This last weekend I led a Marriage Seminar for a church in Ohio. It had been quite a while since I had been asked to speak on marriage and I thoroughly enjoy leading the seminar.
One of the topics that we discussed at the marriage seminar was praying with your mate. I recently heard a teaching about “praying with family” and I was surprised to learn that research indicates that only 8% of Christian couples pray together regularly and only 3% of Christian couples pray together daily.
Another alarming statistic that I learned is that the divorce rate among Christians is 48%, which matches our culture’s divorce rate. It is hard for me to imagine that the two divorce rates are the same.
Research on marriages now confirms that the couples who pray together have a divorce rate of less than .01%. It turns out to be 1 divorce in 1105 marriages. Years ago at Promise Keepers, I heard that the divorce rate for couples who pray together is 1 in 1052 marriages. Regardless of the exact number, it is tremendously lower than 48%.
Here is my question. Why don’t Christian couples pray together? I don’t know all the reasons/excuses, but here are some that I know that are used:
1. It is intimidating because he/she knows all my flaws.
Excuse buster: It has never stopped me with praying to God and He certainly knows all my flaws.
2. It is awkward because we have never done it in the past.
Excuse buster: Most awkwardness is overcome by practice. I remember hearing Roy Weece say, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly until we learn to do it well.” He was absolutely correct.
3. Our lifestyles are simply too busy and we don’t have the time.
Excuse buster: It is not that you don’t have time to pray together for 2 minutes, you choose not to take time.
4. It is just not a high priority.
Excuse buster: Change your priorities.
5. It is too much work.
Excuse buster: That is not a reason not to do it.
6. The husband will not lead in this adventure.
Excuse buster: Husbands, make it very short and very simple. Pray with your wife and ask God to give you both wisdom, ask God to bless your wife and children (if you have some), and ask God to teach you how to love each other. That should take about 20 seconds.
7. We pray with the kids. Isn’t that enough?
Excuse buster: We cannot justify the absence of an important activity because we do practice another important activity. Praying with your children and with your mate is equally important and necessary. Given the statistics, I’d say it is critical.
Don’t allow Satan to talk you out of praying with your mate. He is working hard to make your marriage one of the 48% that fail.
Good article Dean, I passed this along to my son. Thanks for your insight.
God bless,
Sue Holben
thank you for writing this, dean! mum o is having me do evaluate her for the pride assessment thing you’ve created and i saw this and good ol sue holben on the side of the page, i figured it must be worth a read!
God bless!
Good Article Dean :), Thank you…would like to read more about this topic in your blog, It will be of great encouragement to our women’s group.
Praying with my spouse saved my marriage @ the brink of drowning. We loved this one year with GOD. A devotional book + amplified bible before bed time brought me and my hubby as sister and brother in Christ reporting to our Heavenly Dad everyday. We never skipped one single day because it was extremely comforting and relishing to be in His’ presence. He’ is the best Father anyone can possibly have and a mighty counselor who loves and treats both His’ kids (wife and the husband) equally. No human could have done such a wonderful thing in my messed up life. Good is good to all 🙂
Dean, my special thanks for showing His’ light to my husband. Will be grateful to you all my life.
My Bride and I have been doing this, for I’m not sure how long now, but we didn’t just start doing it from the onset of our marriage. We receive a monthly devotional booklet from RBC Ministries, and this started about 13 years ago; we’ve been married for 28 years.
We open our devotion with prayer to guide us, then share the readings. She with the Bible reading on the even days with me reading the story; I get the odd days. After this is done, who ever reads the last part finishes with an open prayer, mostly for others and maybe our mate, if they have asked for special prayer. We never get too personal as far as asking the Lord’s help in pointing out a fault if they haven’t asked for that help. We save our honest communications for later if something is troubling us.