Praying for Him: His Treasure

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
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Let me start with being honest about this past week: I competely dropped the ball. I prayed, but it was almost as though I was back to my old self. This last week was rough; spiritually, I didn't make it.

It was just one of those weeks.

Maybe that's why I feel as though I have nothing to bring to the table for this post. Maybe that's why I'm staring at my card, and all I can think is I've prayed about this before. I pray about it on a regular basis.

I think I'm trying to justify my lack of fervor for prayer this week. I'm trying to find a way to say it's ok that I didn't pray about what Ben's heart prizes the way I did for myself or for his identity.

I am not saying that I am not forgiven for my down fall this past week. I am saying that I cannot sit and justify it and excuse it with whatever reason I find. If I do that, then I will find myself giving in to the runner's stitch in my side.

As I sit typing, I immediately thought of running. Likely because I ran cross country in high school and wish I could get my derriere up off the couch so I can work on actually running 5 miles easily again.

I'm reminded of how you can want to win so bad that you start too quickly. Eventually, that unpaced start catches up with you; you're left with a stitch in your side. Then you find yourself wanting to walk. And if you give in, you may never pick up the momentum you need to win. Likely you've already fallen too far behind to place well so your motivation is lost to really give it your best. And at that point, you have to make a dire, extremely personal decision: give in or give it your all?

This past week leaves me feeling like I've already made it to that crucial point. And honestly, there is part of me that wants to give up. Part of me that wants to say, "I will never be a prayer warrior. So why try?"

But God. He is a good God. He is good.

While my fingers are typing out my thoughts, I am immediately brought back to a scripture, that applies to how I feel and to what I was to be fervently praying for Ben this week: that God bless his finances but that he would treasure God more than anything.

"Not that I have already obtained it [In the preceding verses, Paul was talking about knowing Christ, being like Christ, and fulfilling all that Christ wanted him to be] or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus."

Philippians 3:12 NASB (notes in brackets mine)

This verse brings me two places right now:

     1) It gives me hope that as long as I willingly admit where I tried to live in my own strength this past week, He will see me through and build in me a heart that earnestly converses with Him. A heart that is constantly learning to pray without ceasing. It reminds me I am not striving for perfection in my own strength, I am striving to grow in His likeness, which He has promised to do as long as I seek Him first.

     2) It reminds me to pray for Ben's finances from a heart earnestly desiring he seek God above riches.  Not because I don't want Ben to see the fruit of his labor, but because a heart that chases earthly treasures is corrupted easily and not seeking it's sole delight from the only true source.

And so while it might have been a "take two steps back" week, I'm grateful that this journey isn't over, and my God does not give up on me or ever leave me.

Next week I'll be talking about praying for his sexuality. I'm not really sure what this will look like, but it's the next topic in the book, so I guess we'll see where it leads; of course, it will be within reason.