Michael & Melissa Kruger: 5 Things to Pray for Your Spouse

So some listener wrote in the family life today okay to share their thoughts on our broadcast and he had a question because you and I and we were talking about praying together is America, while important it is and he said where in the Bible does it say that a husband and wife should pray together and what you say I said my wife will tell you so that you welcome to family life to day where we want to help you pursue relationships that matter most and Wilson Dave Wilson and you can find this if it we live today.com or on our family life. His family life today. I outweigh well that's pray without ceasing. There's a lot about prayer, but doesn't say anywhere that husband and wife should trade you know I don't know I just know we could get to really smart people live here today who I think can answer this question together laughing right out but Michael and Melissa Kruger are in the studio from North Carolina so welcome in Orlando.

Welcome to family life today. Thanks so much for God to be here and you do have written a book together about prayer. So I figure you get answer this question as I like to save the name of the book is five things to pray for your spouse prayers that change and strengthen your marriage so first I would like to start here, why write a prayer book together. That's a good question, and in this book is actually to help you pray for your spouse. Use it to play with your spouse, but I think we all know that we want to pray for our spouse, but sometimes we don't even know what to pray.

We get stuck in the same prayer will bless my husband what bless my husband yes let work that well today was Lord change my yeah I mean I think part of it is also also autobiographical mean you think people get the impression that willbetter than they do. And then the truth is we all struggle pray and so was and I look for a tool to help us think about a pray for each other with each other and there's many good tools out there, but we want to put something together that was more concrete particles for step-by-step can people plan to think about prayer and sometimes using double knowledge to get where you need to be tough to pray and so we've been using the book, and so on and also about humor selfish locally, so we wrote of ourselves and now we want to share with others and we hope the boss by prime is that something that is like a struggle for you to because in some sense you look your bio and your IQ, president of reformed theological seminary or an author. Both of your authors you written books your leaders in the Christian community here yet with the leader of one of the best seminaries in the world that I say that right in some ways people would think pastors are leaders. They don't struggle to pray special intermarriage like everybody else's expense on the easy for you sent me struggle with. I think for human just like everyone else and say taking the time to be still and just go before the Lord and ask the Lord to do what we cannot do such a discipline for everyone and I think sometimes when you are used to getting things done yourself you think you can even get things done in your marriage like 00 you pray about that.

I just need to fix him and fix me or we just need to have maybe a date night to talk about this or we just need to have a family summit to talk about this or whatever it might be and sometimes we forget the most basic thing to pray for one another faithfully over the long course of life and it's just a hard discipline and so what I love to do is to help make hard things a little easier and said this for me is really helpful and it's already been really providential because to be honest this is been, hard week for us and all the prayers that I was on for him this week where I'm from Psalm 121 on how the Lord is watching over him and that he will not let his foot stumble as he was praying this prayers that we had written months ago so you took some Asam that you wrote a prayer out of that yes, your spouse, yes, and it's you write it word for word. Yes that's right for every prayer in this book as a springboard from some Scripture passage is helping us combine Scripture which we know okay these are good things to pray for our spouse and then it gives us some words to make it. You know, applicable to our situation and just this week, they were the perfect words I needed to pray.

All I want to hear about this week is, it was hard week blocks are just so busy and complicated, and there's a variety of things. It can in leadership struggles with. But, but we just love having a per tool this week and really anyway just to turn to when we need it and we love the structural focus on what is most was saying this expositional prayers.

Yeah, no was wanting to just write your prayers were trying to use Scripture is the God and so each time you pray in our book we give you a positive Scripture and then we break it in the five things about your spouse. You can pray for based on a positive Scripture, not just the title of the book. Five things to price the roles control based prayers, and that we love.key people in the word is much as gives an impression of the bond said he ever got to this point because this happened to us. I hope you already. We try to pay before we go to sleep at night and I love that we started our marriage doing that, but then we got in this pattern because were so busy were exhausted with kids, our lives are stressful and date of sleep before I do, and so he fell asleep. And because we can pray and so then I may feel these I turned everything in my next that was. I see how important prayer is he supposed to lead spiritually. Come on David, and so I would even pray because I thought his job was so convicted I thought who wins in that situation. Nobody Satan one because he's the one that would love us to not pray for our spouse and so I remember I just started if they fell asleep. I just put my hand on his shoulder and I just pray for and thanking God for them out loud talk to women that get resentful if their husbands are leading the way. Absolutely resonated with everything you said. I think we sometimes wrongly think of her husband that he spits to lead in every way spiritually right rather than viewing our marriage as a really blessed union of two people bringing their gifts to the table and so I sometimes I think wrongly early in our marriage would put all of the spiritual lump on his forgetting that God has created his body. He's given me spiritual gifts he's given him spiritual gifts and I like to do some things that are very daily. Organizationally select I have actually written the prayer cards for our family for how we pray each morning to get our family for years I would've just been sitting around mad.

He wasn't doing it and you do it because that your gift that's right you, not me taking charge and helping our family and serving in the ways God has gifted me and I think if you're a woman he's kind of feeling that maybe just saying.

Maybe this is what got gifted me to do versus always expecting them to do every part of the spiritual leadership claim, and what I came to realize if God put it on my heart and don't be resentful.

Michael is a good thing for your merchantmen did you like that Melissa's doing out or was it like oh no it's it's wonderful mean and she's right in earlier years.

I think we had this roof overly rigid view of roles in such a way that we week we knew the husband should should be the leader, head of the home was that was fine and true course we still believe that but I think we got a very simplistic version of what that meant. That meant that every spiritual activity I had to initiate start finish and sort of Ron and she just sort of patiently sat waiting for me to do it all home and then and then what it didn't happen. Obviously she was a well, you're just dropping the ball here and am a lot older like, and so I think we just begin to sort of realize what a second marriage is more dynamic than that it's it's not so simplistic as and she's right about what you do.

So sometimes it's fine just a pray for your spouse to find a initiate by putting cars goes, I lets do this every morning and I think that also just releases the pressure little bit small for like it's all one person inside.

I been so blessed to murder because she is just gracious and aware of these things and then good for her, not waiting on me because we promise to learn to be married to someone actually in the ministry. They bear that pressure everywhere and they walk into all the time, everywhere you go to the family dinner guest to praise him every single room. They walk and they have expectations within the home.

I can help in any way one when I want to help you because I do really feel for for men in ministry because they're leading everywhere so it's nice for him to be a place where we can come together and just to serve one another in love versus me having all these unrealistic expectations for him back to the prayer cards talk about those. What are those, yeah, I actually love these.

We it's it's been the way to help our family.

Pray together so we meet everyone at the kitchen table, sometimes barely this is every morning yeah yeah teenagers, we do well realized early on with care anyways. Kids do not know what's happening in any other home than yours. The other families let you get up in person like they really never complained about it down the table and each each day. We pray for a different member of the family so nice just to say hey John, how can we pray for you today and somehow you get here things that were quite on and so you get to hear that and we pray for a leader in our lives that could be our pastors at church could be the school principals. It could be our bosses to be the government yeah are things that the Bible tells us to pray for.

We pray for a missionary family that we support every morning and say this ways even teach them about prayer through doing and so it's just a simple way that we can check off all the people we've aligned, pray for, but the sometimes get overwhelmed is just a little bit each day