The Power of a Praying Wife Devotional (45 page)

L
ORD
, I pray You would show me every person in my life whom I need to forgive. Reveal to me anyone I
believe
I have already forgiven but am still retaining some unforgiveness toward in my heart. I know layers of unforgiveness can be hidden under our good intentions, and I don’t want that to exist in my life. I don’t want any unconfessed sin to be a hindrance to Your hearing and answering my prayers. I desire to always be forgiving of others just as You have forgiven me (Colossians 3:13).

I know I cannot move forward into all You have for me until I forget “those things which are behind” (Philippians 3:13). But I need Your help to do so. Show me when avoiding, criticizing, dismissing, or withdrawing are signs of hanging on to an unresolved past offense. I want to confess anything I need to so that I can move on in my life and experience the answers to my prayers. Because I desire Your forgiveness of
my
sins and errors, I choose this day to forgive all others in my life. Show me also if there is anyone who has something against me, someone from whom I need to seek forgiveness. Give me the words to say to resolve that. More than anything else, I want to live Your way, and I know that Your way is always the path of forgiveness.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

86

When my father and my mother forsake me,
then the Lord will take care of me.

P
SALM
27:10

E
VERY YOUNG BOY NEEDS
a father to help him become a man. Most boys who never had a father—or at least not one they remember in their lives, or who lost their father at an early age for one reason or another, or who did not have a strong and loving father figure—suffer for it later on. We see examples of this all the time. Even if a boy did have a father in his home, but that father was missing-in-action because of selfishness, preoccupation, apathy, workaholism, alcohol, drugs, gambling, or whatever else, there will be a major hole in this grown-up young man’s heart that can only be filled by knowing his heavenly Father intimately.

In whatever way your husband may have lacked a good relationship with his father, or if he has hurtful memories of his father, or if his father was not nurturing and loving, pray that your husband comes to know his Father God’s love in a way that can fill any empty place in him and heal those wounds. Pray he will come to trust that his heavenly Father will never abandon, ignore, or reject him, but instead will always have time for him and will continually pour everything He has into him.

Your husband needs to know that his heavenly Father has an inheritance for him that is far beyond anything his earthly father could ever give him. It is a life of eternal security and the fulfillment of every need in this life. Your prayers for your husband about this can change his life forever. And it will definitely change your marriage for the better too.

My Prayer to God

L
ORD,
I thank You that You are a Father to us (2 Corinthians 6:18). I pray that my husband will know You intimately as his heavenly Father. Whatever was lacking in his relationship with his earthly father, I pray You will redeem and supply. Heal any wounds he has suffered because of it. As his heavenly Father, teach him all he needs to know in order to become a man that he wasn’t taught by his earthly father. Only You can heal any damage that happened in the past and bring him to complete wholeness in You. Help him to forgive his earthly father for anything that was lacking in his life so that he will not put on You whatever was missing in his dad.

I pray the same for myself. Where my earthly dad did not model for me what a father should have, and I have judged my husband in light of it—where my father did not come through for me, and now I fear my husband won’t come through for me, either—I confess that before You. Forgive me and free me to know You as my heavenly Father in a depth I have not known before. Wherever my husband has projected onto You the weaknesses or imperfection of his earthly father, I pray You will set him free from that. Help him to see You fully, in all Your strength and perfection, as his heavenly Father who loves him and who will never forsake him.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

87

We know that all things work together
for good to those who love God,
to those who are the called
according to His purpose.

R
OMANS
8:28

T
HERE ARE TIMES IN OUR LIVES
and in our marriages when something happens and we don’t see how we can ever rise above it, or get through it, or get over it. At these times we must cling to God and take Him at His Word. He says that all things work out for good to those who love Him and are submitted to His purpose in their lives. But the verses before that one are talking about prayer. It seems, then, that things work out for good when we are praying. And that makes sense, doesn’t it? God works powerfully in our lives when we pray.

Whenever you are facing something insurmountable in your life—such as a financial disaster, the loss of a family member, problems with a child, serious illness, or any of the many dreadful things that can happen—invite God to do something in your situation that your mind can’t even conceive of or never thought possible. Keep praying, no matter how hopeless it seems, and don’t stop thanking God that He works out everything in your lives for good when you love and trust Him for your future.

If you don’t have any kind of serious problem right now, praise God for that. Thank Him that He is the God of the impossible, and if you
were
to have anything seemingly insurmountable happen to you in the future, you trust that He will work everything out for good. In the meantime, continue staying close to Him in prayer, and pray for your husband to do the same.

My Prayer to God