Heavens power

How we see our marriage  

When we perceive marriage as sacred, we treat it differently. We may be more careful about how we speak to our spouse or we may try to devote more time to our spouse. When we treat our marriages as sacred, they will be happier marriages because we will do our best to nourish them. What are some things that we can do to sanctify our marriages? As I mentioned before in a pervious blog, we can set aside time for just our spouse where we put our phones away as well as any other distractions. We will also find ways to serve our spouse daily. What I to focus on in today’s blog is prayer. Prayer is a way to sanctify our marriages. 

Prayer

  When we view our marriage as sacred, we will pray with and for our spouse and by doing that we will perceive our marriages as even more sacred, it is a cycle. When we pray for our spouse, we will come to see them as God sees them. Praying for our spouse during a disagreement can soften our hearts towards them and even help us not feel so angry. Praying together can help us resist temptations that if given into can destroy a marriage. In Matthew 26:41 Christ tells his apostles to “watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak"

Armor 

 Praying is like putting on armor that protects us against temptations. There are big temptations like the temptation to be unfaithful, but we also need to fight against the temptation to do the seemly small sins such as the temptation to say something unkind during an argument or the temptation to complain about our spouse to a friend or even the temptation to ignore our spouse at the end of the day and bury our faces in our phones. Prayer can help couples to find common ground during an argument instead of each one trying to win. Instead, they can work together to come up with a way for both sides to feel validated. I know that when my husband and I pray together every morning and night we are less likely to argue with one another and when we do argue our arguments are dissolved quickly. 

Prayer and forgiveness

                                                

Praying for your spouse facilitates forgiveness. There was a research team that did a study on prayer. They had participants report how much they prayed for their spouse over the course of 3 weeks. After the 3 weeks was over, they were taken to a research lab and were told to discuss something their partner had done to make them angry. Then they had people, who did not know what the studies hypothesis was, rate how vengeful participants acted towards their spouse while they were relating their story. They found just like was hypothesized that those who reported praying for their spouse were less likely to act vengeful towards their spouse.

                                            

Putting in an effort

I fear that I am making it sound too easy that all you must do is pray and all your marriage problems will be solved. People are still imperfect and there will always be hard things we will have to deal with in marriage that is the nature of being human. While prayer is important both partners still need to put in an effort to make the marriage work  this includes

•  Serving our spouse
•  Intentionally looking for good things about our spouse.
• Giving surprise gifts 
• Leaving notes for our spouse or sending texts 

  

  Something special 

                                                    

 In a previous blog I compared our marriages to a special blanket and how we would never leave it out in the weather and mud, but we would take care of it and store it in a place where it will stay nice. Just as we would take care of a blanket, we need to take care of our marriages and one of the ways we do that is by praying for, serving and giving our time to our spouse. I am going to recommit to doing the things I need to do to sanctify my marriage, I hope that you my readers will do the same.

Hawkins, Dollahite & Draper (2020) . Successful Marriages and Families : Proclamtion and principles research perspectives. Brigham Young University 

  

 

Dollahite, Draper and Hawkins (2020) Successful marriages and families: Proclamation principles and research perspectives. Brigham Young University