20 Inspiring Prayer Points for Marriage {& Free Printable}

I’ll admit it, I’m not always on top of praying for my marriage, but I do realize the importance of using God’s word in prayer to fight for my marriage and to pray for marriage in general. I also know that keeping a marriage intact when society doesn’t honor marriage takes guts and grit!

That’s why I’m writing this post of prayer points for marriage…to help us all focus on exactly what we should be praying for when it comes to our marriages and hopefully be more active in this area of our prayer lives.

Contents

Praying for Marriage is Important!

Satan knows that strong families tend to work for God’s Kingdom and, therefore, against his own. For this reason, our enemy is looking to destroy every strong marriage and family he can find.

This is why, in any marriage, prayer is of the utmost importance. Prayer is one of the most effective weapons we have with which to fight in the spiritual battles going on around us all the time! So let’s use it to fight for our marriages!

These prayer points on marriage from God’s word can help us know specific things we should pray for our marriage to come in line with God’s perfect vision of marriage, which reflects Jesus’ covenant relationship with the church.

And when our marriages are in line with God’s vision, they are so strong that not even our crafty adversary, Satan, stands a chance at tearing them down!

Use these points to put together prayers for marriage customized for your specific situation and family!

Marriage Prayer Points: Loving and Respecting One Another

A strong marriage is centered on love and respect and mirrors the relationship between our Savior and the church.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
Ephesians 5:25, 33 (NIV)

Without love and respect, a marriage relationship feels more like a roommate relationship; living separate lives in close proximity.

Luckily, husbands, when it comes to knowing how to love like Jesus, the “love verse,” 1 Corinthians 13, tells us exactly what to work on! I love how God never leaves us in the dark about what He wants from us!

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV)

Now, wives. According to TheBlueLetterBible.com, “respect” means “to reverence, venerate, to treat with deference or reverential obedience.” This means wives ought to regard their husbands as worthy of great honor and voluntarily submit to them.

For more love and respect in your marriage, pray that…

>>> you would love one another so fiercely that you would be willing to lay down your very lives for each other.
>>> your love would more closely resemble a 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love, full of patience, kindness, faith, hope, and endurance.
>>> you (wife) would be able to respect your husband with an attitude of reverential obedience.
>>> you (husband) would be able to love your wife the way she needs to be loved. Ask the Lord to reveal to you the ways in which she needs you to love her if she isn’t able to articulate it to you.

Marriage Prayer Points: Honoring One Another

Honoring one another in our marriages looks like keeping the authority structure that God intended intact. God first, then husband, then wife (a reflection of God first, Jesus second, then church). Don’t get me wrong, the wife is not less important than the husband, but she is to submit to his authority as the church submits to the authority of Christ.

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”
Ephesians 5:22-24

The word “submit” here means “a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden.” It is the same word used to describe Jesus’s attitude of submission to God and the church’s attitude of submission to Jesus.

Happy couple cuddling on a bench in autumn.

Husbands honor their wives by respecting them as fellow heirs of the grace of God, as seen in 1 Peter 3:7. Husbands should work at understanding the (very, sometimes very, very) complicated nature of their wives. Maybe easier said than done, but necessary nonetheless. 😉

For more honor between you and your spouse, pray that…

>>> your marriage would be a reflection of Christ’s relationship with the church and be free from immorality of any kind.
>>> you would each be able to keep the hierarchy of a God-honoring marriage intact, with God at the head, then the husband, and then the wife.
>>> your (wife’s) spirit would be one of humility and grace and you would be willing to voluntarily cooperate with your husband as he leads the family.
>>> you (husband) would be able to see your wife as a fellow heir of the grace of God and you would seek God for wisdom and understanding as you go through life with your wife.

Marriage Prayer Points: Unity in Marriage

As marriage is a union ordained by God and reflects the relationship between Christ and the church, unity in marriage should not be taken lightly.

