Hot, Holy & Humorous

Praying Together for Your Marriage

Sex is a somewhat awkward act. It involves getting naked, striking positions you don’t usually do for anything else, and making various body movements and noises. It’s one of the reasons I’ve said that sex is not merely hot and holy, but humorous.

Yet plenty of married couples have had sex numerous times and still balk at the awkwardness of praying together.

Why do we struggle to link hands and hearts and go to our Heavenly Father in prayer?

Why do we struggle to link hands and hearts and go to our Heavenly Father in prayer? Click To Tweet

Blog post title + couple holding hands to pray over Bible

I wonder if in some ways praying together as a couple is even more vulnerable. You have to be willing to speak up and share what you’re thinking, feeling, and longing for. You might need to confess sins in front of your spouse and ask for guidance in ways that reveal your heart. If you pray openly and fervently, you reveal deep parts of your soul.

In that moment, you also come to God together as a couple, two individuals now one flesh before their Creator. It can be an intense reminder of the commitment and challenge you’ve taken on.

If you wonder why you should even pray together, here are a few reasons:

1. Every couple I talk to who regularly pray together deeply believes it has helped their marriage. Some swear that praying together is what saved their marriage or revived it. Inviting God to work in your marriage is powerful stuff. Ephesians 1:19-20 says: “I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms” (NLT). Don’t you want resurrection-level power working on your marriage and your marriage bed?

2. It brings us closer. It’s a vulnerable experience, but vulnerability is what leads to intimacy and trust. Oftentimes, praying together doesn’t start out at that deep level, but with time you become more comfortable revealing your mind and your heart. It’s hard not to feel a strong bond to someone who lets their guard down and prays to God with you, and you show your own closeness to someone by letting them see you as well.

3. It results in more satisfying sex. No, really. Both research and anecdotes have linked daily prayer with better lovemaking. I suspect it’s because they mutually promote intimacy in marriage.

So how can you get past the awkwardness and approach God’s throne together in prayer?

1. Remember, it’s just a chat. We tend to get caught in “saying the right things” when we pray aloud, but if you treat it like a regular chat with your Heavenly Father, that might loosen you up to relax and just speak what’s on your mind.

2. Start small. We sometimes treat our prayer lives like weight loss goals: I’m going to lose 20 pounds by this summer! We’re going to wake up at 5:30 a.m. and pray together for half an hour! Those sound great, but they’re overly ambitious and you’ll likely never make those goals and then give up. Aim for five minutes a day together in prayer. Start small and grow from there.

Aim for five minutes a day together in prayer. Click To Tweet

3. Take turns, or don’t. Praying together means you’re both present and paying attention. But from there, you can take turns or one of you can pray and let the other simply listen. Knowing that you don’t have to speak every time might free some of you up to go ahead and give it a shot. When you feel comfortable, you can jump in.

4. Use touch to focus. For many couples, it’s helpful to hold hands or embrace while praying. It helps to create a circle of concentration and it’s a reminder of our connection as we pray.

5. Pray specifically about your marriage. You can cover other things, but many have a tendency to make prayer into a list of requests for other people: Dear God, help Johnny do well on his math exam, be with Grandma in her upcoming surgery, and help Uncle Joe get a new job. All well and good, but if you’re taking the time to pray together as a couple, then pray about being a couple. Ask God to use that infinite power to heal your rifts, strengthen your bond, and pour His love into you so that you can better love one another.

6. Try praying before or after sex. This one might feel more awkward, or even risky. But give it a shot! You might find that praying before or after sexual intimacy gives you a better perspective of God’s ongoing blessing of your marriage bed.

I’d love to hear your own take on how praying together as a couple has helped your marriage and your marriage bed. Please share!

Sources: CNN: Couples Who Pray Together – Have Better Sex; Couples Who Pray: The Most Intimate Act Between a Man and a Woman; Family Life: What Happens When Couples Pray

8 thoughts on “Praying Together for Your Marriage”

  1. Thanks for writing this, J. I’ve never understood why Christian couples have such a hard time praying together, so thanks for explaining why some might. That has always confused me. I can tell you right now that praying together is what’s helped me and my husband before our marriage, and now as we go through his battling a serious illness. We learned by experience not to make those lofty goals, because as you say, you don’t keep those. It was also cool to see you write about praying before or after sexual intimacy. We’ve done this, quite a bit, actually. I’ve felt weird about it, but not in the way you might think. It’s not awkward for either me or my husband. But weird because sometimes I not only feel like I’m one of the few Christian women out there who actually enjoys sex, but I’ve never, ever heard another Christian man or woman talk about including prayer in their sex life. I figured I was just an oddball, both as a Christian woman in general, and that me and my husband were as a couple because we did things like this. Thanks for showing me that there’s at least one other woman/couple out there who feels like I do, and does some of the stuff we do.

  2. Thank you for this article. My husband and I usually pray together, but for various reasons haven’t been able to as much here lately. This is great encouragement to renew our commitment to do so.

  3. This is extremely encouraging. My husband and I just had a conversation about this two evenings ago and this gives me some more pointers to share with him as he was having a difficult time understanding the importance of remembering that God is the center of our relationship/marriage. Thank you!

  4. My husband is a deacon in his church and he stands at the altar every Sunday to offer personal prayer to anyone who wants it, but he is very shy about praying with me! I am very comfortable praying with him. One Sunday I went up to him for personal prayer and he seemed shocked. It’s such an odd thing and I have no idea why. He’ll tell me about some issue in his family and I’ll suggest we pray about it, but he’s not eager to do so. We do say grace before meals together.

  5. Pingback: How I’m Learning to Focus in Prayer | Hot, Holy & Humorous

  6. Pingback: How to Pray for Your Husband | Hot, Holy & Humorous

  7. Pingback: Praying for Marriage Blog Readers | Hot, Holy & Humorous

  8. Pingback: Abstaining from Sex to Pray | Hot, Holy & Humorous

Comments are closed.