Choosing to Choose Your Marriage Every Day - Your Nightly Prayer

Choosing to Choose Your Marriage Every Day
Your Nightly Prayer for May 21, 2025
By Lynette Kittle

TONIGHT'S SCRIPTURE

“Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” -Mark 10:9

SOMETHING TO PONDER

Whether married or not, we can support marriage by living it daily out in our own marriages, encouraging others in their marriages, and helping singles in their quest for marriage.

With all the negative remarks and attitudes about marriage floating around in our world, we can foster it with the words we speak to ourselves and to others about the blessings and benefits of sacred matrimony.

This includes saying kind remarks about our own spouse, others’ spouses, and even singles not married yet who may be looking to marry. Ephesians 4:29 cautions, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

After all, marriage is sacred to God, who proclaimed and ordained marriage in Genesis 2:24. “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

Many couples struggle in their marriages, so even on days when we might feel down or discouraged about holy matrimony overall, it’s wise for us to say things that build it up rather than tear it down.

God created marriage to be more than a change of name and status, it’s the uniting of two people, both physically and spiritually, a picture of Christ and His bride the Church and the sacrifice a man makes when He marries a wife. As Ephesians 5:25 explains, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

Marriage isn’t a contract or a legal agreement as some have made it to be, but a covenant with God and each other. Hebrews 13:4 describes how God looks at and sanctifies marriage. “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”

Because marriage is created, ordained, and sanctified by God, as Christians, we want to encourage, support, and celebrate it whenever given the opportunity, because it honors and pleases God when we do.

YOUR NIGHTLY PRAYER

Dear Father,
We thank you for the gift of marriage, for You creating, ordaining, and sanctifying it in our lives. Help each one of us who is married to protect and cherish our marriage relationships. Lead us in strengthening our own marriages, the marriages of others, and the desire singles have to marry. Fill our mouths with life-giving words whenever we speak of marriage to ourselves and to others.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.

THREE THINGS TO MEDITATE UPON

1. Are there couples you know who are struggling in their marriages and could use some encouragement? Are there ways you can foster and celebrate their relationships in ways that uplift and strengthen their union? 

2. Ask God to help you pray for your own marriage and for married couples around you, for strength and endurance to make it through challenging times.

3. Do you know single individuals who want to marry? Are there ways you can help facilitate and be instrumental in bringing singles together in marriage?

Photo credit: ©GettyImages/Paolo Cordoni