Many people, even Godly men and women, live in marriage that are dead because there is no affection. And women endure it because their husbands are good in other ways, or they don't feel worthy enough to ask for affection. But this is not the way God designed the marital relationship. "Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husabnd" (1 Corinthians7:3). There is "a time to embrace," the Bible says (Ecclesiastes 3:5). When you're married, it's definitely the time.
Affection isn't at the top of a man's priority list because men often see sex and affection as being the same. A woman's greatest need is for affection. If you are in a marriage that lacks it, pray for the Holy Spirits transformation.
PRAYER
Lord, I pray for open physical affection between my husband and me. Enable each of us to lay aside-self-consciousness or apathy and be effusive in our display of love. Help us to demonstrate how much we care for and value each other. Remind us throughout each day to affectionately touch one another in some way. Help us to not be cold, undemonstrative, uninterested, or remote. |Enable us to be warm, tender, compassionate, loving and adoring. Break through any hardheadedness on our part that refuses to change and grow. If one of us is less affectionate to the other's detriment, bring us into balance.
Where any lack of affection has planted a negative view of marriage in our children, or taught them an incorrect way of relating to a marriage partner, help us model the right way so that they can observe it. Show us how to openly confess our errors to them and demonstrate our commitment to live differently.
Change our habits of indifference or busyness. May we not so take each other for granted that we don't make the effort to reach out and touch one another with affection. Help us not to weaken the marriage through neglect of this vital means of communication. I pray that we always "greet one another with a kiss of love" (1 Peter 5:14|). I know that only the transforming power of the Holy Spirit can make changes that last. I trust You to transform us and make us the husband and wife You called us to be.
Amen.
SCRIPTURES FOR MEDITATION
Philippians 2:1,2
Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
Ephesians 5:28,29
So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.
Philippians 2:4
Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
Song of Solomon 2:6
His left hand is under my head, And his right hand embraces me.
1 Corinthians 10:24
Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being.
#inspired...ann #WiseQuotes
*Stomie Omartian, The Power of a Praying Wife(2006)
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