Praying for Your Marriage is Essential (Part 1 of 2)

Focus on the Family with Jim Daly

In this episode of Focus on the Family, hosts Jim Daly and John Fuller sit down with author Jodie Berndt to discuss her book, 'Praying the Scr

Key takeaways

A statistic from Jodie Berndt's book indicates that married couples who pray daily have less than a 1% divorce rate.
Praying the scriptures involves using biblical verses as active prompts for conversation with God rather than just reading them.
Spouses can use mundane tasks, such as loading a dishwasher, as 'triggers' to pause and pray for their partner.
Effective marriage conflict resolution focuses on being part of a 'team' rather than trying to 'win' an argument.
Personality differences, such as between extroverts and introverts, can be bridged through intentionality and prayerful support.

Main topics

Praying the Scriptures
Marital intimacy
Conflict resolution in marriage

Notable quotes

The challenge in marriage is learning to care for the stranger to a whom you find yourself married.

Conclusion

The episode offers practical, faith-based strategies for couples seeki

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) I'm going to time myself to see how long it takes me to load the dishwasher instead of being mad at John. And she went and she said it took her 13 seconds. And she said 13 seconds to put his dishes in the dishwasher. And she said now, instead of using those things as an annoyance, I look at them and I say, I have 13 seconds to do something for him. And not only that, I'm going to use those 13 seconds to pray for his day. So she uses that as a... Trigger to pray, and I love that. It changes the whole climate from being an annoyance to being a time when marriage can flourish. Speaker 2 (0:33) That's Jody Berndt describing the powerful impact that pausing for prayer can have on your marriage. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. Speaker 3 (0:43) John, it's said that... Praying in your marriage is one of the most important things you can do. And I've tried it both ways. You know, Gene and I, we got busy and, you know, we'd go through long stretches where we weren't praying together. And I think that is kind of disastrous. And then when you do pray together consistently, it's amazing how that just, I don't know, it rubs some of the edges off in terms of those hot buttons. you can push, right? And so today we want to talk about that. One of the great statistics in Jody's book says that married couples who pray daily have less than a 1 % divorce rate. So how about that for a silver bullet when it comes to keeping your marriage together and moving forward in a healthy way? Let me add to, a young woman said to me the other day, whenever I hear in Christian communication, someone talking about marriage, they talk about how hard it is to work at your marriage. Let me kind of debunk that a little bit. The reason we talk about that is because you want to have a marriage that's really good, right? So it takes a little work. You know, if you want to be in shape, you got to go to the gym, that kind of thing. So it's not a burden. These are things that we want to equip you with so that your marriage could be the best it can be. So if you're hearing, oh, it's hard work to be married, it's... awesome to be married. And it does require some work, but that's a good thing. Speaker 2 (2:02) Yeah, it really is a wonderful gift. And we're going to be talking with Jodi today. She's been here a number of times, and she's a public speaker, a Bible teacher, and author of the bestselling Praying the Scripture series. And one of the books in that series is called Praying the Scriptures for Your Marriage. We'll have more details about Jodi and this great resource at our website. Welcome back, Jodi. So good to see you. Speaker 1 (2:26) Thank you so much, Jim. It is a delight to be here. Good, Speaker 3 (2:30) good. I need it now. I need to confess. I'm sitting here thinking about it. Jean was the one who said, we need to pray more together. So she gets the credit on that. I want people going, oh, Jim is so wonderful. Speaker 1 (2:39) Jim is wonderful. We really love Jean. No, Jean's awesome. Speaker 3 (2:43) Jean is the anchor. But it's true. So often, you probably see that too. Women, they want to feel that connection that way. And I would think typically, but... Maybe I'm just trying to get myself out of spiritual jail here. But typically, I would think the wife is the one suggesting, why don't we pray more together? Yeah, that's Speaker 1 (3:02) certainly what we heard before I wrote this. You're not alone, Jim. You're not alone. No, before I did this book, I threw out the question on social media. And in my email group, what would you like God to do for your marriage? And it just was interesting to hear people's responses. And you can imagine the different things people wanted, better communication, help handling money, handling conflict, dealing with parents and in-laws, that kind of thing. But one of the things that came up again and again, and it won't surprise you, is that people wanted that deeper intimacy, spiritual intimacy, not just with God, but with their spouse. And I think that's great. I really do. I encourage people, think about what you would like in a spouse. Or if you're already married, speak to those things you are seeing that are positive in your marriage, in your spouse, and breathe life into those things by affirming them. But I think we make a mistake when we think we can find the one, because you get married and immediately... you change. You know, I say that college Jodi that Robbie fell in love with was way more fun, I think, than newlywed Jodi who was trying to juggle a job and a house, you know, and a new marriage. And then along comes mother Jodi and mom Jodi, you know, is less fun because she's starting to worry. And so, I mean, I would say, and they say, What do they say? I've been married to 37 women or 37 men and they've all been the same person, but they change all the time. So I think sometimes Stanley Hauerwas is, I don't know, an expert of some kind. I don't know exactly his degree, but... He writes that the challenge in marriage is learning to care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married. Because you do wake up sometimes and say, wow, you know, you've changed, I've changed, we're all changing. So I think that's really important. Speaker 3 (4:50) You know, let me ask you this. You're mentioning the multifaceted part of life. You start as a dating your husband and then you marry, then eventually kids come and you're a different person in all those settings, obviously. When you got married, what was your prayer life like? And then where did it go? So many times as authors and speakers and communicators, people think, oh, they just had it down. They got it. And it's really not true. And it's so important to debunk that. I mean, you're writing out of experience what didn't work probably, what was causing you maybe some pain or frustration. So just describe that journey from what it was as that. First Jody to the 37th Jody. Well, Speaker 1 (5:35) you know, and it is continuing to evolve and God is continuing to teach and train and he's so filled with grace, which I so appreciate. But, you know, I think... Certainly for Robbie and me in our shared prayer life, that's been a little bit of a mountain to climb because as husbands and wives, as men and women, we approach prayer differently. I like to use a prayer journal. I'm fond of praying out loud. He's very good at praying in his head. He doesn't need to write everything down to remember it. And so for us to have that shared connection, we've had to be kind of intentional and just say, you know what, let's take my hand and let's just pray about what whatever it is that's concerning us. And it might be, like for anybody listening who thinks, oh, wow, Jodi and Robbie have this deep and intimate, wonderful, long-term prayer life, we might pray for three or five minutes about something. And I have these things on my website that are 31-day prayer calendars that just have one verse. because I'm so all about making prayer doable. And I think sometimes when you just take one verse, like 1 Thessalonians 3, 12 says, may your love increase and overflow for each other. If you're feeling a little tension in your marriage, maybe you just spit that one out. God, help our love increase and overflow for each other. And you've prayed. So I think it can be simple like that. In that Speaker 3 (6:54) way, expectations can be different. at any phase of your marriage, newlywed, midterm, late-term marriage, right? So