, nutritional needs, and health. I seek to do what is best for myself in all of these areas.
11. I have healthy boundaries emotionally and spiritually and am able to say, “no,” when this would please Christ as my Lord.
12. I take responsibility for my own spiritual growth and my own emotions.
13. I do not take on responsibilities that belong to others and to God.
14. I do not abuse myself spiritually, mentally, in my thoughts, verbally, emotionally, or physically and I seek not to sin against myself.
15. I do not subject myself to abuse by others. I know when I need to remove myself from a very toxic situation.
16. I seek God’s wisdom about how to live my life and I seek to avoid foolish decisions.
17. I am careful not to put myself in tempting situations. I guard my heart.
18. I am careful not to have any addictions to anything except for Jesus.
19. I have a healthy understanding of who I am vs. who God is.
20. I seek to be a godly steward of my finances and to make wise decisions in God’s sight. I try to avoid debt and manage my finances well.
21. I am able to stand up for myself if necessary while still being respectful of others, including my husband.
22. I don’t allow anyone or anything to steal the treasures I have in Christ.
23. I acknowledge the importance of my influence authority in marriage and what a critical role I play in portraying the gospel to others.
24. I honor and cherish God’s design of femininity for me.
25. I acknowledge that I – primarily – set the emotional temperature for my marriage, family, and home as the wife and mom. I know I need to take good care of myself so that I can take good care of everyone else.

 

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