My wife and I just had the privilege of marking the milestone of 10 wonderful years of marriage. For many reading this who have been married two or three times as long, perhaps that’s nothing remarkable. But when you think about the statistics, which show the average marriage in America being eight years, it’s reason to celebrate.
I’d say we have a good marriage. We love, respect and take care of each other. We make a great team raising our children. But, we deal with the same daily challenges most couples do – stress from work, children, health and finances. We have disagreements. I fail at being the husband I should be at times.
A major anniversary is a good time to reflect on the past and plan for the future. I was thinking back to our wedding day 10 years ago and the specifics of the ceremony. We chose to go with traditional wedding vows because we both, at the time, felt like it pretty much summed up our commitment. It was the basic, “to love and to cherish,” “to have and to hold,” “in sickness and in health,” “for richer or for poorer,” “for as long as you both shall live.” declaration.
These are very noble and Godly commitments. But, there’s one glaring omission from those marriage vows that has come to the forefront for me lately. Prayer.
We never publicly committed to pray for each other or with each other. As a result, a marriage that should have prayer as its cornerstone, has seen a husband and wife who live very separate prayer lives and who seldom join together in lifting each other and their marriage to the Lord. I’ve been challenged recently in this: to have a successful marriage, we should strive to pray daily for – and with – our spouse.
It has been said that a successful marriage consists of three people: husband, wife and God. Christian author Stormie Omartian writes about praying for our spouses: First, you should pray for your spouse’s spouse. That’s you! Pray for yourself first, that you will be the person God would have you to be.
