Marriage Struggles
by Drenda Keesee
Financial stress.
Taking each other for granted.
Not communicating.
Discontentment.
Broken trust.
Rough spots, rocky spots, wreck-your-life spots—call them whatever you want—they can show up anywhere in life. But they’re a tactic the enemy really loves to use against marriages.
Because his greatest goal is to divide and conquer, especially in your marriage.
If you’re married, you have a target on your back. Satan is after the power of agreement, especially…
…among spouses. So, he works to pit you against each other so you aren’t in unity and working together against him. He’s after your power and authority.
And, if he can divide you, he can conquer your whole family. He’s after your kids.
Satan knows that if you stand in agreement with the Word of God, His Word is going to produce every single time. That’s why Satan has snares, tactics, pressures, and persecutions to move you off the Word of God. Strife opens the door, pulls you outside of the legal jurisdiction of the Kingdom of God, short-circuits the system, and cuts off God’s ability to bring His Word to pass for you. It’s as though you’re floating in an ocean with no sail or forward momentum.
So, what should you do if you’re struggling in your marriage?
1. Turn to Father God.
Confusion and pain can be oppressive and overwhelming, but don’t keep trying to just survive. No situation is too hopeless when you bring the power of God into it.
You can start with this prayer:
Father,
In the Name of Jesus I come to you on behalf of __ and I ask you to cut off any worldly influences that are affecting my husband and his love for you, as well as his love for me. I bind any forces of darkness that are clouding his vision and pray his eyes are open to see You and hear Your Voice. If he has opened any doors to wrongful associations or pornography, I pray those strongholds be broken off of him in Jesus’ Name.
As his wife, we are one, so I exercise spiritual authority to resist all satanic attacks against his mind, will, emotions, and body. Father, help him shut doors to the enemy and open his heart to receive your love, forgiveness and grace. Help him make right decisions concerning your plans for our life and marriage. I thank you for helping him see the truth. Give him a desire to follow you. Help him turn to you with his problems and seek your answers.
Father, help me as his wife to love him and show him respect. Since the wife is the glory of her husband, I ask you to help me bring honor to him and to esteem him the way you see him. Help me to present myself in such a way spirit, soul and body that it would make him honored to be my husband. Help me to be the wife he needs in this time and to grow in my trust in you and in our relationship. I can’t change him so I release him to you, but I can work on myself to become the best person I can be for you and the best wife I can be to honor my love for him.
I pray that this difficult time will become a time of spiritual renewal for us both that will result in a stronger walk with you and a more beautiful marriage between us. Rekindle our love and renew our purpose as a couple.
I trust you, God and I refuse to allow fear, worry, self-pity or anger to control me but instead I choose to rest in you and to work on the areas you show me. Give me wisdom to love him without words and demonstrate my faith by my actions. Help me become his companion, lover, and encourager. Help him rely on you and believe your promises for our life, marriage and finances in Jesus’ Name.
I am full of joy and peace as I trust in you and grow in grace as a woman of God. I am loved. I am accepted and complete in you. My worth and identity are in you. I am free. I trust confidently in you. I am not alone. You never leave me or forsake me. I can do all things through Christ because you strengthen me. Strength and dignity are my clothing!
I speak words of life over my husband, our marriage, our family, and myself! God’s grace is sufficient to see me through this time. I believe I receive it now in Jesus’ Name!
2. Listen.
Sometimes we get distracted, and our heart begins to callous toward hearing God’s voice, and we get off the mark. Life’s pressures have a way of choking out God’s Word, and so we have to reestablish our relationship with God and listen for His direction.
When you cry out to Him, He’s going to speak to you. It’s up to you to listen and simply obey His Word and allow Him to reveal answers to you. Be open for God’s Spirit to point out the things that may be hindering your ability to advance. You need to take God at His Word and go in the strength that you have.
Don’t settle for a compromise. When God gives you His Word, you have to believe it and step out on that Word. Choose to obey and trust Him, even if it means giving up a couple of time commitments and refocusing your priorities to get your family to a healthy place. You have to move toward prayer and peace for your family.
God’s direction will give you the encouragement and power to surpass your problems. God’s grace is powerful in you, and with Him, you can overcome.
Watch for Part Two of this article next week.
~Drenda
ps…Are you looking for a good church? Be sure and listen on Saturday evening or catch the 3 services on Sunday for Faith Life Church!
Drenda Keesee’s contagious zeal and humorous personal experiences help make her ministry of spiritual, emotional, and relational wholeness one that will bless your life and spark a new fire in your spirit.
A wife of over 30 years and a mother of five children, Drenda has ministered at churches, seminars, and conferences, and through the mediums of television and radio, for more than 20 years.
Her books, The New Vintage Family, Better Than You Think, and She Gets It are available wherever books are sold. In these heartfelt books, Drenda shares her personal journey and the life lessons that have brought her to where she is today, as well as practical answers that all people need to live a joyful life.
Drenda and her husband Gary founded Faith Life Now, a ministry designed to spread the message of freedom in the areas of finances, faith, marriage, and family. Tune in for their weekly messages here. Faith Life Now hosts conferences worldwide and sponsors both Fixing the Money Thing, which Drenda co-hosts with her husband Gary and Drenda.
Through their own life experiences, the Keesee’s have found the principles from God’s Word to be powerful and effective. At one point, Drenda was a young, suicidal feminist with no hope of ever being “good enough” for her own standards of perfection. She never wanted the “inconvenience” of a husband or children, and she was on her own path to success. But the stress of trying to achieve perfection and perform for love left her broken and used. She had success, but it was nothing compared to the pain and loneliness it had also brought.
That’s when God got a hold of her heart. It was there—at her lowest point—that she found the One who accepted and loved her, faults and all. Since that transformation, Drenda has had a passion to reach women who find themselves where she once was.
She married Gary after attending college, and there she found herself in a personal boot camp of sorts. She says, “I cried and told God, ‘I can do anything but be a wife and mother.’” She committed to learning how to do it God’s way. Through the many years of raising their children and struggling to make ends meet, Drenda learned from their mistakes. “I didn’t know how to be a wife and mother, but God saved our marriage, taught us how to parent our children for success, showed us how to have financial success, and then the irony of all ironies, He called us to ministry.” It’s truly because of these life experiences that Drenda can now share so many insightful principles for people who are now going through the same struggles.
