Day 361: Weekly Prayer: Your Trust

The chapter in Omartian’s book that I prayed through for this act was about your trust. It emphasized the importance of maintaining your trust and the affect broken trust would have in our relationship. I’ve definitely broken your trust in certain areas and am working at rebuilding it. Omartian is right that broken trust in one area has a negative affect on an entire relationship.

Omartian emphasized three areas in which maintaining trust is extremely important. The first is sexual integrity. I prayed that I would be above reproach in this area, that there would not even be a hint of sexual infidelity in our marriage. This doesn’t just include affairs! Affairs often are the product of years of compromise. Fidelity includes integrity on the internet, with the TV, with where I look when I’m in public, and with . . . well . . . masturbation. If I don’t have integrity in these areas, even in areas that seem minor, then I’ve broken your trust.

The second area of integrity is money. I need to work hard to provide for you and the girls and I need to use our money wisely. The latter is difficult when there is pressure to spend money on you guys because I think it’ll make you happy. It does make you happy for the moment, but long term it doesn’t. Maintaining your trust in this area sometimes involved disappointing you by not spending money on something we or you want but don’t need.

The third area is loving and respecting you and our girls. If I do something to disrespect you or the girls or I don’t act in a way that’s loving, your trust is broken. Obviously I do stuff every day that isn’t so loving or respectful. But I think I can maintain your trust in this area if I’m consistently working toward loving and respecting you and the girls. This is a daily battle, sure, but nobody said it was easy.

Forgive me, honey, for areas in which I’ve broken your trust. May I consistently be a man of integrity, and by doing so, restore your trust.

 

 

Day 308: Weekly Prayer: Marriage

Chapter 6 of The Power of a Praying Husband concerned praying for and fostering a good marriage. Omartian talked about the importance of love, fidelity, respect, quality time, and communication for a marriage. It was encouraging to read this chapter, because I’ve grown and placed more importance in each of these areas over the course of the last year. I prayed that God would continue to grow me in each of these areas and that he would help us build a great marriage.

Here’s something related. At the beginning of 365 Acts of Love, we had an informal counseling session with a couple in our church in order to talk through some issues in our marriage. During that session, I mentioned that our marriage was about average, thinking that the other couple would be okay with that. They weren’t. They encouraged me to strive for an excellent marriage, one that would serve as an example to many.

That really hit me. Why would I think that having an average marriage is acceptable? I think it’s because I knew that a great marriage takes work and I wanted to focus my energies on other things that I considered more gratifying, like work and exercise. Now that I’ve focused on building an excellent marriage, an excellent relationship with you, pleasing you brings me gratification (though I still really enjoy exercise and my job).