For His Eyes Only: A Devotional Workbook & Prayer Guide for Husbands
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For His Eyes Only - John Salmon, Phd
Invitation
Prayer Changes Things
The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective
(James 5:16b—NIV)
I learned an important lesson about prayer during my early twenties. A friend asked for a ride to church. How could I say no
? Who refuses to give someone a ride to church? I felt obliged to agree. The problem was (well, this is kind of embarrassing now) I found her somewhat irritating. My irritation grew stronger because I felt obligated. I have no idea why she irritated me. I can only attribute it to the immaturity of my emotions and Christian life at the time. I mean, who gets irritated about taking a friend to worship? I decided I would pray for her. God answers prayer,
I reasoned. Surely He will answer my prayer and respond to my sacrificial gesture by making her less irritating.
(I know. You can probably hear the immaturity in that line of reasoning. What can I say? I was young.) So, I began to pray for her…and she never changed! Something did happen though; something I didn’t foresee. When I began to pray, I became less irritated. I began to enjoy her companionship.
One day she said, You know, you have gotten a lot nicer lately.
Really?
I replied.
Yes. You were a little mean and rude. Now you are much nicer.
God drove those words into my heart like a stake. Sheepishly, I apologized. Graciously, she accepted my apology and we continued on our way to worship.
No, we did not fall in love and get married. We did remain friends until she moved to another state and we lost touch. Now, we follow one another on Facebook. I remember her as someone who taught me a very important lesson about prayer. She taught me that prayer changes things. Most importantly, prayer changes the person praying! As I prayed for my friend, God graciously changed me. He softened my heart. He opened my eyes. He clarified my thoughts. He led me to accept my friend, acknowledge her strengths, and recognize her beauty.
As you begin this journey praying for your wife and your role as a husband, remember God does answer prayers. More specifically, He will answer your prayers. He will initiate changes in response to your honest and sincere prayers. But, the biggest change will most likely occur in your heart and your life. So, as you begin this journey of prayer, I offer you a word of caution: do not think of prayer as another tool to change your wife into the person you want her to become. Instead, think of prayer as…
Your opportunity to humbly approach and commune with God. He longs to spend time with you. Prayer is an opportunity to grow more intimate with God, a time to deepen your understanding of His love. Further, we tend to become like those with whom we associate. This is an added incentive to spend time with God. Commune with God and you become more like God.
A time to open your heart to God’s gentle healing. We each encounter insults and disappointments. Those disappointments and harsh experiences can leave us bruised and scarred. Our Father will heal those injuries as we spend time with Him. And, when God heals, He heals miraculously and abundantly.
A time to invite spiritual surgery. For whatever reason, bitterness, resentment, anger, arrogance, insecurity, and defensiveness may have taken root in your life. These roots will interfere with—and even sabotage—your marriage if they are not removed. In prayer, we open our hearts to God’s holy scalpel, allowing Him to carefully remove those roots and freeing us to love in the way He loves us.
A time to allow Him to change you. God does change things when we pray and He begins with you!
Paul lists several characteristics of love in 1 Corinthians 13. I have listed them for you in the table below. For each characteristic, grade yourself on a scale of one to five with one being terrible
and five being terrific.
Then, in the last column, list practical ways you can enhance each characteristic in your marriage.
Father, I give you my life. Make me the person You want me to be. Heal me of any resentment, disappointments, and heartaches that have left me wounded and scarred. Cleanse me of sin and its consequences so I can love my wife as You love the Church. Teach me to practice a 1st Corinthians 13 love in relation to my wife.
Leaving Home to Marry
For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
(Genesis 2:24—NASB)
Movies and TV shows often communicate important life lessons. Take the 2006 film Failure to Launch
for example. In this film, a 35-year-old man named Tripp (played by Matthew McConaughey) continues to live with his parents. Every day, he eats the breakfast his mother prepares for him and the lunch his mother packs for him; but, he never helps purchase groceries or prepare meals. He sleeps in his parent’s home, enjoying their water and their heat without contributing to the bills or helping with the chores. He even uses the fact that he lives in his parents’ home to accomplish the emotionally difficult task of managing romantic relationships. Tripp has not physically left home. He still relies on his parents for all his material and physical needs. His parents prepare his meals, clean his room, do his laundry, and pay his housing bills. Tripp lives a life free from the responsibility of meeting his basic personal needs. He has not achieved physical independence. Physically dependent on his parents, Tripp cannot develop a healthy romantic relationship. A man must achieve physical independence to have a happy and healthy marriage.
Carlos Solis, played by Ricardo Antonio Chavira on Desperate Housewives,
had a different problem with leaving home. He had physically left home. He married his wife, bought his own house and car, paid his own bills, and enjoyed the power
of his position. However, Carlos had not left home mentally (at least not while his mother was alive). When Carlos had to make a decision, he went straight to his mother for help…not his wife, but his mother. When faced with a problem, he sought his mother’s assistance, not his wife’s assistance. He lived his life to make his mother proud and comfortable. As you can imagine, this mother-son bond did not make his wife happy; it interfered with his marriage. No husband can experience a joyous marriage if his mother takes priority over his wife. A man must cut the apron strings and establish mental independence before he can experience a healthy marriage.
In the movie Walk the Line,
Johnny Cash struggles to resolve a strained relationship with his father. Emotional cords of anger and perceived rejection bound him to his father and prevented his forming a truly healthy, adult relationship. Feeling rejected, he turned to drugs. In anger and fear, he pushed people away. Like Johnny Cash, growing up with fallible parents may leave us with unresolved anger and feelings of rejection. Those unresolved emotional issues prevent a healthy marriage. When a wife does or says something to hit a nerve
of unresolved emotion, a husband may unleash a lifetime of anger and pain onto his bewildered wife. Unresolved anger and feelings of rejection become emotional stones hurled at her. Feelings of dependence and inadequacy built upon unresolved childhood experiences drive us away from the healthy struggles necessary to deepen intimacy. They drive us back to our parents in search of their approval or acceptance. Like Johnny Cash, every man must learn to forgive the wrongs done by his fallible parents and celebrate the gifts those same parents lovingly offered him. Only then can he leave home emotionally and enjoy a successful marriage.
Genesis records the account of God creating man and woman. He brought Eve to Adam and ordained the union of a man and woman in marriage. The author of Genesis then writes, "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). A healthy marriage is premised on this
leaving and cleaving." A man must leave home physically, mentally, and emotionally in order to form a healthy marriage. He must have the ability to physically care for himself before he can care for a wife and family. Only a man who has learned to think independently and make wise individual choices can truly join with his wife and learn to meld his decisions and