What Happens When Couples Pray Together?
For years, Jan and I have challenged couples to pray together daily. It’s something we have done for over 40 years together. It has been the backbone of our marriage, carrying us through some difficult times. To reinforce the power that couple’s experience when praying together, we often quoted from a l980’s study by Gallup that found less than 0.1% of couples who prayed together daily ever divorced!
Some years ago we published a book titled When Couples Pray Together, which is out of print, but available in the used book market. We encouraged couples to write us about their experiences of what happened when they prayed together. Here are some comments:
“Actually we have often prayed together before, but not on an everyday basis. But now we have committed to an everyday experience. I am surprised that it is my forgetful husband who reminds us to pray together every evening. I, who is usually the ‘secretary’ in our marriage, keep forgetting it. Maybe it am really true that it is the husband’s job to take the lead in the marriage regarding spiritual things. At least my husband seems to have developed that way, which is wonderful!”
”My husband and I began praying together during our engagement. We argued about who was to take the lead. Our backgrounds were so different–neither one of us was comfortable praying out-loud. We finally just had to get on with it. It was hard, and awkward, but we stuck with it.
“I have yearned for a marriage with spiritual intimacy. And praying together has enabled us to experience an incredible sense of intimacy. When we pray, I feel an indescribable tenderness toward my husband, and have been so blessed by his openness, honesty and generosity of spirit which he demonstrates in his prayers. I’ve often thought about how a couple can manage to be completely physically intimate with each other, and yet finding praying together to be so so hard.”
One reader wrote, “If I may apply a metaphor of the physical world to the spiritual realm, every force has an equal and opposite reaction. Given the almost overwhelming forces of resistance felt by any Christian couple in starting to pray together, an opposite reaction of equal force can only mean a mind-bogglingly powerful spiritual transformation!” Perhaps that’s why there will be only 4% of Christian couples actually praying together daily. Maybe that’s why the divorce rate isn’t really that different in Christian couples. It’s a challenge, but wow, what a difference it will make in your marriage.
Question: Are you as a couple one of the 4% who pray together daily?
It was hard praying with my spouse at first,it use to be just me and the children alone but when we went through serious hard times and he still saw me and the children still praying he now joined us. Today he leads the prayers and it has brought us togteher because even after a quarrel we will still face each other to pray so we have to put aside our differences and pray and it has helped to strengthen the marriage.