How to Pray for Your Husband

Let us start by clearing something out of the way, because it can quietly poison this whole practice.

Praying for your husband is not a technique for fixing him. It is not a spiritual lever you pull to get the outcome you want. If your prayer life about your marriage consists mainly of a list of his faults submitted daily to management, it will not change him and it will make you bitter.

Real intercession does something different. It puts you in the position of someone who wants good for him — and it is very hard to hold resentment and intercession in the same hand for long.

Why pray for him at all

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." — James 5:16

Prayer is not a placebo. Scripture treats it as genuinely consequential. And you are positioned to pray for this man in a way no one else on earth is — you know what he carries, what he is afraid of, what he has not told anyone.

There is also this: God uses the praying to change the pray-er. Ask any woman who has prayed for her husband over years. She will tell you the marriage changed, and so did she, and she is often not sure which came first.

What to actually pray

Move past "bless him" into specifics. A few directions worth taking:

His walk with God. That he would know God as a Father and not only as an employer. That he would have his own life with God, not a borrowed one from yours.

His work. Most men carry more identity in their work than they will admit. Pray against the pressure to measure himself by output. Pray for favor, wisdom, and integrity in the small decisions.

His mind. Pray for peace where he is anxious. Many men process worry silently, and you may only see the edge of it in his mood.

His courage. For the hard conversation he is avoiding, the doctor's appointment he keeps postponing, the leadership he is afraid to attempt.

His friendships. A great many married men have no close friend. Pray one into his life. It will lighten your marriage.

His body. Rest, health, sleep, the discipline to care for himself.

Protection. Over his eyes, his integrity, his thoughts. Pray it without accusation.

Your marriage. That you would enjoy each other. That the affection would be warm. That you would laugh.

Ephesians 3:16–19 is a beautiful prayer to pray over him almost word for word: that he would be "strengthened with power through his Spirit in [his] inner being," and know the love of Christ that "surpasses knowledge."

Praying when you are angry with him

There will be seasons when praying for him is the last thing you want to do.

Pray anyway, and pray honestly. Tell God the true thing first — I am hurt, and I do not feel generous toward him today. Then pray for him. Not warmly, if warmth is not available. Dutifully is fine; duty is what carries love across the flat places.

Jesus said to pray for those who have wronged us. He did not say to feel affectionate while doing it. Something happens over time when you keep asking God to bless someone you are frustrated with. The frustration does not always vanish, but it stops being the whole picture.

What this looks like today

Pick one thing a week. Not a comprehensive list. One area, prayed for repeatedly.

Pray while you are already near him. While he is asleep. While he is driving. A quiet sentence, unannounced.

Ask him what he needs prayer for. Then actually pray for it and mention it a week later. Few things communicate love as clearly.

Pray out loud with him if you can. Even thirty awkward seconds. If he is not comfortable with that, do not push; pray for the day it becomes possible.

Keep a short record. Note what you asked and what happened. You will forget the answers otherwise.

A prayer

Father, thank You for my husband. Strengthen him where he is tired. Give him a friend. Give him courage for what he is avoiding, peace where he is anxious, and a real love for You that is his own. Change what needs to change in him — and start with me. Amen.

Reflect

• What does your husband carry that no one else knows about?
• Have your prayers about him lately been intercession or complaint?
• What is one specific thing you could ask God for on his behalf this week?

One small step

Ask him tonight: "Is there anything I can be praying about for you this week?" Write down the answer.