Lesson 77

How Can I Grow Spiritually And Also Encourage My Husband?

What a wonderful blessing that God is living among us when we are followers of Him. As His children, we are asked to love Him and love others. In our marriages, we can grow spiritually by ourselves or we can build spiritual intimacy by working together. We connect with our husbands in many other ways, yet sharing spiritual matters can be an area where we find it hard to communicate. For example, Rebecca and her husband often prayed together. “In hindsight, I realized when my husband was struggling with sexual sin he didn’t initiate prayer as much. At these times, I was still suggesting prayer together. One of the things that helped us was to begin reading the Scriptures together every night. In recent months we have also begun praying a special bedtime prayer each night. We are connecting better on spiritual matters.”

Rebecca noticed that at times in her own personal prayer time she seemed uneasy. She felt like the Lord was asking her to resolve some issue with her husband so that she would have unhindered prayer. “I was puzzled about this until one day I read Matthew 5:24: “… leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.” Occasionally, I felt like the Holy Spirit was ‘interrupting’ my prayer and telling me to go to my husband and be reconciled. Both of us have found confessing our sins to each other before the Lord to be painful but very healing. I am convinced the Lord has been protecting our marriage in many ways, one of which is encouraging us to confess to each other our sins, seek forgiveness, and pray together, even in the midst of a disagreement.”