Marriage is beautiful. God gave it to us as a gift and it is also a way for us to have a taste of the love that Jesus has for the church. For this reason, the success of a marriage is a very intimate matter not only to the people involved but also to God.
If you have found yourself in a position where your marriage is falling apart, I want you to know that God desires to see your marriage thriving. Before you start praying, know that God is eagerly waiting for your prayer to answer it and save your marriage.
Before I get into telling you how to pray for your marriage that is falling apart, let me give you some important background knowledge.
We are human beings and we make errors every so often. God understands this and He comes to our rescue anytime we humble ourselves and call on Him.
Before a marriage starts falling apart, there are mistakes that happen whether knowingly or unknowingly that lead the marriage to the rocks.
The good thing is that most of the mistakes that lead marriages to the rocks are easily reversible and God is usually very willing to help us reverse them.
The challenging part of saving a marriage that is falling apart is usually the level of understanding of the people involved. If they have good understanding, they will easily save their marriage but if there is a lack of understanding, it often leads to a difficult situation.
Another important thing to remember is that one person can save a failing marriage. It is easier to save a failing marriage when both partners are involved but one partner can still save a failing marriage. God made it this way so that marriage can have a good chance of success given the troublesome history of human beings.
I’m assuming you are the wife in the marriage you want to save but if you are the husband, don’t worry; it makes no difference. It is just that in most cases it is the wife who strives to save a marriage when it is falling apart. Also, a failing marriage is often the problem of the husband rather than the wife because the husband is the leader and the wife a companion.
Where do you start praying for a failing marriage?
To save a failing marriage in prayer, you need to start by asking God to reveal to you the cause of the failing marriage. There is a wide range of causes that can make a marriage fail but they fall in one of the following categories:
1. Marriages failing because of disobedience to God
Some marriages fail because the people in the marriage failed to heed to the commands that God gave concerning marriages. These commands include things like how to maintain the marriage covenant, the boundaries of marriage practices etc.
If a marriage abandons the holy ways of the Lord and conforms to the ways of the world, it will start falling apart. The more a marriage drifts from the ways of the Lord, the quicker it falls apart.
There are so many evil practices that exist in the world especially when it comes to bed matters. Exploring unnatural relations with one another even if you are married is bound to cause the marriage to fall apart.
Another major area of disobedience happens with how the marriage was formed. Since marriage is a covenant, God requires that all marriages adhere to His standards of a covenant. If the marriage was established by breaching a number of covenant standards that God set, the marriage will fall apart.
The covenant standards are mostly purity laws and faithfulness issues.
Therefore, when you start praying for your failing marriage, ask God to reveal to you any form of disobedience you might be involved in as a couple. If there is any disobedience case to answer, God will reveal it to you and when you repent of it, the marriage will automatically be restored.
2. Marriage failing because of an attack from the enemy
Sometimes a marriage starts falling apart because the enemy has planted a seed of discord among you. The enemy doesn’t enjoy thriving marriages because thriving marriages affirm the truth of the love that Jesus has for the church.
Anyone who is in a thriving marriage will naturally feel so much love which makes them have a good relationship with God as well. Of course the enemy doesn’t want that.
When praying for a marriage that is falling apart as a result of an attack from the enemy, ask God to show you the loophole the enemy is using to attack you.
The enemy uses the weaknesses in your marriage to drive a wedge between you. The easiest way to know the enemy is causing your marriage to fall apart is if you have a common issue that you disagree on and the disagreement is so bad that you can’t live together with it.
Some couples disagree on career choices, others on time spent together, others on where to stay, others on raising a family, others on communication issues etc.
No matter the cause of disagreement, the enemy capitalizes on the disagreement to make you angry at one another and kill the marriage.
If the cause of your disagreement is obvious, pray that God may bring you to an amicable resolution. The hard stands are often incited by the enemy because the enemy knows that as long as there are hard stands, war will break out.
When you ask God to bring a solution, God will soften both your hearts. When your hearts are softened, you will love one another deeply and the love will naturally make you want to please each other.
As a result, you will find yourself agreeing on an issue you once had a nasty disagreement about. Disagreements in marriage occur when the level of love between partners goes down although many people assume the disagreements occur based on the circumstances at hand.
3. Marriage failing due to the negligence of the partners
Sometimes a marriage starts falling apart because the partners have become negligent. Marriage requires discipline. No one enjoys sharing a house with a partner who is negligent. Sooner or later, the negligence will get on their nerves and war will break out.
If you had a routine that was working for your marriage but you abandoned it, you need to go back to it. If you as the wife was serving your husband food daily but stopped doing it because you had a baby, you need to go back to it. If you as the husband was buying your wife gifts but stopped when your finances took a hit, you need to go back to buying your wife gifts.
The thing with marriage is that it doesn’t care what circumstances have befallen an individual; if the high standards that existed are no longer heeded, the marriage will start falling apart.
In this case, you need to pray that God may provide a good environment for you to continue offering the good service you used to give to your partner. God understands that loving your partner requires you to be in a good state. When you ask God to put you in a good state, He will and you will find it easy again to love your partner.
Parting shot: How to pray for your marriage that is falling apart
The key to praying for a marriage that is falling apart is to ask God for understanding. When you understand why your marriage is falling apart, it becomes easy to know what to do. Once you know what to do, ask God to help you do it and your marriage will be saved.
All the best!