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Marriage Partnership, Winter 2007
Not Tonight, Honey
I just knew we'd pray together every day. Uh … right.
by Rachael Phillips
Steve held my hand and offered a simple, profound prayer.
I thanked God for our perfect love.
Newly engaged, our 20-year-old hearts shared the deep conviction that our marriage would set new holiness records. We would pray together every day.
It didn't happen.
First, our inner clocks didn't mesh. A night owl, my medical student husband often studied until 2:00 a.m.
I, a working woman, lay legally dead at that hour. His attempts to raise me resulted in a rumble, not a resurrection.
As his schedule escalated, we saw each other mainly in our dreams. One rare evening we prayed together before supper. I left the table briefly and returned to find Steve face down in his spaghetti, snoring.
The next morning he didn't remember the prayer. I'm not sure he remembered me.
Steve graduated and practiced family medicine in a small town. Three children arrived. We joined a church and threw ourselves into committees, outreaches, and prayer meetings.
But we did not pray together.
When our kids put purple crayons into my dryer or flushed keys down the toilet, I learned Erma Bombeck's prayer: "God help you if you do that again!"—plus others, as my husband answered emergency calls and tore out of bed to deliver babies.
Consumed with family, patient, and church needs, we both learned to pray. A lot.
But not together.
What's the big deal?
In John 17:21, Jesus prayed his followers would be one, "just as you are in me and I am in you." He wanted Christians to experience the same spiritual intimacy he and God share.
Jesus didn't say, "Oh, excuse me. I forgot you two are married. Definitely an exception."
No, it made sense to me that praying together would draw us closer to God and to each other.
Steve didn't see it.
I prayed him through many challenges—patients with heart disease, others with cancer, one with a sick cow he wanted Steve to see (yes, really!). But my husband admitted he rarely prayed for me.
Even occasional suggestions that we pray together didn't register. "Maybe I should make an appointment," I muttered as Steve dashed out again. "I could pray into your stethoscope!" But he was already gone.
As the lone faithful prayer partner, I felt quite holy. The holier
I felt, the madder I grew. My prayers did not rise like incense to the Lord. Instead, they resembled a nuclear blast. Once, after days of sick, cranky children Velcroed® to my neck, I let God have it.
"Why can't he pray with me?" Like my two year old, I bawled and stuck out my lower lip. "Maybe I'll just let Steve pray for himself."
No lightning bolt zapped me.
While my children watched Big Bird, I grabbed the semi-quiet like an oxygen mask. A steaming cup of tea soothed my raging soul. God pulled up a chair. (It would have been nice if he'd brought coffee cake, but he knew I was dieting.)
God didn't say anything. He just sat with me.
Finally, I sighed. "I'm sorry, Lord." I steeled myself to say the impossible: "If Steve never prays with me or for me, I will pray for him."
Nothing changed.
Except me. Gradually I focused prayer energy on praising Jesus, not nuking my husband.
Weeks later, our children slept as we drove. Steve and Annie Chapman's song about praying together, "Circle of Two," floated softly over the radio.
"Let's do it." Steve turned to me. "Let's pray together every day!"
Brilliant idea! I felt a simultaneous urge to kiss and strangle him. Instead, I said, "I'd really like that."
I had given up. The Holy Spirit had not. In a moment, without seminar, soapbox, or seraphim—and especially without Scriptures quoted by me—God had changed Steve's mind.
Thank You, Lord.
No longer morning or night people, Steve and I were mostly tired. But we decided to pray together in bed every morning.
More than 20 years later, we still begin each day with prayer for each other, our married children and grandchildren.
Instead of blowing us apart, the pressures of every marriage season have sent us into each other's arms—and God's. Even life stresses can bless us if we take them to God together.
Rachael Phillips, an MP regular contributor, is author of Billy Sunday: Major League Evangelist (Barbour) and contributor to Help! I Can't Stop Laughing (Zondervan). She and her husband have been married 32 years.
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How do we start?
We married couples work, play, and sleep together. We know each other's bumps, frumps, and slumps too well! So why does spoken prayer together seem awkward, almost indecent? If you and your spouse feel a little weird, these tips will make your prayer adventure more natural.
I don't do mornings
Bottom line: Choose a daily place and time when you can pray together. Couples who stay up with babies or wait up for teenagers will find late night prayer more reassuring than Leno or Letterman. Others who commute together can pray in the car before driving. Partners able to keep their eyes off the lasagna might practice pre-meal prayers. (Personally, I would pray afterward.)
Get physical
Youth workers wisely patrol church hallways and prayer services. Their credo: Don't touch! Years later, married couples may still disconnect the physical from the spiritual. According to Ephesians 5, however, marriage represents Jesus and his church in loving, intimate communication. So hold hands while you pray. Hug each other under the quilts.
Don't pray forever and ever, Amen
Keep your sessions short, especially at first. Pray for each other before you name every cousin thrice removed. No one can pray for your spouse like you—and probably no one will.
Focus on one issue your spouse will face that day: a difficult client, a dreaded parent-teacher conference, or relatives from outer space. Jesus cares.
Life happens—pray anyway
Steve sometimes interrupts prayer to discuss medications or (eww!) urinalysis results on the phone. We've learned to carry on afterward. If we must trim prayer time one day, we pray as usual the next.
Parents especially must keep a flexible outlook, as babies fuss and small children may invade their prayer space. Jesus isn't nervous. Snuggle up and include them for a minute or two. Your kids need to know you pray for each other and for them.
Forgive your spouse
No human prayer is perfect. Our attention drifts. Like Jesus' disciples, we ask his help in learning to pray—and we help each other. When Steve appears comatose amidst my praise and petitions, I tap his ribs. When I nod off and bless dinosaurs aloud, he applies a gentle elbow.
Fortunately, Romans 8:26-27 declares the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. Our tired, distracted circle of two becomes a holy circle of three: thee, me, and God. And God never falls asleep.
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Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Marriage Partnership magazine. Click here for reprint information on Marriage Partnership.
Winter 2007, Vol. 24, No. 4, Page 37
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