With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.(Ephesians 4:2)
A difficulty some are facing, while continuing in this 30-day challenge to encourage your husband, is that you really are struggling to find positive things to praise. Perhaps the problem is not actually with your husband. Have you checked your own heart?
Sometimes we get disillusioned because of our own unreasonable or unrealistic expectations (Proverbs 13:12). It may not be that our mates are doing everything wrong... it's simply that we expect too much in some areas.
Our expectations must be met in God alone, and then we will have the right perspective to ask God for the healing and grace we need to respond to others. How sad that we give more grace to others than to those in our own homes.
Today, try to look at your husband through eyes of grace. Verbally thank your husband for what he is already doing. He was fearfully and wonderfully made, just as you were... and that in itself is monumental.
While praying for your husband today, pray that he will trust in the Lord with all his heart, and not lean on his own understanding... that he acknowledge the Lord in all his ways, allowing God to direct his paths. Pray also that your husband will yield his sexual drive to the Lord and practice self control. Pray that your sexual intimacy together will be fresh, positive, and a true reflection of selfless love.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
(Proverbs 3:5-6)
Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
(Proverbs 5:15)
Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
(1 Corinthians 7:3)
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.
(Song of Solomon 7:10)
Whether your husband already has a strong root in doing these things, or is an unsaved sinner running from God, prayers seeking these things with selfless humility will uplift and encourage him to become or continue to be a spiritual leader and guardian of the home as God has designed him to be!
Just a reminder about this 30 Days of Covering Our Husbands in Prayer:
Each day for 30 consecutive days, I will be posting a husband related topic, devotion, motivator, and/or encouragement here on my blog. Please feel free to access this prayer challenge any time you feel ready to start, or even to re-do the challenge to enforce the strength of the Lord in your marriage. You can click here for a printable calendar to view each day when going to prayer for your husband. Each day provides specific biblical prayer topics with bible verse references that seek God to touch the lives of our husbands.
In addition to specific prayer each day, there is a daily two-part challenge for you that will build up your husband through your own spoken (and unspoken) words:
Feel free to join me at any time in this prayer venture over your husband. You can always refer to my blog archives (the beginning post is May 24, 2012) if you're starting day one while my posts are further ahead in the challenge. If you have a blog, you're welcome to take the "30 Days of Covering Our Husbands in Prayer" graphic above and link it back to this topic's starting post (here), to encourage others to meet the Lord in prayer over their husbands too. If you decide to make this a goal for the next month in your life, whether you have a blog of your own or not, please comment or send me a message, I would be honored to pray for you by name as you seek God through the journey... regardless of when you begin it!
See you tomorrow for Day Thirteen!
May your marriage be blessed!
Prayer studies are adapted from ©Revive Our Hearts and ©Diving Deeper Ministries.
Used with permission.
