Is your husband going through a self-esteem crisis? Has a job loss, accident, health crisis, or bad business deal left him reeling?
If so, you don’t have to stand by and let the enemy torment him. Your prayers are powerful, and YOU can partner with God to see your husband comforted, healed, and restored better even than he was before. How? By becoming your husband’s armorbearer in your prayer closet.
If you want to pray your husband through his self-esteem crisis, here are ten prayer points around which you can frame your intercession:
1. Pray that he would know his identity in Christ.
Your husband’s sense of identity and worth is the absolute most important thing for which you can pray right now. Even if your husband has a solid understanding of who he is in Christ—knowing that he is God’s beloved son, chosen and precious, greatly loved, not forsaken, and more valuable than many sparrows—the Bible says that the enemy comes like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And if your husband loses his recollection of how much God loves him (or if he never had that revelation to begin with), he’s easy prey for the devil.
So pray specifically for these things:
- That he would know he is the righteousness of God in Christ;
- That he would know his Father God will never leave him nor forsake him;
- That he would be a man of prayer and of God’s Word;
- That he would stand firm in faith in God and His Word;
- That he would know he is the beloved of the Lord, and that the things that have befallen him were
no surprise to Father God.
2. Pray that he would sense God’s presence and affection.
It’s always important for our emotional needs to be met in godly ways—which means, chiefly, that our needs must be met by God Himself. And if your husband is in a self-esteem crisis, it’s more important than ever that he turns to God for the meeting of those needs. So pray:
- That your husband would sense God’s presence surrounding him;
- That he would sense Father God’s love and affection;
- That he would be hungry and thirsty for God, now more than ever;
- That he would encounter Jesus in radical ways;
- That he would become a man of prayer and of the Word;
- That he would receive affirmation from God Himself;
- That God would specifically cut off every ungodly source of fulfillment and affection to which
your husband may be tempted to turn; and - That God would fill your husband with His perfect love, which casts out all fear.
3. Pray that all his efforts to recover would be godly.
Without the Lord’s guidance and wisdom, your husband could be diverted or distracted into solutions that are not from the Lord. You can hedge off distractions and unholy solutions through your prayers. Pray specifically:
- That he would hear the Lord’s voice behind him, saying, “This is the way; walk in it;” and that he
would obey and never turn to the right or to the left; - That he would be filled with wisdom from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, undefiled,
willing to yield, and full of mercy and good fruit; - That he would not even be interested in any solution that is unholy;
- That the Holy Spirit would highlight wise solutions in your husband’s mind, making them
extremely attractive to him; - That the Lord would hide every wrong solution from your husband’s vision so that he would
never even consider getting out of God’s will for his life; - That his priorities would be right and holy; and
- That the Lord would bring him into divine appointments with the right people but would protect
him from interacting with the wrong people.
4. Ask God to fill him with motivation, inspiration, and creativity.
The enemy likes to tempt people into apathy and procrastination, but God says that His Kingdom should be taken by force (Matthew 11:12). God is a proactive, powerful, purposeful God who never lays around doing nothing. He doesn’t sleep or slumber, and His command to us is “Awake, you who sleep! Arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light!”
If your husband is in a crisis right now, only the divine motivation given by the Holy Spirit can help him accomplish the tasks necessary to come out on the other side. So pray these things every day:
- Ask the Lord to fill your husband with His miracle-working power.
- Ask Him to inspire your husband to obey the Lord every moment of every day.
- Ask Him to help your husband hear what God is saying, and say only that, and see what God is
doing, and do only that. - Ask Him to motivate your husband to carry out every step God has prescribed in His redemptive,
restoration plan. - Ask Father God to fill him with divine creativity; that Holy Spirit would work in him and through
him “to will and to do for His good pleasure.”
5. Ask God to give your husband a grateful heart that will fend off the spirit of self-pity.
No matter what your spouse has been through, challenges can open a door to the enemy to tempt him into the dark, slippery slope of self-pity. And self-pity often leads to discouragement, depression, and even worse things.
