Two Hearts Praying as One!

A blog for Christian men - Viriem.lv challenges you to pray together with your spouse for 30 days.

Starting from 1 April we offer a new 30-day article series that will help strengthen daily prayer together with your spouse. This article series was prepared thanks to the book “Two Hearts Praying As One” by Dennis and Barbara Rainey. Why 30 days? It has been scientifically proven that only 30 days are needed to form a new habit. The goal of this article series is to help you form the habit of praying together every day. Each day there will be one article on a specific topic that will help successfully strengthen this habit. These articles will give answers to various questions that can arise about praying together. Also in the first days specific prayers for the husband and for the wife will be published as a model and suggestion for what to pray.

In this age there are so many unfulfilled promises and disappointed hopes, yet there is one promise that is certainly true - praying together as a couple will make your relationship stronger, richer, and deeper.

Praying together - this may be one of the most important disciplines in a marital relationship. And here are some reasons why:

• Do you lack intimacy in marriage? Praying together will increase intimacy in your relationship, and to an even greater extent than you can imagine.

• Are there conflicts in your marriage? Praying together will disarm, resolve, dispel, and prevent disagreements.

• Do you want your marriage to be more honest? Praying together is like a door that opens your hearts to one another.

• Do you feel distant from God? In the Bible we read this promise: “Call to Me, and I will answer you and show you great and wonderful things that you did not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3)

• Are you weighed down by fear? Disappointment? Insecurity? Worries? Anger? Hopelessness? By praying together you will gain peace in your hearts, marriage, and family.

• Are you struggling with sin? Confessing sins together will bring them before God, and He will work in your lives.

• Are you facing divorce? Praying together will restore unity of mind and heart, and also restore purpose in marriage.

• If your desire is also for your marriage to go the whole way and for your family to become what God intended, pray together as a couple every day.

Is praying together the only thing necessary for a marriage to be successful? No - but praying together is like the first step toward experiencing God's blessing in marriage, with Him in first place in your relationship.
Ruth Bell Graham once said: “I doubt there would be so many divorces among Christians if they as a couple once a day bent their knees and prayed for one another.”

What if you stop praying or miss a day? Praying together will test your perseverance, determination, humility, and even courage.

When beginning to pray together, you must reckon with the fact that you will encounter spiritual resistance. Satan knows what spiritual power there is in couples who unite in common prayer. He will oppose and try to hinder you from forming a united team for prayer.

If you happen to stop praying for a few days or longer, do not lose courage and do not give up. It is understandable that it will most likely be difficult to begin praying together again after you have stopped at some point. Yet we encourage you to look forward to the next day when you will be able to pray together again, not to look back at the day when you did not do it.

Here are some strategies for beginning to pray together again when it has not worked:

1. Discuss with each other why this discipline of prayer is difficult for you to carry out. Discussing this question is important in order to get back on track in praying together every day.

2. When praying together, confess the sins connected with the difficulty of uniting in common prayer every day. First confess them to God and then to one another.

3. Pray together again regularly, showing that you have repented of these things.

4. Find friends who can be accountability partners and support you in carrying out this commitment. Their task would be to ask at least once a week how you are doing with the discipline of prayer.

5. If at some stage of life you have stopped praying together, repeat steps 1 to 4 and continue in this way until the Father calls you home, where you will meet Him face to face.

On 1 April the first article, titled “Preparation: Talking with God Together”, was already posted on the blog www.viriem.lv.

Be active, participate, and share your commitment with others too! Forming the spiritual climate in the family is one of a husband's duties and tasks. If you are not yet doing this together, know that it is your responsibility before God. Therefore we invite and challenge you to use these articles to develop a new, healthy habit.

Informational poster PDF format

Do you accept our challenge?

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