Entrusted with the Gospel

Diane and I will celebrate 20 years of marriage this coming May.  By God’s grace, that means we have been praying together almost every day for two decades.

It was Dennis and Barbara Rainey of Campus Crusade that gave us the idea, back in the day.  One or both of us (I asked her – she can’t remember either) heard some teaching by the Raineys regarding the blessings of praying daily with your spouse, and after the wedding day, we decided to really go for it.

In those first few days of praying together after our wedding, our consistent prayer request was, “Lord, enable us to establish the habit – keep us coming back.” We had to pray this – I love to start things, but I’m not always so crazy about finishing, and I had the sense that just starting to pray with Diane would be nice but not enough.  Praying together for a lifetime could be huge, so I thought that if we wanted to pray…we had to pray.  Anyway, God answered those initial prayers, and after a while it became a beautiful habit.

Our prayer times aren’t long at all – truthfully, maybe just one or two minutes. We have a TV in our bedroom (I know the experts warn against it – I never said all our habits are great) and are usually watching something for at least a short bit at the end of the day.  So there comes a moment during our “zoning” time when I will turn to her and say, “Hey, let’s pray.”  I pray and then she prays.  Sometimes the prayer time knocks her out so it’s the end of our TV for the night. Then again, sometimes I keep watching.

We pray for the kids every day, for the church sometimes, and then for whatever else is on our hearts.  The prayer for the kids is key – we also prayed for each of them every day when they were in the womb – I would daily lay my hand on her belly and beg God for His blessings on the little one we didn’t yet know.

Praying is great for fights.  There have been a few times in our married life when we were having a pretty good argument towards the end of the day. But we know what we have to do in such cases:  We reluctantly make up…and then pray.

If there is any advice we offer to the engaged or newlyweds, well, you know what it is – pray together every day.  I feel pretty blessed in my marriage to Diane, and I think prayer is the key.  A cord of three strands is not easily broken.