The Family That Prays Together

"I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you." Matthew 18:19

At my women's bible study last week the subject of praying together with your spouse came up, and I had such a huge load lifted off my shoulders so I decided to talk about it here today. How many of you pray with your spouse? I'm talking about the two of you sitting down together and spending serious time praying out loud together. If i'm honest here, my husband and I have only done that a handful of times, and usually it's about something to do with the kids. I have always felt guilty about that, but honestly neither of us are very comfortable praying out loud so it's something we just don't often do.

However we are always in agreement in our prayers together. We are always coming to each other with things we both need to pray about regarding our family. Big things, small things, health issues, finances, job situations, the kids friendships...everything. While we very rarely sit down and pray together, we are always in agreement in prayer for our family and situations surrounding us.

I do think there is something powerful about you and your spouse sitting down and praying together but lets just be honest here, you or your spouse may simply not be comfortable with that. This is not an area that you need to feel guilty about or make your spouse feel guilty about. If you are more comfortable with this issue but your spouse is not, do not put them down or make them feel bad! If it's a very important thing to you, pray about it and talk to them honestly about it but do not try to force or guilt them into it. That will not get good, healthy results.

I do believe that it is very important for you and your spouse to be in constant agreement in your prayers, but I also believe that you can be in agreement and pray separately. Talk regularly with each other about things you're both dealing with, things your children are dealing with, areas that you're struggling in individually and anything that you are personally praying about. Then commit to both pray about the issue until it is resolved. That verse in Matthew says "If two of you agree". It does not say you have to be praying together out loud in order for your prayer to be answered.

If you can make a habit of agreeing regularly in your prayers you are both still bringing God into your marriage and into your situation and I believe that is just as powerful as you both praying out loud together.