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Your relationship with God is a personal one. Everyone has their own way of connecting, praying, worshiping and studying the bible.
Some people are also not very open about their faith in God. It is something they feel is too personal or they aren’t comfortable talking about God.
The above are often reasons why encouraging your spouse’s relationship with God can feel awkward and/or daunting.
But the desire to have your spouse know and love God should far outweigh any discomfort or embarrassment.
Encouraging Your Spouse’s Relationship With God
Meet Them Where They Are
This is kind of my motto in working and talking with people in all areas. We can’t force or drag a person to be where we want them to be.
We can see this progression in the bible as well. God led His people out of Egypt and provided them with long lists of do’s and don’ts. We can read those lists today and think, “Why would God have them do that?” And without context to the idols and rituals of that time, it can be confusing at best. But the people were entrenched in the customs and religious practices of that time. They were to do things differently than non-followers of God but they were only equipped to do so many things at a time.
This is true of your spouse as well. You may want them to be a godly person, who spends time daily with the Lord, listens only to worship music, goes to church weekly and participates in various ministries. But first you need to take into consideration your spouse’s current thoughts about God.
Don’t nag, push, force, demand, negotiate, or threaten. None of those things will end well for your spouse’s relationship with God. Or your relationship with your spouse.
Pray For Your Spouse
Ask God to open your spouse’s heart:
Mark 11:24 (NIV) Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Pray For God to Guide You
Ask God for guidance and discernment on how best to approach your spouse. While you may believe you know your husband, God knows him infinitely better!
Listen closely to the nudges, whispers, and gentle prodding that the Holy Spirit gives you at certain times. Take courage that God will give you the words.
It is also important to ask for God to change your heart and ways that may be hindering your spouse from knowing Him. Which leads me to the next point.
Psalm 25:4-5 (NIV) Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.
Be a Godly Spouse
You’re not going to encourage your spouse’s relationship with God if your relationship with God is in shambles.
[ctt template=”7″ link=”L8D7c” via=”yes” ]You’re not going to encourage your spouse’s relationship with God if your relationship with God is in shambles.[/ctt]
First, ensure that you are not going against anything that you are trying to encourage your spouse to do. Hypocrisy will not help the situation.
Take time for a bit of self-reflection. How are you doing in the below areas?
- Prayer time
- Bible reading/studying
- Worship
- Church attendance/involvement
- Participation/volunteering in ministry
- Loving others regardless of their interaction with you
- Kindness in your heart
- Honesty on your lips.
- Generosity and hospitality from your hands.
Proverbs 12:4 (NIV) A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.
Talk about the Church Sermon
This can be something you can do whether your spouse attended church or not.
But don’t turn it into a lecture. Just focus on what you found beneficial or liked about the service. And don’t shy away for the areas that you have continuing questions on. Or want to look into deeper.
It can be encouraging for a nonbeliever or a new Christian to hear that others don’t have it all figured out.
Related post: Discuss the Church Sermon with Your Spouse
Spend Time with Christian Couples
An easy way to encourage your spouse’s relationship with God is to make sure you, as a couple, are interacting with other Christian couples.
Your time together certainly doesn’t have to be focused on faith or participating in a church-type activity. In fact, depending upon where your spouse is in his faith walk, it would likely be best that the activity wasn’t faith related.
Surrounding your spouse with other Christians helps to build godly relationships. As much as you may want to be the one to bring your spouse to know God. That may not be God’s plan. Someone else may be able to provide their testimony that opens your spouse’s heart in a way that your testimony doesn’t. Please don’t take offense to that or allow your pride to get in the way of your spouse’s spiritual growth.
Pray Together – If Your Spouse is Willing
Sometime this can be the starting point that people want to use to encourage their spouse’s relationship with God. But then the prayer starts to turn into a pointed lecture at their spouse. This will not help!
Praying together is a powerful and amazing time as a married couple and in strengthening faith. But your spouse may not be ready. Or they may not be ready to be the one leading the prayer.
Again, meet them where they are. But don’t try to force or push.
I pray your found this post beneficial and are able to encourage your spouse’s relationship with God!
God bless!
Melissa
p.s. Check out all of the beautiful sites I linkup with!
I would imagine that the best thing spouses can do is to pray
Yes, prayer for both your spouse and for your own heart and guidance are both so important. Thank you for stopping by Andrea, God bless!
