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Renee Swope

Encouraging and equipping moms to parent with God's grace and confidence.

Praying for my husband – from head to toe

Did you hear about my issue? That secret struggle I had for so long when it came respecting my husband. I confessed it all in my P31 devotion today. As I shared, I haven’t always been so good at following and trusting my man”s lead. BUT God has done an amazing work in me – and in my marriage – over the past 18 years.

I know marriage can be hard, and trusting someone to lead when there are things you struggle with together is really, really hard. But I also know God uses us in powerful ways to love our men like He does – unconditionally.

One of the best ways we can love our husbands is to pray for them. Praying for JJ has shown me all that he carried on his shoulders – at work, at home, at church, with our kids, etc. It’s also really helped me follow his lead.  It assures me that he’s covered spiritually when I invite God to do His thing in JJ’s life.

Of course, it’s up to our husbands to respond to God’s work in their hearts but our part is not based on our husband’s response to God. It’s based on our surrendering and seeking God’s heart for our husbands – and trusting God to lead from there.

JJ has also told me that prayer is the best gift I can give him. Years ago I heard a concept about praying for our husbands – from head to toe.  So, today I wanted to share some verses and prayers that fit with that concept:

Head
“Father, I ask that You would continually renew my husband’s mind, resulting in a transformed life. Help him bring every thought into captivity to Christ to make it obedient to You. Give him a greater understanding of Your Word. Help him to think on things that are pure and right and worthy of praise.” (Psalm 119:15, Rom 12:2, 2 Cor.10:5)

Eyes
“Lord, keep opening my husband’s eyes to deep spiritual truths. Help him to see things as You see them. Please guard his eyes from looking at worthless things. ” (Psalm 119:18, Psalm 119:37)

Ears
“Father, let my husband hear Your voice clearly. Help him to recognize your voice with certainty. Protect him from listening to anyone who is not seeking and walking with You. Help him not to be affected negatively by what others say and to discern between good and evil. Give him the ability to determine what is of You and what is not.” (Is 30:21, 1 Kings 3:9, 1 John 4:1)

Mouth
“Help my husband to speak the truth in love. Help him to be quick to listen and slow to speak. Give him the couraage to lovingly confront when necessary. Let the words he speaks be Yours, not his own. Help him speak words that bring grace and truth to the hearers. I also pray that you will help him to grow in his ability and desire to communicate with you and others.” (Psalm 19:14, 119:13, 41:3; Eph 4:15, 4:29; James 1:19)

Heart
“Give my husband a heart that seeks passionately after You. Teach him to guard his heart with diligence. Help him deal with anything in his heart that is not pleasing to You. Create in him a pure heart. Enable him to lead our family with integrity.” (Psalm 78:72, 119:10-11; Prov 4:23; 1  3:13)

Hands
“Lord, I pray that everything my husband does would be done with his whole heart, serving You rather than man. I pray that You will also help him to increase his skills and his abilities. Bless everything he puts his hands to.” (Psalm 24:3-4, Col 3:23)

Feet
I pray my husband would love Your Words and walk in Your ways. I pray He would be to walk in a manner that is worthy of You, bearing fruit in every good work. Jesus show him how to creatively share your truth with our kids as he does life with them each day. Father, when he walks through the valley of the shadow of doubt and difficulties, I pray he would fear no evil because He knows that you are with him. (Deut 6:7, 8:6, Col 1:10, Psalm 23:4)

I have seen prayer transform my marriage and my life. Whatever steps of faith God is calling you to take personally or with your husband, I want you to know that I am praying for you and your marriage today. We have an enemy set on destroying marriages and one of his tools is to pit husbands and wives against each other. I have experienced his efforts firsthand. What our husbands need most is our respect; what our marriages need most is prayer.

Let’s look for ways to build our husbands up – by giving them encouraging words and the gift of prayer – covering them from head to toe!

