Day 40 of 40 Days of Prayer and Blessing

This is the 40th day!   Women have fasted and prayed in London, New York, Virginia, Georgia, Texas, Colorado, and California - prayers of blessing for hundreds of men all over the world!  As we have prayed in agreement, speaking the powerful, transforming Word of God, incredible and miraculous things have been set in motion.  Be expectant!   

Expect to be amazed!  

I call it a God-incidence that today the email I received from Nicky Gumbel, the pastor of Holy Trinity Brompton London, the church attended by the women who initiated these 40 Days of Prayer and Blessing, is about marriage!   You can see the post in its entirety here:  The Bible in One Year

but I share a few snippets with you, following the prayer points for today.  

My prayer for you is that you are encouraged!  Take Courage! Let Hope arise in your heart, mind, soul and spirit.  

Day 40 (21^st of February)

Prayer for your 10+ men (Psalm 91) 

• Command Your angels concerning them
• Guard them in all their ways
• Answer them in times of trouble
• Satisfy them with long life and be show them salvation

Prayer for yourself:    

To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ:  Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance

Two Are Better Than One  (Nicky Gumbel)

I have never been very good at using visual aids.  I am not a very practical person.  On the other hand, my great friend, Nicky Lee (who, together with his wife Sila, has pioneered The Marriage Course and other Family Life courses) is extremely practical and often uses visual aids. 

 When he is speaking at weddings he sometimes uses a visual aid to illustrate the passage in Ecclesiastes 4.  The writer says, ‘Two are better than one … A cord of three strands is not quickly broken’ (vv.9,12).

As a picture or marriage, Nicky Lee takes two strands of different coloured wool and weaves them together.  Together they are stronger and yet they can quite easily be broken.  Then he takes a third strand of nearly invisible gut.  With this third strand it is almost impossible to break the two pieces of wool.  (I did try to use this illustration once, but for reasons I cannot remember it went horribly wrong!

 The point that he makes so well, and that comes out of the passage in Ecclesiastes, is that whilst friendships and marriages are wonderful gifts, having Jesus at the centre of a friendship or marriage provides an invisible thread of enormous strength. 

1.  Honour marriage: two become one
Proverbs 5:15-23
This is a beautiful description of marriage in which two people ‘become one flesh’ (Genesis 2:24).  Part of its beauty lies in its exclusiveness.  Each person has their own ‘cistern’, their own ‘well’, their own ‘springs’ (Proverbs 5:15–16).  They are ‘yours alone, never to be shared with strangers’ (v.17). 

It is such a wonderful picture of marriage as a source of blessing (‘blessed’, v.18a), rejoicing (‘rejoice’, v.18b), love (‘a loving doe’, v.19a), grace (‘a graceful deer’, v.19a), satisfaction (‘satisfy you always’, v.19b) and romance (‘may you ever be captivated by her love’, v.19c, NIV). 

The greatness of real love (‘enduring intimacies’, v.19, MSG) – the emotional and physical love between a husband and wife – is compared to the ‘cheap thrills’ of ‘dalliance with a promiscuous stranger’ (v.20, MSG).

That is why the writer warns so strongly against adultery.  Be aware, he says, that God is watching (v.21).  And the path that leads to adultery is ‘evil’, ‘wicked’, sinful, foolish and it leads to death (vv.22–23).  We see an example of this in the New Testament passage where it was Herod’s adultery that led to him murdering John the Baptist (Mark 6:14–29). 

Whilst the fact that our ‘ways are in full view of the Lord’ (v.21) is a warning against adultery, it is also a reminder of the strength that comes from having ‘the Lord’ involved in a marriage, as the third strand of the cord.

Indeed, in response to God’s love for us, it is discovering and living out our love for God which is the central guiding principle in how we are to love our spouse in marriage.  God’s love for us is the best example of how we should love our spouse.

Thank you Lord for the huge blessing of marriage.  Thank you for the difference that the third strand, of the presence of Jesus, makes to a marriage.  Thank you that two is better than one and that a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. 

Lord, thank you so much for our own marriages and those we see happening around us in the community of the church.  Lord, I pray for Nicky and Sila Lee and The Marriage Preparation Course and The Marriage Course.  I pray too for all those who are working to strengthen marriage in this country and elsewhere.

AMEN!  [so be it!]”  

Expecting to be amazed ~

Barbara

© Barbara Nelson – 2012