It is one of the most important habits that any married couple can form. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most rare. For a husband and wife to live well together before the Lord, they must pray together. For a couple to honor God in their marriage, they must be as intimate spiritually as they are physically. At times it can be difficult to know what to pray or how to pray. This prayer by George Swinnock is a wonderful model of a prayer a couple can (and perhaps should) pray together.
Lord, who are the guide of all relationships, may our marriage befit those married to the Lord Christ. Like Abraham and Sarah, may we be famous for faith; like Isaac and Rebecca, may we live in dearest love; like Zachariah and Elizabeth, may our walk be blameless.
May the meditation of each other’s frailty spur us to greater fidelity. May you be our guide, and Scripture our compass. Whatever stony paths we walk on earth, may we enjoy a comforting sunshine from heaven. And since you have tied this knot between us, may we do nothing which might loosen it through angry thoughts or quarrelsome deeds.
May our thoughts of each other be sweetened with love; may our words to each other be seasoned with love; and may our actions towards each other be given a relish and savour by love.
May love be the strength with which we bear one another’s burdens. May love be the mantle with which we cover one another’s infirmities. And may love be the fire which consumes opposition between us! May we cleave close to one another in our affections as those who are bound together by God himself.
As those who are equal sharers in gains and losses, may we stand and fall together, not wasting wealth through our extravagance but concerned for the needs of the other. Let us be more tender of each other’s reputation than of our own. And may we imitate your Majesty in covering and forgiving one another’s infirmities.
May we conspire for each other’s welfare, and carry domestic burdens on both our shoulders, joining together to bear personal hardships. As fellow-travellers through life, may we cheer up one another to make our journey more pleasant, until we come to rest in the true paradise!
We pray, above all, that with great faithfulness, we may serve each other’s souls, conspiring together to walk in step with the Spirit, praying, and fasting and reading together. Let us take sweet counsel together, that our house may be a Bethel, “a House of God”.
Enable us, Lord, as husband and wife to shine like the sun and moon, and our children as stars, so gloriously and powerfully with the light of holiness, that our house may be your lesser heaven.
George Swinnock as quoted in Into His Presence. I have slightly adapted and truncated it.
