Everyone goes through hard times. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes our prayers help us to avoid them. Sometimes not. It's the attitude we have when we go through them that matters most. If we are filed with anger and bitterness or insist on complaining and blaming God, things tend to turn our badly. If we go through them with thankfulness and praised to God, He promises to bring good things despite them. He says to "count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patiece" (James 1:2,3).
A wife's prayers for her husband during these times may not change some of the things he must go through. After all, if we never suffered anything, what kind of shallow, compassionless, impatient people would we be? But prayer can help him maintain a positive outlook of gratitude, hope, patience and peace in the midst of it, and keep him from reaping the penalty of a wrong response.
Whether it feels like it or not, when we serve God, His love attends every moment of our lives, even th toughest, loneliest, most otianful and desperate. He is always there in our midst, working things out for our good when we pray and look to Him to do so. "We know all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). His purpose for our trials is often to bring us humbly before Him to experience a breaking in our independent self-sufficiency and grow us up into compassionate, patient, spiritually strong, God-glorifyung people. He uses these situations to teach us how to trust that He loves and cares for us enough to get us through the tough times.
Pray that your husband will be able to press in closer to God until he knows that nothing can separate hin from His love, not what he is going through now and not what will happen in three future. " For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39). I'd nothing can separate hin from the Love of God, then no matter how bad it gets, he always has hope.
Trials can be a purifying fire and a cleansing water. You don't want your husband to get burned or drowned; you want him to get refined and renewed. God has promised that "in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who lived us" (Romans 8:37). "He who endures to the end shall be saved" (Matthew 24:13). It's the determination of your husband to stand strong in faith and wait for God to answer his prayers that will save him from the heat and keep him afloat.
PRAYER
Lord, You alone know the depth of the burden my husband carries. I may understand specifics, but You have measured the weight of it on his shoulders. I've not come to minimize what You are doing in his life, for I know You work great things in the midst of trials. Nor am I trying to protect him from what he must face. I only want to support him so that he will get through this battle as the winner.
God, You are our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1). You have invited us to "come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). I come before Your throne and ask for grace for my husband. Strengthen his heart for this battle and give him patience to wait on You (Psalm 27:1-4). Build him up so that no matter what happens he will be able to stand strong through it. Help him to be always "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer" (Romans 12:12).
Give him endurance to run the race and not give up, for You have said that "a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again" (Proverbs 24:16). Help him to remember that "the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the LORD upholds him with His hand" (Psalm 37:23,24).
I pray he will look to You to be his "refuge until these calamities have passed by" (Psalm 57:1). may he learn to wait on You because "those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31). I pray that he will find his strength in You and as he cries out to You, You will hear him and save him out of all his troubles (Psalm 34:6).
Amen.
SCRIPTURES FOR MEDITATION
I Peter 1:6,7
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,
Psalm 55:22
Cast your burden on the Lord, And He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.
Psalm 55:16-18
As for me, I will call upon God, And the Lord shall save me. Evening and morning and at noon. I will pray, and cry aloud, And He shall hear my voice. He has redeemed my soul in peace from the battle that was against me, For there were many against me.
Psalm 71:20,21
You, who have shown me great and severe troubles, Shall revive me again, And bring me up again from the depths of the earth. You shall increase my greatness, And comfort me on every side.
#inspired...ann #WiseQuotes
*Stomie Omartian, The Power of a Praying Wife(2006)
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