Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Col. 3:12-14 (NIV)
Heavenly Father, failure to nourish and pray for our marriages is like failing to drink water, get sleep, or breath air. The outcome isn’t pretty. There’s no other relationship on earth with greater power to expose our brokenness and reveal your grace, tap into our longings and frustrate us beyond measure—all at the same time. And there’s no other relationship Satan is more determined to crash and burn.
So we come to you today, interceding for marriages—friends’ and ours. Father, forgive us for ever thinking there was only one person in the history of the world we were “supposed” to marry. No marriage can sustain that expectation. And forgive us for ever thinking that if we’d married the “right” person, it’d be enough. No marriage can carry that burden.
You’ve made us for yourself; and our deepest, most powerful, and most insatiable longings for relationship can only be met in you—not in any human being. You’ve presented Jesus as our Ultimate Spouse, and no other spouse can take his place.
So our prayer is simple and essential. Once again, Father, inundate our hearts and marriages with the only love that is better than life, the only love that will never let go of us, the only love that is enough—your lavish, life-giving, liberating love for us in Jesus. Immerse and inundate, saturate and marinate our marriages in your grace.
Precisely because we are “chosen, holy, and dearly loved” by you, fill our hearts and marriages with your “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Free us to forbear with each other, and forgive each other, as you so generously relate to us in Jesus.
Until the day you take one of us home, help us to encourage one another and build each other up daily. Help us to outdo one another in kindness and repentance, servanthood and understanding, life-giving words and heart-nourishing presence. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ merciful and mighty name.
