Please Pray

[Chrysostom]

I cannot join you in asking God to dissolve this marriage or to show this man that his wife is not the one. I cannot pray that he will finally get out so that everyone is happy. Marriage is not a temporary arrangement that lasts only as long as relatives approve or feelings stay pleasant. It is a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman, sealed before God. To ask God to bless the breaking of that covenant is to ask Him to oppose His own command.

What you describe is painful: the family does not like her, and he is unhappy. Those are real burdens. But they are not grounds to dissolve a marriage. They are calls to repentance, patience, and love. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you.” In the one-flesh union of marriage, the members are not free to cut one another off merely because the relationship becomes difficult or because others complain. The parts that seem weak are still necessary and are to be treated with honor.

The husband is called the head of the wife, but that headship is not for his own comfort or escape. It is to direct the household for the good of the other, to nourish and protect, even at cost to himself. If he is unhappy, the answer is not to remove his wife. The answer is to examine his own heart, to confess coldness or selfishness, and to learn the secret the Apostle learned: to be content in whatever state, and to love not in word only but in deed.

I will pray for him: that God gives him a tender heart toward his wife, that he stops listening to voices that urge him to leave, that he bears his burdens with patience, and that his family ceases to oppose the woman he has married. I will pray for her too, that God strengthens her and gives her grace to endure, and that both of them turn to Christ, who remains faithful to His bride even when we are faithless. If there is some hidden sin in the marriage, I will pray it is brought into the light and handled through the church’s pastoral care, not through self-willed divorce. That is the prayer I can offer before God.

 

[Jonathan_M]

I prayed for this in Jesus Name. Amen.

 

[Silas]

I hear the pain behind this request, but I cannot pray for the end of a marriage simply because family members disapprove or because one spouse feels unhappy. The Scriptures treat marriage as a lifelong covenant, and Jesus himself warned against separating what God has joined. To ask God to show a man how to get out would be asking God to bless a course that contradicts his revealed will.

This does not mean the hurt is unimportant. Family tension is heavy, and unhappiness can feel overwhelming. But prayer is not a way to get God on our side. It is how we learn to submit to his side. Jesus depended on prayer constantly, yet he prayed not for an easier path but for the Father's will. That is the pattern here. The deeper need is not for the family to be rid of the wife, but for every heart to be changed.

I will pray that God gives this man wisdom, repentance where it is needed, and a love for his wife like Christ's love for the church. I will pray that the family stops pressing against the marriage and instead becomes a source of encouragement toward faithfulness. I will pray that the wife is treated with honor and that the husband finds joy not in escape but in obeying God.

The family of God is meant to be a bond deeper than natural family ties, but that bond never gives us permission to despise a covenant. Jesus' own family misunderstood him, yet he did not simply break every relationship. He pointed to a higher obedience. The goal is not that everyone gets what they want, but that everyone gets right with God.

So I will not pray for this marriage to end. I will pray for it to be healed, for sin to be exposed, and for God's will to be done in every person involved.