If you’d like a copy of my FREE Praying For Your Husband download to print with these prayers on it – click “Share Your Thoughts” and let me know.  We’ll be happy to email it to you – although your email will not show in your comment. This will be sent out next week after the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving!

 

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Thanks ~ I’m looking forward to staying connected! 

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Comments

  1. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G The devotion about respecting our husbands came at exactly the right time in my life – go figure! Thank you, Renee, for helping God get through to my stubborn heart. Thank you, thank you, thank you….

    Martha

  3. Renee, your devotion was straight to me from God. I've been trying to pray my marriage through some difficult times and it just keeps going down hill. Please pray for me as I try to let my husband lead – but also pray that he will step it up and lead our family as a Godly man…something he has not been doing for some time now, if ever.

  4. Thank you, Renee, for the reminder of how important prayer is in a marriage–and how crucial it is that we pray for our husbands. It's not easy to make decisions that affect the well being of other people and carrying the responsibility of looking after a family.

    We mothers know that responsibility but often forget that our husbands feel that responsibility too in other ways.

  5. thank you so much for your beautiful prayers. I asked God to show me what is wrong with my marriage. God is so good! He has brought several issues to the surface. One being my own behavior. I need to be a prayerful wife, agreeing with God and praying for my husband.
    Your words are perfect! Praise God for the timing of your message, and for your generous sharing spirit.
    Blessings to you as you go forth on your journey of adopting lil' Aster!

    prayers,
    a sister in Christ

  6. Wow… It was great to get this devotional this week. I am at odds with it because of my situation at home. I actually wrote to look at "my husband as the head of our house hold as I look to God as the head of the church" This has been a really hard promise to keep with all that we have experienced in the past five years. Believe it or not… but he actually made a copy of my vows and place it on my side of the bed to remind me what i had promised and what I am trully lacking of doing. I trlly feel convicted by this devotional… for I know how much truth it trully has. Please keep me in your prayers that I will do what is right instead of doing what my flesh wants me to do.

  7. Renee, I'm passing along the "One Lovely Blog Award" to you for your incredibly inspiring blog! your words have ministered to me many, many times.

    To accept the award, post it on your blog, along with the name of the person who has granted the award, and the blog link. Then, pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

    Hopefully this will introduce people to some fabulous blogs that are out there!

    🙂 Michelle

  8. Hi Renee!

    I just read your devo this morning. I wish I could say that it totally didn't apply to me. 🙂

    I, too, have been married for nearly 16 years. And we have been through a lot. I've swung from one end to the other on the pendulum of "pray, encourage, support, submit–criticize, withdraw, take over, disrespect"

    In your devo, I saw that I'm on the wrong end of the spectrum right now. I hate to even admit or write that, but it's true.

    So there it is in writing, on the internet for all to see. I suppose it's time for me to do something about it, eh?

    Love you and your ministry. Blessings to you today, friend.

    Sandy

  9. Thank you very much Ms. Renee for the wonderful and encouraging message. Really touch my heart. It will help me to love my husband more as per God's will. I will apply ur suggestions in my practical life. Please pray for me to be successful in that so that I can live a victorious life and serve Lord as a family. Let my children see our life a living model for them. Thank you so much. MAY GOD HELP AND ENCOURAGE YOU TO BE A POWERFUL WARRIOR FOR GOD'S MINISTRY SO THAT MANY CAN ENCOURAGE BY YOU.

  10. Renee,
    I have never before realized that it's not my problem whether my husband is obedient to God, I am only responsible for my own surrender to my husband. Wow, thanks for pointing that out! It's hard enough to surrender, let alone try to control my husband's response to God! This could change our marriage!

