A Prayer for Marriages (Numbers 30:16)
These are the statutes that the Lord commanded Moses about a man and his wife and about a father and his daughter while she is in her youth within her father’s house.
—Numbers 30:16
So, these decrees come in the midst of many others in the book of Numbers. I want to pray particularly in light of this verse, especially in view of marriages and future marriages.
First, thinking about marriages, I read this and am compelled to pray that God would help me love my wife well and honor him in the way I love her. I also pray that my wife would honor the Lord in her love for me as her husband. I want to have a marriage relationship that glorifies God in the way we love each other, and God’s desire is for every marriage to experience this. So, I want to lead us to pray for marriages.
Even if you are single and listening to this, I encourage you to pray for other marriages around you—for husbands and fathers—and for future marriages. The picture here is between a father and his daughter while she is still in her father’s house. I think about my daughters, and my sons for that matter.
I want to love, lead, teach, and train them in such a way that they grow up to thrive either in singleness or in marriage. I pray this all the time for them and for their future spouses—that, if God leads them to marry, he would be honored in their marriages and in their homes.
As I look around at the world and the culture around me, I see the degradation of marriage in so many ways and the need for mercy. Many marriages are struggling and falling apart; we need the mercy of God. So, let us pray for marriages in light of his Word.
God, we pray right now for those of us who are married. Help us to glorify you through the way we love our spouses. We pray that you would help us love our spouses in the way Ephesians 5 describes: a husband laying down his life for his wife, and a wife respecting and loving her husband in a way that reflects the church’s love for Christ and Christ’s love for the church.
God, we pray for your mercy in hurting and struggling marriages. We pray for help, and we pray for humility—that husbands and wives would seek the help they need, ultimately from you, through your church and through others, in order to experience your good design for marriage.
God, we pray for future marriages. We pray for single brothers and sisters of all ages, even down to children. We pray for thriving in singleness as long as this is the good gift you grant. And we pray for future spouses—that you would prepare men and women to love one another in marriage in ways that reflect Christ and the church.
We pray for the multiplication of the gospel through marriages according to your good design. O God, we need your mercy across the entire landscape of marriage today, including specific marriages, because we want to experience your good design in both singleness and marriage.
God, we long to give an accurate picture to the world of Christ’s love for the church and the church’s love for Christ, that people around us might see the gospel in husbands and wives and in the way they love each other. May people around the world see this.
A Prayer for the Pa’a People
God, we pray for the spread of the gospel through marriage to all the peoples of the world. We pray specifically today for the Pa’a people of Nigeria. Please cause this people group to be reached with the good news of the gospel, and cause marriages to thrive among the Pa’a in ways that reflect the beauty of the gospel.
We pray all of this according to your Word and your good gospel design for marriage. In Jesus’ name—the only one who can make singleness and marriage thrive to your glory—amen.
