4 Prayers For Your Husband That Will Strengthen Your Marriage
4 Prayers For Your Husband That Will Strengthen Your Marriage
By Bradley Bennett
Earnestly praying for our spouse is one of the greatest gifts we can give them. When we lift them up in prayer, we are asking for God to enter into their situation and meet them there.
Amanda and I have a commitment in our marriage to reach for prayer as our first line of defense for each other. We’ve seen the amazing power it brings and have been on a journey to discover the best ways we can lift each other up during our daily quiet times.
“…The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” ~James 5:16b
For a while, though, we didn’t know practically what to pray for in order to lift each other up. We had the desire but weren’t sure what things to cover in prayer.
As a wife, you may be in a similar situation. You want to pray for your husband, but you aren’t sure how to go about it on a daily or regular rhythm.
In order to help, I want to share my heart as a husband to shed light on the various areas where your man needs prayer. I’ll be sharing 4 ways you can pray for him, but before we get to those, we’ll need to set up some basic understanding about God’s calling on his life.
Start By Understanding His Burdens
Praying for your husband well starts with understanding the burdens he is carrying. He has been placed by God with a specific responsibility within the family and it comes with a certain weight.
“For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior” ~Ephesians 5:23
A husband is responsible to God for leading and loving his family well. At the end of our days, we will have to answer to God about how he led. That’s a pretty heavy weight of responsibility!
Praying effectively for us starts by praying into the different burdens that come with this huge responsibility. Your husband is going to have daily battles with these things and will need your prayers to give him strength. As you pray, you will be helping him become the man God has called him to be.
The 4 prayers in this article revolve around helping your husband carry the burdens associated with his unique responsibility in your marriage. Praying into these things will encourage your husband, help him lead like God has called him to, and will strengthen your marriage.
Pray That He Would Not Be Passive In Leadership Or Love
The most common enemy your husband must fight daily is actually within him. It’s his own passivity. This is something that men have been struggling with all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
Your husband must decide daily if he will pick up the responsibility of leading well. It’s a heavy burden and some husbands choose to never pick it up at all.
I want to start with this prayer because it may speak directly to where your husband is right now. He may not be accepting the mantle of Godly leadership he’s called to. Instead, he may be living life passively from work to the T.V. and back again.
If this is your situation, it can be endlessly frustrating. You want your husband to accept his call to leadership but he just isn’t.
Can I tell you what won’t work…? Nagging and consistently telling him that he is not the man he should be. The only thing that can change your husband is God’s love and presence.
Pray that God would meet him where he is and would light his heart on fire with passion. Only He can change your husband’s heart. Your job is to pray earnestly for your husband, love him, and to provide every opportunity for him to respond to God’s call on his life.
Pray That God Would Give Him Wisdom
As I’m learning in my own life, leading a family well requires wisdom in all areas. I can’t simply lead from my own wisdom, though. If I were to rely on what I can bring to the table, then we would be in trouble. Our life would end up looking like a Griswold family vacation.
No, I need God’s wisdom in my life to lead well.
Your husband undoubtedly has several decisions where he’s trying to make a wise choice. Often, these can bring about very real consequences or benefits. For each of these decisions, he needs God’s wisdom.
We read in Proverbs that God can give a level of wisdom to those who ask for it. Partner with your man by earnestly praying that God will give him wisdom for the different decisions he needs to make.
Pray That God Would Bless His Work
God has uniquely called your husband to be a provider for your family. This doesn’t mean that you as a wife can’t be the main breadwinner, but as a husband, God has commanded that he makes sure his family is provided for.
“But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” ~1 Timothy 5:8
Support your husband by praying over his work. Pray that God would open doors for him and that he would have favor with his clients or customers.
Here are a few ideas for praying over his work:
- The employees that he is hiring or working with
- His relationship with his boss or partners
- Doors of opportunity for promotion or growth
- A clear mind
- Protection from stress and anxiety
- Appropriate boundaries
For most husbands, work is a major part of their life and can affect their self-confidence. If things are going badly at work, then it can often bleed into many others things.
While there need to be appropriate emotional boundaries, it’s a very real thing that we feel as though we are failing when we can’t provide for our families!
Never doubt that your prayers can have an amazing impact on your husband’s work life. This amazing story from Allie Casazza has inspired us and I hope it will do the same for you!
Pray That He Would Have A Heart After God
One of the greatest privileges I have as a husband is the opportunity to love Amanda the way that God loves me. This is a huge part of the responsibility that God has put on me as her husband.
In order to do this, though, I need to have a heart after God. I need to desire His presence and experience His love in my own life. My personal relationship with God is the source from which I am able to love Amanda like He loves me.
This is the most important of all the prayers you can be lifting up for your husband. Earnestly desire that his heart is continually turning more towards god.
This one relationship is the driving force behind strong, biblical marriages. If your husband’s heart is turned towards God, then God will, in turn, point his heart back to you.
Pray that your man would be like King David in the bible and be known as a man after God’s heart. Lift up his quiet times with The Lord and plead that God would speak clearly to him.
Cover his heart in prayer and ask for protection that it would remain pure and devoted to God. Pray for protection from things like lust, pride, and discontentment. These things will seek to cloud his heart and harden it.
Supporting Your Husband Through Prayer
I love the way Amanda faithfully prays for me. Her consistency in prayer is one of the greatest gifts she gives.
The burden of responsibility, knowing that I will eventually give an account to God for how I led our family, feels incredibly heavy at times. Her support through prayer helps me carry it faithfully by acting as wind in my sails.
My hope is that you would partner with your husband through diligent prayer. That you would lift him up to become the man that God has called him to be.
The prayers above are a great place to start for any husband, but your man is going to have different burdens that are unique to him and your family’s situation. Set time aside this week and ask him about the specific ways you can be praying for him.
Doing this may end up being one of the best things you’ll ever do to strengthen your marriage.
What Specific Prayers Are You Lifting Up For Your Husband Right Now?