  11. Renee, Thank you for this wonderful devotion. I have only been married for 8 years and continue to daily struggle with letting my husband lead. This devotion helped me realize that I need to really step back, look at how I am treating my hubby and start honoring God's word on how I SHOULD be treating him! Thank you again (and I am sure my husband would thank you too!)
    Paula 🙂

  12. Hi Renee, I just have to thank you for your article and the prayers – it has come at a challenging time in my marriage!! I thank God for directing me to your blog site and "speaking" to me through your blog. May God continue to bless you as you bless others!! Justine

  13. Thank you! I identify with the anonymous comment about how family doesn't understand my submissiveness to my husband. We had a rocky marriage for several years, but now have really found each other. We will celebrate 19 years in July. Thank you Lord!

  14. Hey Renee
    Thanks for your inspiring message.Indeed its an answer to my prayer for my 3 years old marriage.I have been blessed by your testimony and may God bless you for your ministry which am sure will touch so many women out there struggling in their marriages.
    I am was also touched by your adoption outreach ministry in Africa where I am originally from.I intend to start blogging too so as to share my testimony and encourage other women as my personal calling in ministry while God transforms my marriage too coz I believe if God did it for you He can do it for me too.I would love to meet you.God bless you.

  15. Thanks for your devo on husbands. It was very timely and the Lord used it to answer a question I asked HIM. I felt the Lord leading me to "be quiet" with my husband & I didnt understand. He used your devo and blog to answer. Thanks a bunch.
    Blessings in Christ–
    Shonda

  16. Renee,

    I'm so greatful for your heart to follow the Lord in your prayer ministry for him. My husband is trying to become a professional pga tour golfer and my ministry currently is to pray, work to provide for our family and to constantly uplift him and point him to the Lord's victory as he competes.
    I'm the strong personality, typically a natural born leader, so this has been hard for me, but is what God called us to.

    I'm so glad to know you're all out there doing the same; uplifting your husbands in prayer!

  19. Loved it Renee. Everytime I read something from you, I feel like I'm looking in the mirror…I can so relate!
    Thanks!!
    Alyce

Building Our Husbands Up Through Prayer

Welcome to those of you visiting from the Proverbs 31 Devotion today.As I shared in my devotion, I haven’t always been so good at following and trusting my husband’s lead. But over the past 15 years, God has done a work in me and in JJ. I know marriage can be hard and trusting someone to lead when there are things you struggle with together is really, really hard. But I also know God uses us in powerful ways to love our husbands like He does – unconditionally. One of the best ways we can love our husbands is to pray for them. Praying for JJ has truly helped me follow his lead. This way I know He’s covered spiritually as I invite God to do an amazing work in JJ’s life. Of course, JJ has to respond to God’s work in his heart, but my part is not based on JJ’s response to God. It’s based on my surrendering and seeking God’s heart for my husband.JJ tells me prayer is the best gift I can give him. Here are some verses I pray for my husband that maybe you can gift to your husband, too! Head
“Father, continually renew my husband’s mind, resulting in a transformed life. Help him bring every thought into captivity to make it obedient to Christ. Give him a greater understanding of Your Word. Help him to think on things that are pure and right and worthy of praise.” (Psalm 119:15, Romans. 12:2, 2 Cor.10:5)Eyes
“Lord, keep opening my husband’s eyes to deep spiritual truths. Help him to see things as You see them. Please guard his eyes from looking at worthless things. ” (Psalm 119:18, Psalm 119:37)Ears
“Father, let my husband hear Your voice clearly. Help him to recognize your voice with certainty. Protect him from listening to anyone who is not seeking and walking with You. Help him not to be affected negatively by what others say and to discern between good and evil. Give him the ability to determine what is of You and what is not.” (Isaiah. 30:21, 1 Kings 3:9, 1 John 4:1)Mouth
“Help my husband to speak the truth in love. Help him to be quick to listen and slow to speak. Give him the couraage to lovingly confront when necessary. Let the words he speaks be Yours, not his own. Help him speak words that bring grace and truth to the hearers. I also pray that you will help him to grow in his ability and desire to communicate with you and others.” (Psalm 19:14, 119:13, 41:3; Ephesians 4:15, 4:29; James 1:19)Heart
“Give my husband a heart that seeks pasisonately after You. Teach him to guard his heart with diligence. Help him deal with anything in his heart that is not pleasing to You. Create in him a pure heart. Enable him to lead our family with integrity.” (Psalm 78:72, 119:10-11; Proverbs. 4:23; 1 Thessalonians. 3:13)Hands
“Lord, I pray that everything my husband does would be done with his whole heart, serving You rather than man. I pray that You will also help him to increase his skills and his abilities. Bless everything he puts his hands to.” (Psalm 24:3-4, Colossians 3:23)
Feet
I pray that my husband would love Your Words and walk in Your ways. I pray that He would be to walk in a manner that is worthy of You, bearing fruit in every good work, and that He would pass Your truths to our children as he walks along life’s path. Father, when he walk through the valley of the shadow of doubt and difficulties, I pray that he would fear no evil because He knows that you are with him. (Deuternonomy 6:7, 8:6, Collosians 1:10, Psalm 23:4) I have seen prayer transform my marriage and my life. Just this week I watched the power of prayer as our family takes some big steps of faith, following my husband’s lead into the wonderful world of adoption. Adoption is our family’s calling but what many people don’t know is that my husband is the one who initiated our “following” God to Africa to get a little girl. JJ is leading us each step of the way. (To read more scroll down to Monday and Wednesday’s posts. You can also click here to read how our adoption story started in October 2007.)Whatever steps of faith God is calling you to take personally or with your husband, I want you to know that I am praying for you and your marriage today. We have an enemy set on destroying marriages and one of his tools is to pit husbands and wives against each other. I have experienced his efforts firsthand. What our husbands need most is our respect; what our marriages need most is prayer.Let’s look for ways to build our husbands up with our words and with prayer, covering them from head to toe! Sweet blessings,
 

