One big part of being a wife is covering my husband in prayer. But I have to be honest, I am not nearly as diligent in this area as I should be. Some times, I feel like I don't quite know what to pray, and because of that I find myself praying the same "canned" prayers over and over. Of course this isn't always the case, but I am so happy to have found this excellent guide from Sharon Jaynes called Praying for Your Husband from Head to Toe. I have read several other books throughout the years about the power of a praying woman and a praying wife, but this book is by far the most practical and scriptural book of them all.
The introductory chapters lay out a case for both praying for your husband and the essentiality of scripture based prayers. I think we can all agree that our men need prayer... as the God-ordained leaders of our families and head of our marriage relationship, they carry a lot of responsibility that we as women don't always understand. This book gives 30 days of scripture-based prayer that covers our husbands in sixteen different areas. It may sound like a lot, but each scripture and corresponding prayer is relatively short. And each area of prayer is truly of great importance. They are:
- His Mind
- His Eyes
- His Ears
- His Mouth
- His Neck
- His Shoulders
- His Heart
- His Back
- His Arms
- His Hands
- His Ring Finger
- His Side
- His Sexuality
- His Legs
- His Knees
- His Feet
Some of those points may seem strange to pray through, unless you've read the introduction that explains what the prayers for each part of the body are really about. For instance, the heading is to pray for your husband's neck. Sounds weird, but what you are really praying for are the decisions that turn his head. In explaining this area of prayer, I love what Jaynes writes:
"A wife's attempts at manipulation are no laughing matter. Here's another idea. Rather than a wife being the neck that turns her husband's head, slyly manipulating him into making decisions that suit her fancy, what if she stepped aside and let God be the One turning his head?... Today's world is teeming with choices... It was God's gift to mankind in the Garden of Eden. What will your man do with that gift? Will Jesus be the North Star of his moral compass? Or will he be swayed by the every-changing mores of a culture that takes what is wrong today and, with the vote of majority, makes it right tomorrow? Will he choose to make honoring God his highest priority or default to pleasing self?"
I must admit that sometimes it is difficult for me as a wife to Biblically submit to my husband's decision making. However, I can tell you from experience that the times I have completely stepped aside and allowed my husband to fully and rightly step up to his place of decision-maker for our family, they have had the best outcomes. Conversely, there have been times I have weaseled and whined my influence into my husband's decision-making and the outcomes have not been so good. At the very least, I diminished his headship by disrespecting his God-given place as decision-maker.
I must admit that sometimes it is difficult for me as a wife to Biblically submit to my husband's decision making. However, I can tell you from experience that the times I have completely stepped aside and allowed my husband to fully and rightly step up to his place of decision-maker for our family, they have had the best outcomes. Conversely, there have been times I have weaseled and whined my influence into my husband's decision-making and the outcomes have not been so good. At the very least, I diminished his headship by disrespecting his God-given place as decision-maker.
A sample of one day's prayer for your husband's neck (or decision making) looks like this:
(from day 8)
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline." Proverbs 1:7
May my husband make decisions based on his reverent fear and humble respect of Your sovereignty and holiness. Stir up a desire in him to seek Your wisdom for every decision and Your direction for every choice. I pray he will not depend on worldly knowledge with its human limitations but on Your infinite wisdom, which knows no bounds.
As you can see from that excerpt, each day of prayer will take less than 15 minutes or so (if you simply pray the prayers written). You can easily spend more time elaborating these prayers but it is a great place to start. Each day is full of practical, scripture-based prayers that are sure to have an impact not only on your man, but on your marriage, your family and every other circle of influence. Our husband's should be our single greatest relationship after our relationship with Christ. We should be bathing them in prayer on a daily- hourly, minute, or more!- basis. This book is a great way to start praying in-depth for your husband if you are a beginner at doing so, and it is also a great guide for those seasoned in intimate prayers for their husbands. I will be keeping this book handy to reference time and time again, for many years to come.
You can purchase this book on Amazon. (not an affiliate link, just a plain 'ol linkie. I get no benefit if you buy this book or not.)
Though I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for the purposes of this review, the opinions are my own.