In my 20 years as a married woman, I have come to see disunity as one of the biggest marriage wreckers there is; therefore, I see this as one of the most important aspects of marriage to pray for.

“‘Haven’t you read,’ he replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator “made them male and female,” and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.'”
Matthew 19:5-6 (NIV)

It doesn’t get much more unified than “the two shall become one flesh.” This is actually talking about sex (which is super mega important in marriage), but “becoming one” can be applied to every issue a married couple faces. This command is repeated in Ephesians 5:31, and when something is repeated in the Bible, it usually means it important.

Then there’s the part about not letting man separate what God has joined together. “Man” here not only refers to those outside the marriage but also those inside it. Therefore, we ought to work for unity in our marriages.

Why? It’s clear that two people being unified has lots of benefits.

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (NIV)

For more unity in your marriage, pray that…

>>> you and your spouse would be willing to work towards unity in all things.
>>> you would be there for one another and back each other up as needed.
>>> both of you would be able to keep an eternal perspective and fight for unity in what’s important and agree to disagree on what’s not.
>>> you and your spouse would have a healthy sex life, and that sex would bring you together, not drive you apart.

Marriage Prayer Points: Be a Better Spouse

So many times our prayers for marriage focus on changing our spouse. I know mine used to! But one day, while I was complaining to God about my husband’s shortcomings, God said to me, “Worry about changing your own heart, and let me worry about changing his.” True story!

Ever since then, I’ve done my best to ask God to reveal to me what I can do to be a better wife instead of asking Him to change my husband.

Becoming a better spouse ultimately comes down to spending time with God and becoming more like Jesus. When we do these things, we automatically love others better!

“‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.'”
John 15:5

Wives, there are lots of proverbs about how awesome it is to have a Godly wife. These verses can help motivate us to continue to work on being excellent wives by allowing God to transform us more into His image every day.

Proverbs 12:4 says, “A worthy wife is a crown for her husband, but a disgraceful woman is like cancer in his bones.”

I don’t know about you, but I for sure want to be a crown for my husband, not like cancer in his bones! Yuck!

Marriage Prayer Points: Protection From Divorce

If you’ve been praying all of the prayer points for marriage in this post, then you’ve covered yourselves pretty well in the area of protection from divorce. But let’s take a closer look anyway…

It’s pretty clear how God feels about divorce…

“‘For I hate divorce!’ says the Lord, the God of Israel. To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty,’ says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. ‘So guard your heart; do not be unfaithful to your wife.'”
Malachi 2:16 (NLT)

Despite His strong feelings about divorce, God knows that when two sinful people enter into an agreement together, divorce is inevitable for some. Thankfully, the blood of Jesus covers us and makes all of our sins like they never happened, so if you have been divorced already, it’s okay! Ask for forgiveness and it will be yours!

That being said, couples who are still married need to do whatever is necessary to keep divorce from happening. Yes, people mess up. Yes, marriage can be difficult. But just because the Bible gives some reasons that divorce might be ok doesn’t mean that it should be the first action taken.

After all, as followers of Christ, we should have a desire to forgive and reconcile at all costs, as Christ forgives us.

To protect your marriage from divorce, pray that…

>>> your hearts would be guarded against the temptation to be unfaithful in thought, word, or deed.
>>> you both would have a desire for your marriage to remain intact.
>>> you and your spouse would be willing to fight for your marriage no matter what.
>>> the Lord would surround you with people who can support your marriage and build it up instead of the opposite.

Praying for Marriage Changes Things

Praying for marriage is one of the most important things we can do in this time of societal discord. If we slack off in this area, Satan is much more likely to gain a foothold in our families and break them apart.

Even though this sounds scary, we don’t have to worry! God has already won the victory! Let’s just make sure we are doing our part by keeping our marriages and spouses in our prayers every day. The sooner we get on top of this, the sooner we can all reap the rewards of healthy marriages and families and a stronger Kingdom of God.