Wonderful post! Very thought provoking.
Thank you Jennifer! I’m glad you found it beneficial. God bless!
Terrific tips. My husband is a pastor and has a strong relationship with God. However, I talk to so many women who are so saddened by their husband’s lack of relationship and connection with the Lord. This is a post I plan to share on my social media now!
Thank you Teri! Yes, this is a topic I discuss with my female clients often. Thank you for stopping by and sharing with others. God bless!
Loved this! I’m not married yet but felt like I learned a lot. As a pastor a lot of married people come to me so I’m going to share this with them. Thank you and pls keep writing.
Thank you Krystal! I appreciate your kind words and am glad that your found the post beneficial. God bless you and your ministry!
Such valuable information here, Melissa! I really liked that you mentioned this part, “First, ensure that you are not going against anything that you are trying to encourage your spouse to do. Hypocrisy will not help the situation.” So many times, we can be so focused on fixing our spouse or another person that we fail to self-reflect to see if we’re on the right track ourselves. Thanks for this point as well as all the others– pinned. 🙂
Thank you Sarah! Yes, we can get very focused on dishing out advice but forget to ensure we are living it as well. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. God bless!
Oh yes, how we live our lives matters a lot if we are to help our spouses come closer to God.We have a responsibility to help our husbands make heaven.
So very true! We are certainly supposed to help lead others to God and He does the rest! Thank you for reading and commenting. God bless!
Great advice, Melissa. Men and women are so different anyway, so our nagging is not going to make our spouses closer to Jesus. I think prayer is one of the biggest things we can do for our spouse. Pray and stay out of God’s way. Ha, ha. – Amy
http://stylingrannymama.com/
That’s a great line – Pray and stay out of God’s way! In many cases so true. Thank you Amy for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. God bless!
I am a single young adult but my Mom encourages me to pray for my future husband, even before I know him.
Alysha I think that is a great idea! Even if you don’t know him yet that doesn’t mean he isn’t out there. Prayer is powerful! God bless your journey.
There is so much power in prayer! I’m reading “The Power of a Praying Wife,” and I didn’t realize how little I was actually praying for my husband.
Our husbands are easy to overlook if we are not intentionally focusing on them. It’s a great book, too! Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. God bless!
We do like to push people to be like us, don’t we? Praying for my husband’s walk is what I do. God knows him better than I do.
That’s a great prayer to have! Yes, we do like to push. And rarely it works. Thank you for stopping by and commenting! God bless!
Wonderful ideas! Prayer is key! You have encouraged me to do a little bit more of just that just because. I have found with anyone meeting them where they are at is vital. Thank you!
Thank you Maree Dee! I’m glad that you found the post encouraging. I can’t stress meeting people where they are enough! Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. God bless!
This is all great information… I see a common thread in this: prayer is powerful! This is the hardest hurdle for me… to find quiet moments to pray. Especially for my husband. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely pray for him. For his daily life, his circumstances, his career. However, I often forget to pray for his walk with the Lord. I need to work on this for sure!
It’s interesting how praying for our spouse’s prayer journey doesn’t always cross our mind. While obviously tremendously important, it’s not always right in front of us. Especially if our spouses have a relationship with God already. I’ve made this more intentional as well. Thanks for stopping by Katie and sharing your thoughts. God bless!
Amen amen! When we taste and see the Lord is good we can’t help but our encourage our beloved to have the same or even better experience with God.
Absolutely! We want to shout God’s goodness from the rooftops! Thank you for stopping by Ann! God bless!
These are great tips, Melissa! I especially like the one about meeting your spouse where he is. I struggle with this in all areas! Coming to you via the #MomentsofHopelinkup.
That is an important one. If we try to force someone beyond where they are, very often it will lead to hurt feelings and little progress. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your experience. God bless!
Melissa, the two main things that helped bring my husband to faith in Christ is prayer and becoming the Godly wife/woman God desired me to be. It certainly wasn’t any sort of nagging or begging or pestering from me, that’s for sure. Your port is spot on. Thanks for sharing on Grace and Truth.
Thank you Aimee for sharing this! Yes, prayer and being a godly model are so important. Thank you for stopping by. God bless!
You said right that Some people are not open about their faith in God.
Yes, so we then are to meet them where they are with love and respect. And then we pray and ask for guidance in how we can be a beacon of light for them, leading them lovingly to God.