Thankfulness, however, is the antidote to self-pity. When we actively thank and praise the Lord, our focus stays on Him where it belongs. And with our eyes on Him, we see who He is and what He has done. Maintaining a grateful heart helps us to set our minds “and keep them set on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”
So ask God daily:
- To help your husband put on the whole armor of God;
- To give your husband a grateful and thankful heart;
- To help your husband notice every answer to prayer;
- To help your husband see God’s hand at work in his life—and to know that “[the chariots] that
are with us are more than they who are with them”; - For your husband to have increased spiritual discernment; and
- That he would find thoughts of self-pity absolutely abhorrent, but that he would take great joy in
thanking God and others for everything he can think of.
6. Pray that the Lord would give your husband wisdom.
The book of Proverbs tells us that wisdom is the principal thing we need, and that we should get both wisdom and understanding. James 1:5-7 says that God will give anyone wisdom who asks for it. So pray the following for your husband:
- That he would know what to do and when to do it;
- That he would know what not to do, and when not to do it;
- That the Lord would fill him with wisdom from the Holy Spirit;
- That he would have a supernatural understanding of every situation around him;
- That he would see with the eyes of God and understand with the heart of God;
- That he would think the thoughts of God, as described in God’s Word;
- That he would have God’s eternal perspective in mind as he walks through everyday life.
7. Ask the Lord to order your husband’s steps in the Word.
The Bible is full of passages in which God promises to instruct us, guide us, and keep us on the right path. We have a Father who nurtures and shepherds us just as well as He governs over us! So claim His promises in prayer over your husband:
- That the Lord would instruct him and teach him in the way he should go, guiding him with His
eye upon him (Psalm 32:8); - That Father God would open doors for your husband that only He can open, and close doors that
only He can close; - That He would place an angel with a flaming sword that turns every way in front of your husband
if he is even tempted to go down a path that is not God’s perfect will for his life; and - That the Lord would shine the light of His Word onto the next step your husband is supposed to
take, ordering his steps in the Word.
8. Pray for the Lord to encourage your husband every day.
It’s extremely helpful for any of us who are going through a crisis to receive encouragement from one another. However, the encouragement the Lord gives is far better than anything we could say or do ourselves. Therefore, go ahead and encourage your husband as both your love and your brother in Christ—but in the meantime, ask the Lord to send His own words of hope straight into your husband’s heart. The Lord’s words are “living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow …” (Hebrews 4:12). His Words are the most important of all!
By the way: As you pray, claim the promise of Psalm 3—that the Lord would be your husband’s glory and the lifter of his head. That phrase “lifter of my head” in Psalm 3:3 literally means “the restorer of my place of authority.” Remind God of this promise when you pray and insist that He restore your husband’s place of authority and influence!
9. Plead the blood of Jesus over your marriage, family, and finances.
Every victory we have in God was purchased for us by the precious blood of Jesus. Remind God of that as you pray for your husband! Ask Him to manifest every victory in your husband’s life (and in your own life, of course) that Jesus died for you to have. Present Jesus’ blood to God in prayer as your “proof of purchase”—the legal evidence that you and your family are entitled to victory in every area of life, through Christ and His blood!
Also, because Jesus died for each of us to be fully restored and healed, ask the Lord to protect and preserve your marriage. Ask Him also to work your present situation out for your good, so that your marriage, family, health, and even finances come out of this valley stronger than they were when you entered it.
10. Ask the Lord to lead your husband into victory.
As it says in Song of Solomon 8:5, ask the Lord to bring your husband up from this valley—leaning on the arms of Jesus, the Beloved. Pray also:
- That your husband would draw closer to the Lord than he has ever been as a result of this trial;
- That the Lord would use this time to make him stronger spiritually, mentally, and emotionally; and
- That God would bless him more than ever before.
Friend, if your husband is suffering, you are not powerless against the situation. Your prayers are the greatest weapon in your arsenal. If you will pray for your husband faithfully and strategically during this time, I believe you will see God move in his heart and on his behalf to bring comfort, healing, and restoration.
Copyright © Jamie Rohrbaugh, used with permission.
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