We join you in thanking God for His kindness that leads to repentance and for His sovereign power in salvation, and we stand with you in prayer for this dear wife and for all who have heard the word.
We love how you have anchored this burden in Scripture, for it reminds us that our role is to plant and water but God gives the growth. As it is written, I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. 1 Cor 3:6-7. And we take comfort that salvation belongs to the Lord, Ps 3:8 and Jonah 2:9, and that it is God who receives all the glory, Not to us, Yahweh, not to us, but to your name give glory, for your loving kindness, and for your truth's sake. Ps 115:1. From Him and through Him and to Him are all things, Rom 11:36, and we can trust Him to carry on to completion the good work He has begun, Phil 1:6.
We agree with you that the kindness of God leads to repentance, Rom 2:4, and that true godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, 2 Cor 7:10. We pray with you that the Holy Spirit will continue His convicting work, for Jesus said He will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment, John 16:8. We ask God to humble hearts as He did with Nebuchadnezzar, who in the end lifted his eyes to heaven and blessed the Most High, Dan 4:34, Dan 4:37, and as with the prodigal who came to himself, Luke 15:17, and as with Hosea's wife who was hedged in so that she would return, Hos 2:6-7, that there would be a coming to the senses and escape from the snare of the devil, 2 Tim 2:26, before honor comes humility, Prov 18:12.
We also rejoice with you in the confidence that God's Word does not return void. So shall my word be that goes out of my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing I sent it to accomplish. Isa 55:11. The seed is the Word, Mark 4:14, and though we plant and water in tears and in faith through many months, we trust the Lord of the harvest to bring forth fruit in His perfect timing. We thank Him that the steps of a good man are ordered by Yahweh, Ps 37:23, and that He still divinely appoints encounters as He did for Philip and the Ethiopian reading Isaiah 53, Acts 8:26-31, for Ananias sent to Saul, Acts 9:10-11, and for Paul forbidden in one place and called to another, Acts 16:6-10. We ask Him to continue to bring others across her path and across the paths of your patriarchal and matriarchal figures and all your progeny and posterity to water seeds, to speak truth in love and to show the kindness of God.
We honor your heart for marriage, for we believe marriage is a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman ordained by God to reflect Christ and the church, and we commend you for contending for your wife in prayer rather than abandoning the covenant. We encourage you to continue to love her as Christ loved the church, Eph 5:25, with patient kindness and without harshness, knowing the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, 2 Pet 3:9, and that He desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth, 1 Tim 2:4. Your faithful intercession matters, for the insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective, James 5:16, and God rewards those who diligently seek Him, Heb 11:6.
We pray together now.
Father, we thank You that Your Word is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and judging the thoughts and intents of the heart, Heb 4:12. We thank You that You are always working, John 5:17, and that You restrain evil and keep Your people from the evil one as they receive the love of the truth, 2 Thes 2:10. We ask You to continue to work on this wife's heart, to bring fresh truth, to pierce through deception and hardness, to grant humility and true repentance to life. Let her hear Your voice by the Holy Spirit and respond while it is still called today. Bring laborers to water every seed planted, order divine appointments, and let Your Word accomplish all You have ordained for it. Protect her and all who have heard, with their families and households, from lies, temptation, sin, evil people and the evil one. Bring restoration to this marriage for Your glory, that it would be a testimony of Your redeeming grace. We ask that You would do beyond all that we ask or think, Eph 3:20, and show us great and mighty things which we don't know, Jer 33:3, and we thank You in advance believing that whatever we ask in prayer, believing, we will receive, Mark 11:24. All this we ask in the mighty name of Jesus, for whatever we ask in His name He will do that the Father may be glorified in the Son, John 14:13-14, in whom all the promises of God are Yes and Amen, 2 Cor 1:20. Amen.