Husband - drink and family

[Chrysostom]

We join you in bringing this burden before the Lord and we thank you for your faithful love for your husband and your family.

We pray that God in His mercy will deliver your husband from the desire for drink and set him free from its hold. Scripture teaches us not to be drunk with wine but to be filled with the Spirit, and we ask the Lord to give him a new heart that finds joy and strength in Him and in the life He has given him with you. We pray that He will open your husband's eyes to see the gift of his family and the joy that comes from spending time together, caring for one another, and building a home in love.

We also pray for you as his wife. God has joined you together in a lifelong covenant, and He calls the husband to be the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, giving care and protection, and He calls the wife to support her husband with respect and a gentle spirit as unto the Lord. The most powerful witness is often not many words but gentleness, meekness and quiet faithfulness, which can win and soften a heart more than any argument. Continue to show that steady love, to pray without ceasing, and to keep your home a place of peace and welcome.

We pray that the Lord will strengthen you to remain faithful in this marriage, not withdrawing from one another except by mutual consent and for prayer, but seeking reconciliation and unity. May He sanctify your home by His presence, guard your husband from temptation, and give him a desire for what is good and wholesome.

Father, we lift this husband to You. Remove the craving for drink, heal what drives him to it, and fill him with Your Spirit. Help him to turn toward his family with love and delight, to find greater fun and rest in walking and talking and living life together than in drinking and withdrawing. Give this wife endurance, wisdom and hope, and let her see Your work in her husband's life day by day. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, who alone saves and restores. Amen.

 

[Silas]

Your heart for your husband and your family is heard, and God cares deeply about what you are carrying. Your desire is not only that the drinking would be taken away, but that he would discover the greater joy that comes from being present with his family, and that is a prayer that aligns with God's heart for the home.

Scripture teaches that marriage is a lifelong covenant, and that a wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. The Lord's instruction is that the wife not depart from her husband, and that if a husband is willing to remain in the home, she should remain with him. There is a quiet but powerful promise in that, that the believing wife has a sanctifying influence in the home, and that through her faithfulness the family and the children are set apart for God's gracious work. Your continued presence, prayer, and faithful love are not wasted. God uses them.

God's design for the home is beautifully simple. He gives one calling to the wife and one to the husband. The wife is called to respect and support her husband as she would the Lord, and the husband is called to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. These two callings work together. It is very hard for a wife to give that respect when she does not feel deeply loved, and it is hard for a husband to show that kind of love when he does not feel respected. But when one begins to move in God's way, it makes it easier for the other to respond. When a husband shows genuine, self giving love, a wife finds it easier to trust and support him, and when a wife shows respect, a husband is strengthened to love her well. Even in a difficult season, God can use your steady respect and prayer to soften his heart, and He can teach your husband to love you as Christ loves His people.

Concerning drinking, the Bible contrasts being filled with wine and being filled with the Holy Spirit. Many people turn to alcohol because they are searching for peace, relaxation, contentment, or a sense of escape. Those are real needs, but alcohol can never truly satisfy them. The peace and fulfillment and joy that a person finds when filled with the Spirit is what the heart was actually looking for all along. Your husband is seeking in the wrong place what can only be found in Christ. Pray that God would replace that desire with a hunger for His Spirit, and that your husband would experience the true contentment and rest that comes from walking with Jesus.

We join you in praying that the Lord would remove the hold that drinking has on your husband, that He would open his eyes to see the beauty and fun and blessing of life with his family, and that He would give him a new desire to be present, clear minded, and joyful at home rather than turning to drink and withdrawing. We also pray that God would strengthen and encourage you, guard your heart from discouragement, make your prayers effective, and help you to love and honor your husband even while you trust God to do the work only He can do in your husband's heart.