If your husband's self-image needs a makeover, be patient. The answers don't come overnight when a long - held pattern of thinking has to be broken. But you can appropriate the power of God to fit the enemy that feeds him familiar lies, so he can be free to hear God's truth. You'll find that as you intercede, God will reveal glimpses of the key to unlocking that particular thing in your husband. In other words, ad you pray He'll show you how to pray.
Take the testimony of Dan and Cindy for example.....
Dan experienced great frustration trying to find his way in life. He didn't know who he was or where he fit in, or if in fact he fit in anywhere. His preoccupation with trying to figure it all out causes great friction between hi and his wife, Cindy. She tried to help him, but he resented her advice. He perceived her thoughts and suggestions as mocking his ability to figure things out himself. His reaction was to dismiss her words, which caused her to strive even more to assert herself. The harder Cindy fought to not feel devalued, the more Fan retaliated, until in the frustration of his own insecurity he rejected her input altogether
This kind of ever - deepening strife could have led to divorce, but Cindy learned how to pray rather than fight.
She set herself to pray as long as it would take for God to break the bonds of self-loathing and mold her husband into His image. She asked God to help Dan find his identity in the Lord. She also prayed for God to enable her to speak to Dan in the Spirit and not in her flesh, so that her words would be received as encouragement to his soul rather than criticism.
God revealed that Dan's minimised self-image had been learned from his father. He, too, had experienced that same kind of insecurity all his life. But whatever the source of Dan's behaviour, Cindy knew God had the power to change it and God did. After a long awaiting time for a miracle, Dan gradually begun to see himself as one of God's much-loved sons and not an evolutionary mistake.
God says our first steps are to be toward Him: seeking His face, following His laws, putting Him first and our self centred pursuits last. When we line up with Him, He leads the way and all we have to do is follow. As we look to Him, the glory of His image gets imprinted upon us. When our self image gets so wrapped up in God that we lose ourselves in the process, we're free. We want that liberty for our husbands too.
PRAYER
Lord, I pray the (husband's name ) will find his identity in You. Help him to understand his worth through Your eyes and by Your standards. May he recognise the unique qualities You've placed in him and be able to appreciate them. Enable him to see himself the way You see him, understanding that "You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You crowned him with glory and honour. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet" (Psalm 8:4-6). Quiet the voices that tell him otherwise and give him ears to hear Your voice telling him that it will not be his perfection that gets him through life successfully, it will be Yours.
Reveal to him that "he is the image and glory of God" ( I Corinthians 11:7), and he is "complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power" (Colossians 2:10). Give him the peace and security of knowing that he is accepted, not rejected, by You. Free him from the self-focus and self-conciousness that can imprison his soul. Help him to see who You really are so he'll know who he really is. May His true self-image be the image of Christ stamped upon his soul.
Amen.
SCRIPTURES FOR MEDITATION
Romans 8 : 29
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
II Corinthians 3:18
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
Colossians 3:9,10
Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him,
James 1:23-25
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
Isaiah 60:1
Arise, shine;
For your light has come!
And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.
#inspired...ann #WiseQuotes
*Stomie Omartian, The Power of a Praying Wife(2006)
*Stomie Omartian, The Power of a Praying Wife(2006)
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