He brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love.
– Song of Solomon 2:4
What a beautiful picture of this wife saying about her husband, he brought me to this place of feasting and he spread a banner over me, like covered me. And what did he cover me with? He covered me with love, this banner of love. So we’re praying these verses specifically over marriages, over our marriages, for anyone who’s listening to this who is married, and then we’re praying this over others’ marriages.
If you’re a teenager listening to this, like pray this over your parents’ marriage, if they are married. Or if you are single or maybe even widowed, oh, I hope that praying through this will be a sweet reminder of God’s grace in your marriage and that these verses will lead you to pray for this over others’ marriages around you. And in light of this picture specifically in Song of Solomon 2:4, this spreading a banner of love over one another in marriage.
Song of Solomon 2:4 reminds us that marriages should overflow with biblical love.
I want us to pray 1 Corinthians 13 and the description of love that God gives us there, over our and others’ marriages. So God, we pray according to your Word, for our marriages, for others’, marriages, marriages that are coming to our mind right now. God, we pray that the husbands and wives in these relationships would cover each other with love, that they would cover each other. And for those of us who are married, we would cover our spouses with patience. We pray for marriages covered with kindness. Lord, we pray for marriages that are free from envy or boasting. We pray for marriages that are free from arrogance and rudeness. We pray for humility and goodness.
God, we pray that in these marriages, in our marriages, others’ marriages, that husbands and wives would not insist on their own way, that they/we would not be irritable or resentful, that we and others would not rejoice with wrongdoing, but rejoice with the truth that we would have marriages that others would have marriages where they are bearing all things and believing all things and hoping all things and enduring all things. God, we pray for enduring banners of love in marriages. We pray especially right now for marriages that are struggling. God, we pray for enduring love. We pray for humility… For husbands and wives to get help to press on in marriage and to grow in love.
Song of Solomon 2:4 reminds us God has made a covenant with us as His bride.
God, we want marriages in the world and specifically in your church that are covering one another with love. So God, we pray for that based on your good design for marriage in Song of Solomon 2:4. And Jesus, as your bride, as your people, as your church, we praise you for covering us with love. Help us all, single or married today, to live in the covering, the banner of your love for us. God, that every one of us in all that we do today would feel, would sense, would know this covering of love that you have spread over us as your people, and that you would help us to spread that love to others. To be patient, kind, humble, and selfless toward people around us… To love others around us, to lead others to your love through our lives.
Prayer for the Swahili People
And God, we pray for the Swahili people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. God, we pray for this people group that is not reached with the gospel… Where there are currently only a few people who know your love in Jesus. God, we pray that the spread of your love would reach the Swahili of the Congo… That they might experience life under the banner of your love, Lord Jesus. We pray all this according to your Word in Song of Solomon 2:4 in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
