A prayer for marriage
This at last is bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh. Genesis 2:22
Read Ephesians 5:21—33
In the next few moments I am going to engage in prayer for a marriage, the one closest to me. That will be my own if I am married. Or of my dear ones. And it will surely be that it is Christlikeness that I will be praying for. That the one will be to the other as Christ is. If one leads at one level, that that one will lead like Christ — self-giving out of passionate love. If one serves at one level, that that one will serve like Christ — assuming the need of the other as my own to meet. And I’ll pray for a holiness in this, a joyful set-apartness that treasures and values and cherishes and rejoices in the other. That worships the other. And because there are in some marriages terrible erected obstacles to overcome, inherited or long-developed fences and offences, insult, dismissive neglect, where this is so I will need to wait on God as to how to pray for his grace and wisdom.
Loving Father, I honour you. You have made us male and female. You have given the gift of marriage to be such a central human joy that it is the picture of your completed salvation. Yet every marriage I know would in some way fall short of that great glory. I hold before you the marriage I know best for the blessing of this couple. Be in their life together. Be between them in the way that is best for them. May they, ultimately, taste together the throwaway joy that you have told us awaits in your kingdom. May they taste that in their marriage.