Discover more from Renee Swope

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Comments

  1. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G The devotion about respecting our husbands came at exactly the right time in my life – go figure! Thank you, Renee, for helping God get through to my stubborn heart. Thank you, thank you, thank you….

    Martha

  2. I was very blessed by this post! I shared it with all my Christian friends!! God can do amazing things through prayer!! Thank you!!! Allyson

  3. Renee, your devotion was straight to me from God. I've been trying to pray my marriage through some difficult times and it just keeps going down hill. Please pray for me as I try to let my husband lead – but also pray that he will step it up and lead our family as a Godly man…something he has not been doing for some time now, if ever.

  4. Thank you, Renee, for the reminder of how important prayer is in a marriage–and how crucial it is that we pray for our husbands. It's not easy to make decisions that affect the well being of other people and carrying the responsibility of looking after a family.

    We mothers know that responsibility but often forget that our husbands feel that responsibility too in other ways.

  5. thank you so much for your beautiful prayers. I asked God to show me what is wrong with my marriage. God is so good! He has brought several issues to the surface. One being my own behavior. I need to be a prayerful wife, agreeing with God and praying for my husband.
    Your words are perfect! Praise God for the timing of your message, and for your generous sharing spirit.
    Blessings to you as you go forth on your journey of adopting lil' Aster!

    prayers,
    a sister in Christ

  6. Wow… It was great to get this devotional this week. I am at odds with it because of my situation at home. I actually wrote to look at "my husband as the head of our house hold as I look to God as the head of the church" This has been a really hard promise to keep with all that we have experienced in the past five years. Believe it or not… but he actually made a copy of my vows and place it on my side of the bed to remind me what i had promised and what I am trully lacking of doing. I trlly feel convicted by this devotional… for I know how much truth it trully has. Please keep me in your prayers that I will do what is right instead of doing what my flesh wants me to do.

  7. Renee, I'm passing along the "One Lovely Blog Award" to you for your incredibly inspiring blog! your words have ministered to me many, many times.

