Prayer: Personal, Pervasive, Powerful
One of the major frustrations in life is feeling powerless when dealing with a situation. I typically get one or two calls a week from a person struggling with a spouse who is pulling away from their marriage. As they talk, you can hear their sense of helplessness in being able to manage their circumstances. He or she feels their effort wouldn’t be noticed, or enough, even if it were possible to make all the changes their spouse desires.
For example, “Mike” called in just a few weeks ago. Because of the recent economy, he has had to work longer hours to make ends meet. There’s been a lot of friction between him and his wife, “Denise” because of their financial struggles and his extended time away from home. Many accusations and angry words have been thrown at each other over the past few years. Mike apologized many times for his outbursts and promised to stop. At first, Denise believed he wouldn’t lose his temper anymore, but he has not been able to keep his promises.
Now Denise is not only struggling with a lack of funds, but she doesn’t trust her husband anymore either, so she forced Mike to move out in order to raise their children without all the anger and stress. Her friends are advising her to leave him and move on. Mike, on the other hand, still loves his wife. He hates the fact that he has no opportunity to defend his position; he fears what lies Denise may believe, and from his perspective, the situation is not only unfair, but makes him angry.
Although he tries to keep his anger under control when he is around his wife, she still feels it in him and it fortifies her defenses. Mike is confused, hurt, frustrated, and feels helpless to reach Denise and rebuild their marriage. He doesn’t know how to talk to her and the harder he tries, the deeper he digs his own pit. But surprisingly, Mike’s frustration can actually be the tool God uses to draw Mike closer to Himself.
We know Scripture tells us that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavens. (Ephesians 6:12) If we are going to find restoration in our relationships we need to enter the correct battle. Too often the tendency is to try to change our spouse and get their behavior in line so we can be all right. Yet there is a huge spiritual battle raging, trying to destroy any hope of a healthy relationship. In our flesh we tend to battle against our spouse, insisting they understand what I’m going through, and we try to get them to change so the pain will stop. But, the harder we try in our own strength, the worse it always gets.
In order to win the battle and restore communication in our marriage we have to enter the spiritual battle ground. The most powerful tool of change is right in front of us but too often we step right past it. It is simply prayer. We frequently misunderstand the power of prayer. God’s answers generally don’t look like the ones we expected. Therefore, prayer is viewed as a last ditch effort instead of our first and primary resource.
God wants us to see our struggles from His perspective, and it is through prayer that we tie into God’s heart. We humbly bring our requests and petitions before the God of the universe and ask for His intervention. He always hears and answers us according to His perfect will and design, whether it matches our expectations or not.
We can pray according to His will for our marriages by asking for God’s protection over our spouse and that He would bring light and truth in both our lives. We can approach the throne of God and petition Him for mercy regarding our failures and for Him to minister to our spouse even when we are not able to minister to them ourselves. We can stand in the authority He has given us as believers, seated with Christ in the heavenly places, and win the battle against the lies and deception of the enemy.
If prayer is divinely powerful, then it isn’t our strength we are standing on but rather, we are drawing on the strength of the Lord to intervene for us. When we run into the impossible, it is often God’s opportunity to show Himself strong on our behalf. Yet when we seek His help, we need to leave the answers in His hands and release our expectations on how, when, and where He will answer us. Too many times we miss out on God’s best because we are looking for something different.
As Mike has taken on the battle for his marriage on his knees, he now has more hope; he sees his wife differently than before and has more compassion for her. And now Denise is seeing a peace in him that makes being around Mike a safer place for her.
I believe prayer does move mountains. And the biggest ones are often within us.