Daily Devotions
Family Prayer
Title: Family Prayer
Reading for September 13: Daniel 6-8
Weekly reading for September 9-15: 1 Timothy 1-6
I remember you in my prayers constantly night and day.
1 Timothy 1:3
In the 90's George Gallup discovered in his polling data that the divorce rate among those who professed to be "born again" Christians was as high or higher than the general population. He received a lot of heat for releasing these findings, but he stood behind them.
However, in 1997 he discovered that couples that consistently prayed together during the week greatly increased their chances of staying together. The divorce rate fell from 33% to one in 1,152!
"The family that prays together, stays together." Turns out there is a lot of truth to that old expression. Consider some reasons why this is true.
- Intercession binds hearts together. You can't earnestly pray for someone every day without caring for them. It makes you more willing to serve, to be patient, to forgive, to yield, and to sacrifice.
- Prayer recalibrates us. The tone and tenor of conversations will change. Take a couple that is fighting, put them in separate rooms and make them pray, and if they really do that they will come back with a completely different attitude (even confessing wrong).
- God moves to the center. The problems that plague marriage are many, but the core reason behind them all is the same: God is no longer present. Prayer invites God back in, and when God moves back into a marriage there is no longer any room for selfishness.
Father, we welcome you into our marriages. Help us see what a difference you can make when we keep you in the center.
