The following are quotes on prayer from various resources as it pertains to your marital relationship. We pray you will find them helpful for your spiritual relationship in your marriage.

Key for quote - business concept• The strength of a man and wife joined together in God’s sight is far greater than the sum of the strengths of each of the two individuals. That’s because the Holy Spirit unites them and gives added power to their prayers. (Stormie Omartian, The Power of a Praying Wife)

• If you pray for yourself and not for your husband, you’ll never find the blessings and fulfillment you want. What happens to him happens to you and you can’t get around it. (Stormie Omartian, The Power of a Praying Wife)

• Prayer is your declaration of Dependence. When you don’t pray it’s your declaration of independence. It’s your way of saying “I can do this without God. (Unknown)

• Prayer works like glue in a marriage. Prayer is like a window to the heart of your spouse. We are rarely phony in prayer. We rarely stay angry at someone when we listen in on their conversations with God. People reveal more about themselves in prayer than any other form of communication. They drop the excuses and masks. They open up and are vulnerable before God. Because prayer is intimacy with God, a natural by-product of praying together is intimacy with each other.

Even one person praying can impact a marriage. We were once on a television show with a country singing artist. He told of how his wife expressed her love to him when he was living far from God. She would wrap herself next to him in bed, stroke his chest or his back, and pray blessings aloud over him. At first, he said he was irritated because she knew he didn’t really believe in God. But then he began to see God answering some of the requests. Before long, he began to ask his wife to pray over certain areas of his life and responsibilities. He began to rely on her and those nightly prayers so much that if he was on the road, he’d call home for them. Even if she was sleepy and dozing off, he’d wake her up to pray over him! Finally, love broke through, and on one of those nights in bed, he prayed and asked Christ into his life. Now they pray together, asking God’s blessings over one another each night. (Bill and Pam Farrel, “Every Marriage is a Fixer-Upper”)

• Something amazing happens to our hearts when we pray for another person. The hardness melts. We become able to get beyond the hurts, and forgive. We even end up loving the person we’re praying for. It’s miraculous! It happens because when we pray we enter into the presence of God and He fills us with His Spirit of love. I’ve seen women with no feelings of love for their husbands find that as they prayed, over time, those feelings came. Sometimes they felt differently even after the first heartfelt prayer. (Stormie Omartian, The Power of a Praying Wife) But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. (Matthew 6:6 NKJ)

• Pray for your husband —not so much for your sake but for his that he won’t miss the blessing God has for him. (Cindy Wright)

• WIVES: Pray over your husband’s clothes, that God will protect him physically, mentally, and spiritually —protecting his heart, so it will be fully yielded to God’s ways of doing things. Pray over his shoes —that he will walk only in places that God has prepared for him ahead of time, and that God will instruct him and teach him in the way he should go. Pray over his shampoo and comb that he will continually work to guard his mind against any evil that will try to invade his thoughts. Pray over his food that he will develop a deep hunger for reading God’s word and live out the principles in his every day life. Pray over their beverage glass —that God will cause them to thirst for God’s righteousness and will live his life as a man of integrity. Pray about his friendships —that he will develop strong relationships with other men who are godly. Whenever you see his wallet —pray that he will be a wise steward of your finances and all you possess, remembering that everything is entrusted to the both of you by God Himself.

• Pray for your marriage as you have never prayed before. Ask God to increase your affection toward your husband and to increase your husband’s affection toward you. Thank God for every good quality your husband has and for every sweet memory you have shared. Plead with God to deliver you from any unforgiveness or bitterness you still hold in your heart. Allow God to give you beauty for ashes. Invite Him to become the center of your life and the Lord of your marriage. (The Walk Out Woman, by Dr Steve Stephens and Alice Gray)

• HUSBANDS, you may want to pray this for your wife: Father in heaven, help me to be the man my wife needs me to be today. I know that I cannot meet her every need —only You can do that —but help me to always be caring and attentive toward her. Help me to be sensitive to her concerns and to provide for her as I ought. Enable me to listen to what she says, and to always be courteous and thoughtful toward her and encouraging to her in all her efforts. Help me always to be alert to protect her and defend her against harm or insult. Please give me the will and energy to share my heart and my thoughts with her, and to tell her the things that seem obvious and self-evident to me but may not be clear to her at all. Help me to be kind, appreciative, and fun to live with. Amen. (John Yates, How a Man Prays for His Family)

• PRAY OVER EACH OTHER. We pray together and then kiss after grace at each meal. We pray over each other quickly as we head out the door each morning. We call each other for prayer when we hit snags in our day. We pray over each other as we lie in bed before we nod off to slumber. Prayer is like duct tape. It will hold you together through anything. (Bill and Pam Farrel, Red Hot Monogamy)

• PRAY WALK TOGETHER: My brother and his wife walk four miles each morning to welcome the dawn. Before they started prayer walking, three active children, as well as community and church involvement, had them in “contestant mode.” Rather than working together, they were competing with one another over whose agenda would win out. The prayer walk became their place of connection. That connection deepened. To be around them now, you would think they were newlyweds. They kiss all the time, hang on each other, and love to retire to bed early. I believe the result of all those early morning prayer walks created an incredible connection. (Bill and Pam Farrel, Red Hot Monogamy)

• The shortest distance between a problem and a solution is the distance between your knees and the floor. The one who kneels to the Lord can stand up to anything. (Unknown)

• Never underestimate the power of praying together. God is really is in the business of answering prayer. He can break through our stubborn spirits if we give Him the opportunity. I know it’s hard to invite Him in when a quarrel is in process, but if we will do it, He will surprise us with joy and forgiveness. (Jack and Carole Mayhall, Opposites Attack)