Three Ways to Pray for God to Use Your Marriage for His Glory and Our Good

 
Three ways to pray for God to use your marriage for His glory and our good.

Ephesians 5:31-33 ESV
"31 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

Pray that your marriage will help you to deny yourself

"The two shall become one flesh." When you and your spouse got married, you went from being two individual people with individual lives, individual goals, and individual dreams to one flesh weaved together for the ultimate goal of bringing God glory. This reality can at times create tension. It is never easy to put aside the things you want, the comforts that make your life more manageable, for someone you have to share a bathroom with. But biblically speaking, in a marriage there isn't room for two but only one. And that one is called to reflect the character and attitude of Christ. I have found that the most fruitful seasons in Taylor Shea's and my marriage have immediately followed our pleading with the Lord to reveal areas where we can deny ourselves more, God revealing those areas, and us surrendering them at the feet of Jesus.

Pray that your marriage will point you to Christ

"Refers to Christ and the church." The relationship brought about by marriage was never meant to be what ultimately "fulfills" us; our spouse doesn't "complete" us. Rather, marriage was designed to point us to the only relationship that can actually fulfill and satisfy our souls. That is our relationship with Jesus. Revelation 19:7 paints a beautiful picture of this:
"Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready."

Both the good and the bad in our marriages, if we are walking in obedience, will point us to Christ and our future union with Him. The good will give us a taste of how great our union with Christ will be in heaven, which even the best of marriages are nothing more than a glimpse of what it will be like with Jesus, who will never hurt us, fail us, nor forsake us. The bad will remind us that although our spouse here on earth will fail us, Christ never will. God uses all the arguments, all the pain, and all the shortcomings of our spouse to help us look past our spouse as our source of fulfillment and to look to Jesus. So, pray that God will use the good in your marriage to point you to Christ, and pray that God will use the bad in your marriage to point you to Christ.

Pray that God's design will flourish in your marriage

"Let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." God has designed marriage to be a picture of union between Jesus and the church, and that plays itself out between the husband and the wife in a complementary way. The very act of a husband loving his wife like Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25) brings glory to God. When a man loves his wife so much that he takes responsibility for ensuring she is cared for spiritually, mentally, and physically, even at his own detriment, that points to Christ and the self-denial he displayed for us when he gave himself up for our wellbeing (2 Corinthians 5:21).

When a wife seeks to respect and honor her husband, which is best displayed in submission (Ephesians 5:22), this paints a beautiful picture of the church as it follows and enjoys Christ. Nothing points to Jesus being our ultimate prize more than seeking to love someone who will not always perfectly respect you or to respect someone who isn't always loving towards you. It seems as if God, in His infinite wisdom, gave roles for both men and women that would require them to constantly deny themselves and surrender their own desires as they carry out their respective roles.

 What an awesome God we serve that even our marriage is used to grow us and make us more like Christ and help us to cherish Jesus more. All glory be to Christ.