Hungry for God: help for a distant marriage

My husband and I struggled for years to have a consistent quiet time together. Every marriage book we read said we should read the Bible and pray together if we wanted to have a godly, successful marriage. So every Christmas I'd buy a new couples devotional, and we'd make a commitment to read it daily.

And we would. For about 3 days.

Then one day we'd forget, or get busy. Before we knew it, it was bedtime, and we hadn't cracked the cover. And then a week would go by, and before long, the commitment to have a daily quiet time together would fall by the wayside once again.

Until I decided to do something drastic.

We were in the tenth year of our marriage, with 5- and 2-year old daughters, and we were in trouble. We weren't arguing, fighting, or disagreeing. In fact, we were united in mind and purpose over the direction of our work, home, and family. We had just begun homeschooling our eldest, I was working very minimally outside the home, and we were engaged in ministry at our church.

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But the spark was gone from our marriage.

We were living more like roommates than lovers. We were planets orbiting the same sun, yet seldom intersecting. We were busy living out our callings, content to come together for exchanges that were more like business meetings than family meetings.

We seldom thought of each other during the day, and when we tried to make conversation, we struggled to find something to talk about. We were emotionally distant, and our marriage was starving.

Is this all there is? we wondered. Maybe this is just the way it is after 10 years of marriage. . .

That's when I decided to shake things up.

I instinctively knew that the key to reviving our marriage was somehow connected with us spending time together in God's word and prayer. But finding the right time, a time when we were most likely to be consistent, had thus far eluded us. Our good intentions were consistently shipwrecked on the rocks of reality.

I knew the key was finding a time when there would be few distractions. And a time when it would be as easy as possible for my husband to participate.

On a typical workday, my husband would rise early from sleep and begin his day. He'd shower, pack the lunch I'd made for him the night before, and leave for work. After years of rising at all hours of the night with babies, I'd sleep in as long as I could before one of the girls awakened.

Well, our girls were no longer infants, and the time of frequent night awakenings had passed. There was no excuse for sleeping in except that I enjoyed it. Not a bad thing, in light of the physical demands of 24-hour motherhood, but it was now a luxury, not a necessity.

"Honey," I said, "if I get up with you in the morning and fix you breakfast (I knew this would be a draw, what husband wouldn't accept the offer of breakfast?), do you think it would be OK if I read from one of our couples devotionals while you ate? And then when you're done, maybe you can share one thing I can pray for you about during the day, and I can do the same?"

He agreed.

Five o'clock came awfully early that next morning, but I was determined to do everything in my power to make this attempt succeed. I don't remember what I fixed for breakfast. Perhaps I just poured cereal in a bowl and set out a banana, but as he ate, I read. I was careful to choose a devotional with brief selections. When I finished, I asked him how I could pray for him that day. He did the same.

After a week or so of consistently implementing this new plan, a strange thing began to happen. First, instead of just reading the devotions, we began to talk about them. We'd share ideas, ruminate on the topic during the day, and sometimes pick up the conversation when he got home.

Additionally, as I prayed several times a day for the request he'd shared that morning, I'd find my heart strangely warmed. My commitment to pray for his request, even those that were seemingly mundane, kept drawing my thoughts back to my husband during the day. Instead of "out of sight, out of mind," as I prayed for him, I began to feel warm feelings for him. Prayer was linking our hearts together.

And when he returned home in the evening, I had something to talk about with him. "How did that meeting go with Paul," I'd ask. "I prayed about it several times today."

"It went really well, " he'd say, and proceed to tell me about it. By praying together, we were investing in each others' day and sharing our worlds.

Reading and praying together wasn't a magic bullet that revived our marriage, but it was a step in the right direction. It required sacrifice and commitment, but the payoff has been worth it. Eighteen years later, we still consistently meet together in the early mornings to read and pray. This practice seldom takes more than 5 minutes, but it is the key that has helped our marriage survive some very difficult challenges.

If your marriage is struggling, or if it's healthy, but needs an extra boost, prayerfully consider what you can do to draw nearer to God and each other. What are you willing to sacrifice to make that happen? Theologian Andrew Murray proposed that it is better to be sleep deprived than God deprived.

And join the conversation. Post a comment below and share a tip that's helped you draw near to God and your husband. May God richly bless you as you seek to honor Him!

Some of our favorite devotionals:
Night Light by James and Shirley Dobson
Moments Together for Intimacy by Dennis and Barbara Rainey
A Godward Life by John Piper
My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
Love Languages Devotional Bible by Gary Chapman

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Today's women want to connect with God, but in the craziness of life, it’s just not happening. You want practical, biblical answers to situations you face every day, but you don’t have hours to pore over Scripture.

You need a resource that answers the questions you’re afraid to ask out loud. Questions like:

• Is my situation hopeless?
• If God already knows what he’s going to do, why bother to pray?
• Why have you allowed this to happen to me?
• No one appreciates what I do. Why shouldn’t I quit?

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