Praying for Him: His Achilles Heel

Over the next 30 weeks, which I started with an intro on May 1st, I will be doing a weekly series where I talk about my journey through Stormie Omartian's Power of  a Praying Wife. I felt led to pray for my husband, wanted to incorporate the book, but knew that doing a 30 day challenge was next to impossible. (Let's face it: life with a baby just-turned-Toddler changes and there are still nights with many wake up calls due to teething or illness. I'd already tried once and failed.)  So this series was born as a way to share, encourage, and hold me accountable to the commitment I made. I'll keep a list of links just below this on each post so you can easily access them all. Enjoy!

Week 1: Intro     Week 2: Starting with Me     Week 3: His Identity     Week 4: His Treasure

Week 5: His Sexuality   Week 6: His Hugs, Kisses, and "I love you"s

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Ok, so maybe "achilles' heel" isn't exactly the right description because none of us humans have overall strength. But it's what I think of when I hear the word "temptation". Probably because whenever I hear temptation and I've heard of people succumbing, I also typically associate it with a pretty big downfall in their (or my!) life.

Not because all temptation leads to horrendous disaster; God's forgiveness and mercy are very gracious at times. And some temptation, if repented of and done everything in that person's power (read: they rely on God to help them through, for He will "provide the way of escape also, so that [they] will be able to endure it." [1 Corinthians 10:13b]) is can truly be "minor", in a sense.

I guess it's just the notion I've grown up with. It isn't something I judge people based off of. It just is the lens through which I view temptation.

Anyway, this isn't where I was going with all that.

The achilles' heel bit more ties into the fact that I struggled with looking at this chapter and thinking, "I'm not even sure how to pray for Ben's temptations. I don't really see any."

You see, for a very long time, I have struggled with seeing Ben's imperfections. 

Hear me out here. I'm not about to bash him, nor am I saying you're supposed to look for the imprefections in someone and try to help them fix them. (Honestly, the week 2 post for this series dives into that just a tad. I would love to write an entire post about my thoughts on that. Maybe I will...)

Because of some situations in our lives, the nature of Ben's beasts (hey, we all have beasts we deal with.), and my own personal struggles with self-image, I formed this thought process that looked a little something like this:

I don't think Ben really has any struggles. I mean, he's practically perfect. He's a much better Believer than I am. I mean, look at all his Bible knowledge. Gah...if I really take the time to think about it, I'm not sure Ben has any struggles.

And this could go on. For hours. It's definitely come and gone for years.

And while I subconciously know that Ben isn't perfect, that he needs prayer just as much as any of us, my heart doesn't always get to where it embraces that and loves him through it. My heart doesn't always find a way to work through my problem so I can pray for him, in hopes that he will not succumb to whatever temptations Satan throws his way.

And if I had to guess, I'm not the only one who has done this regarding a relationship with someone else.

We belittle ourselves and set people on such a high pedastal (umm...sometimes they help us.), we grow these images of a "perfect" human. Yet, the only perfect human was Jesus. The only one who could and did overcome every temptation that came His way was Christ.

We see our sins so blatantly and have trouble seeing or understanding someone else's that we begin to wonder just how they do it. (Might I ask: why on earth are we so worried about another person's problems anyway. This also ties into not searching for another's imperfections. *sigh* I think I'm seeing a pattern here...) We think that maybe if we could just be like them or just figure out their secret. 

Hello! The only person we should ever want to be like is Jesus! Why on earth do we waste our time with other trivial matters?

Umm...temptation.

I'm laughing at the irony of this post. Because while I was supposed to be praying for Ben to lean into God so as to hopefully not succumb to whatever temptations come his way, I was sulking thinking I had no clue how to pray for him and was giving in to my own temptation of belittling myself. Not seeing myself as the child God has made me and sees me as.

Ahh, Jesus! Thank you for the lesson this week. May I take it to heart and see that praying against temptation in my husband's life is so valuable. May I not take the throne in my life by focusing on anything other than you.

By His grace, my journey will be set to a slightly different tune this week. And by His grace, I will seek him out as I pray over Ben's mind this next week.

(I think I'm growing more than I thought I would through this. Prayer, you guys, is such a powerful tool, that I hope you're tapping into no matter where you are in life. It is absolutely, 100% worth it.)