    To accept the award, post it on your blog, along with the name of the person who has granted the award, and the blog link. Then, pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

    Hopefully this will introduce people to some fabulous blogs that are out there!

    🙂 Michelle

  8. Hi Renee!

    I just read your devo this morning. I wish I could say that it totally didn't apply to me. 🙂

    I, too, have been married for nearly 16 years. And we have been through a lot. I've swung from one end to the other on the pendulum of "pray, encourage, support, submit–criticize, withdraw, take over, disrespect"

    In your devo, I saw that I'm on the wrong end of the spectrum right now. I hate to even admit or write that, but it's true.

    So there it is in writing, on the internet for all to see. I suppose it's time for me to do something about it, eh?

    Love you and your ministry. Blessings to you today, friend.

    Sandy

  9. Thank you very much Ms. Renee for the wonderful and encouraging message. Really touch my heart. It will help me to love my husband more as per God's will. I will apply ur suggestions in my practical life. Please pray for me to be successful in that so that I can live a victorious life and serve Lord as a family. Let my children see our life a living model for them. Thank you so much. MAY GOD HELP AND ENCOURAGE YOU TO BE A POWERFUL WARRIOR FOR GOD'S MINISTRY SO THAT MANY CAN ENCOURAGE BY YOU.

  10. Renee,
    I have never before realized that it's not my problem whether my husband is obedient to God, I am only responsible for my own surrender to my husband. Wow, thanks for pointing that out! It's hard enough to surrender, let alone try to control my husband's response to God! This could change our marriage!

  11. Renee, Thank you for this wonderful devotion. I have only been married for 8 years and continue to daily struggle with letting my husband lead. This devotion helped me realize that I need to really step back, look at how I am treating my hubby and start honoring God's word on how I SHOULD be treating him! Thank you again (and I am sure my husband would thank you too!)
    Paula 🙂

  12. Hi Renee, I just have to thank you for your article and the prayers – it has come at a challenging time in my marriage!! I thank God for directing me to your blog site and "speaking" to me through your blog. May God continue to bless you as you bless others!! Justine

  13. Thank you! I identify with the anonymous comment about how family doesn't understand my submissiveness to my husband. We had a rocky marriage for several years, but now have really found each other. We will celebrate 19 years in July. Thank you Lord!

  14. Hey Renee
    Thanks for your inspiring message.Indeed its an answer to my prayer for my 3 years old marriage.I have been blessed by your testimony and may God bless you for your ministry which am sure will touch so many women out there struggling in their marriages.
    I am was also touched by your adoption outreach ministry in Africa where I am originally from.I intend to start blogging too so as to share my testimony and encourage other women as my personal calling in ministry while God transforms my marriage too coz I believe if God did it for you He can do it for me too.I would love to meet you.God bless you.

  15. Thanks for your devo on husbands. It was very timely and the Lord used it to answer a question I asked HIM. I felt the Lord leading me to "be quiet" with my husband & I didnt understand. He used your devo and blog to answer. Thanks a bunch.
    Blessings in Christ–
    Shonda

  16. Renee,

    I'm so greatful for your heart to follow the Lord in your prayer ministry for him. My husband is trying to become a professional pga tour golfer and my ministry currently is to pray, work to provide for our family and to constantly uplift him and point him to the Lord's victory as he competes.
    I'm the strong personality, typically a natural born leader, so this has been hard for me, but is what God called us to.

    I'm so glad to know you're all out there doing the same; uplifting your husbands in prayer!

  17. Ouch! What good reminders, Renee. Thanks for being so transparent and sharing your heart. I really struggle with this issue and this was just the punch in the arm I needed. ~ Bethany L.

  19. Loved it Renee. Everytime I read something from you, I feel like I'm looking in the mirror…I can so relate!
    Thanks!!
    Alyce

  20. Thank you for your precious gentle reminder Renee!

    God Bless You!