Prayer points
My marriage is under strain
Distance, conflict, betrayal, or a silence that will not lift
And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:12 · King James Version
Father, we are further apart than we have ever been, and I do not know how to say it to anyone. You were at our wedding. Come back into this house.
The prayer points
1. Malachi 2:15
Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.
Malachi 2:15
Guard my own spirit first. Before I ask You to change them, change what has hardened in me.
2. Ezekiel 36:26
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26
Take the stone out of both of us. I have grown stone where there used to be softness and I did not notice it happening.
3. Proverbs 15:1
A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.
Proverbs 15:1
Give me a soft answer tonight. One. Let me not win the argument at the cost of the marriage.
4. 1 Corinthians 13:7
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
1 Corinthians 13:7
Where love has stopped hoping, start it again. Let me believe the best about them one more time than I feel like doing.
5. Joel 2:25
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.
Joel 2:25
Restore the years we lost — the years of silence, of anger, of living as strangers in one house.
6. Matthew 19:6
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Matthew 19:6
What You joined, let nothing separate. Stand against every voice, every person and every appetite pulling at this marriage.
Declarations
Say these out loud. Not to convince God — to remind yourself what is true when your feelings are arguing.
- This marriage was joined by God and it is not a small thing.
- I will guard my own spirit before I inspect theirs.
- Soft answers are stronger than sharp ones.
- God restores what the locust ate.
Lord, if I am the harder one to live with, give me the humility to see it and say so first.