By THE WIFE WHO PRAYS, YET DESTROYS HER MARRIAGE
WIFE: God, I want to fast and pray this week.
GOD: What will you be fasting and praying for?
WIFE: My marriage.
GOD: Have you told your husband about it?
WIFE: I don’t think I need to.
GOD: Where is your Bible?
WIFE: It’s in my handbag.
GOD: When was the last time you read the Bible?
WIFE: It’s been a long while.
GOD: Then how do you expect to pray in the right way if you don’t take time to know My will by reading My Word? Pray using My Word.
WIFE: How do I pray using Your Word?
GOD: By returning My Word to Me. Speak My inspired Word back to Me. Like Jesus, say “It is written…” My Word will not return to Me void but will accomplish the purpose intended. Hold Me to account on My Word. Go get your Bible, My child.
WIFE: Yes, Lord.
WIFE: I am back.
GOD: Read 1 Corinthians 7: 5.
WIFE: It says, “Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
GOD: That passage of Scripture is addressing the husband and wife. I don’t think you fully understand what I mean when I say “In marriage, two become one.” You and your husband have become one. You should be informing your husband.
WIFE: Why? What for? It’s not like he will want to fast with me.
GOD: Have you tried asking him?
WIFE: Aaahh! I know him. He doesn’t like this spiritual stuff. I wish he was as spiritual as me.
GOD: My child, I know him better than you do. Your attitude of seeing yourself as spiritually superior is what is discouraging joint prayer between you and him. You already formed an opinion about him and you push that opinion in his face. Why do you feel the need to show how spiritual you are?
WIFE: I take hours to pray for my marriage. I wish he knew how much I am on my knees for this marriage to work.
GOD: My child, you’re doing the right thing but your attitude and motives don’t please Me. You pray amiss because your heart is not in the right place. I have seen you spending hours in Church only to come back home and shout at your children and husband as you pass judgment on them. I have watched you kneel in your bedroom in prayer only for you to show contempt and disrespect to your husband some hours later. I have seen you fasting only for you to speak negative belittling words to your husband. What exactly do you want? Your prayers and fasting seem religious – like you do them to appease yourself or to show off. In the Church congregation, you are celebrated because you never miss concerts, fellowships, revival meetings, and Church services; but at home, you are an ungrateful wife, an angry wife, a cold wife, a harsh mother, a discouraging mother, a thorn in the flesh. Kindly read 1st Corinthians 13: 1 – 3.
WIFE: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
GOD: My child, if your husband and children don’t feel loved by you, all your praying and fasting is for nothing. It is not what you do, but who you are. You can fast all this week for your marriage yet destroy your own marriage by how you treat your husband.
WIFE: So what do I do, God, what do I do?
GOD: Always remember that marriages remain strong not because of prayer but because of love; prayer is but a force accompanying love. As you speak to Me in prayer, speak love to your husband.
Praying for your marriage will not automatically make your marriage fruitful; you must work on your marriage. Stop using prayer and fasting to hide your laziness or to cover up the things you need to change as a wife. I really desire to see love in your home. I desire to see you and your husband laughing, treating each other well. Whatever you do to your husband, you do to Me. I desire to see you two together in love in My presence
WIFE: God, forgive me for going about it the wrong way. Please give me some minutes. I will be back.
(27 minutes later…)
WIFE: God, I am back now. With my king, my husband. We approach Your throne, our King of kings.
HUSBAND: God, I want to thank You for my wife. She came to me and blessed me in a way that a wife should. Today, I want to thank You for our marriage.
GOD: Go on, I am listening. I am pleased by you two.
Since that day, the husband and wife pray together but above all, they love each other.
