The Right To Remain Silent

You have the right to remain silent in your marriage… but just because you can, doesn’t mean that you should. Recorded at One Marriage Conference 2023 with Sarah Jakes Roberts.

God is saying to you today:
“Don’t give up. I know you’ve been under so much pressure. I know you’ve felt overwhelmed. You are so close to your breakthrough. My word is final, so get up and stand in faith. It’s not over.”

I have to tell you, first of all, it is such an honor to be here at free chapel.
If this is your church, can you just make some noise if you’ve been blessed?
What incredible leadership you have in the Franklins?
And it’s really my husband and I are so moved by the way that you all have just steered through ministry throughout the years.
And we are so honored to be here serving your vision. Thank you so much for hosting us.
And I just have to tell you, I’m your opening act because my husband’s coming later and he is my pastor, my favorite person on the planet.
So you guys are in for a really amazing treat.
But I just wanted to share a few things with you about what God told me as I was praying for you all because we don’t just come and take a message that we think will do well for relationships.
We pray about who’s gonna be in the room.
And we ask God, what is it that they need to hear?
How can we impart what you’re doing in this season into their lives?
And I believe that God has given me something that is gonna be helpful and useful for you and your relationships and marriages.
So I just wanna pray, Father, we welcome you.
You’re already here and you already have a plan for what this time together is gonna be.
So, father, it is my prayer that you would bring us into alignment with what this moment is supposed to be for the foundations of the earth.
You predestine this moment. And so I just turn myself over to you.
I wanna be in alignment with what you have already decided to do.
God bless our marriages, bless our homes, bless our family, allow us to make room for you to change us, transform us and grow us into that one you had in mind when you brought the two of us together in Jesus name.
Amen. Amen. So as Pastor Franklin said, my husband and I were uh a regular couple.
We like to do things that probably you and your spouse like to do for a good time.
So when you have six Children, like people say that you shouldn’t have a television in your bedroom.
But I think the people who say it don’t have six Children because they try to sell you on this idea that the bedroom is a place that should create conversation.
But when you have six Children, you don’t have conversation and television that can take place at the same time.
And I’m grown. I like to watch grown folk stuff. I’m tired of watching door. Ok.
So I put a TV, right in my bedroom. Ok.
At 7 30 I look at my husband, he looks at me, we’re at the dinner table.
We’re like, you know what, it’s time to wrap this up because we got shows to watch and we got to be in the bed by 10 o’clock.
Ok. Um, if your Children are having issues, this is what I suggest, pray for them and put them to bed by 7 45.
So you can watch your shows and get eight hours of sleep. Amen.
There’s parenting and then there’s this stage where you got to let God just do what he’s going to do with them.
They’re three, they’re fine. It’s fine.
So we go upstairs and we’re getting ready to watch our shows.
Put my bonnet on, come on sisters for those of you unfamiliar with what a bonnet is.
I purchased this hair that you’re looking at today and it comes off.
Oh, yeah, it’s real talk, honey.
When I go upstairs I take it off, I put my bonnet on because now it’s what you got.
This is what you got when you married me.
It’s bonnet time in the sanctuary, throw that slap that bonnet on my head and I go to the D V R now it’s time for us to battle over what we’re gonna watch.
There’s only two options we’re either gonna watch.
This is us or we’re gonna watch Chicago P D.
The moment we decide to watch this is us.
The spirit of heaviness falls on my husband. We’re 10 minutes into the show.
They haven’t even given us a flashback yet and he is snoring.
But that’s ok because now I get to watch the show by myself.
When we watch Chicago P D though, I have to get all engaged. Right.
I don’t know what’s more annoying him falling asleep during this is after me asking all of the questions during Chicago P D. I don’t think that’s legal.
I’m not sure. Hey, can you pause it real quick? What are the legal ramifications?
I don’t think they mirandized him. I don’t know if this one is going to stick.
Who do you think is the one that really shot him?
Do you think that he’s gonna get away with this?
Then I have to pause the show, right?
Cause now I’m engaged and I’m wondering if we’re ever in a real life situation? It’s fine.
Everything is fine. Babe, let’s just say hypothetically speaking, there’s a case of mistaken identity and they think I murdered someone.
Do I just plead my case with boy?
I mean with the officer or do I decide to wait for a lawyer?
Because if I say I need a lawyer, they’re gonna think I’m guilty but they could trap me if I don’t have a lawyer.
What do I do? My husband’s like make sure that you stay silent until we get a lawyer.
I’m like, but I have the truth on my side. I can tell the truth. It’s gonna be fine.
He’s like, Sarah, be Sarah. First of all, it’s just a TV show and you’re ruining it for me.
So if you’re taking notes, I want you to write this down.
If you are ever in a case of mistaken identity and you are arrested, you have the right to remain silent.
Exercise that right? Do not exercise that right to remain silent in your marriage, ok?
You have the right to remain silent in your marriage.
But that doesn’t mean that you should exercise that right.
It has been said that one of the most troubling problems in any marriage is communication.
I would respectfully offer for your consideration that it’s really not communication that tears our marriages apart.
It’s silence. It’s all the things that we don’t know how to say and our marriages, we have the right to remain silent because anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of marriage.
Remember when you said after our second date that you would never do me like this.
If we got married, we don’t get silent because we don’t believe that we can speak.
We’re silent because we don’t trust that there is an environment that can handle what we have to say.
And yet silence has the ability to create division in our marriages.
If your spouse is still speaking to you, then there’s a lot of hope.
If they’re still able to express their issues and their emotions, then things are going well.
It’s when they stop speaking and all they say is good morning and good night, that’s when trouble is amiss.
You see, it’s not that we don’t always have the words.
It’s just how do you express that? I lost my hope. I lost my passion.
How do you find the words to say that hurt me more than I let on.
How do you find the words to say when you married me?
You think you got a a full man but there’s a broken little boy down on the inside of me.
How do we say that when you said that?
I heard my father speaking, it’s the silence that creates division in our marriages.
And so our task, my assignment for today is to encourage you to fill in the silence.
I’m gonna be using Luke one and 57.
I love this text because it tells us so much about God’s plan in bringing in John and Jesus into the world.
But for the first time when studying it, for the sake of coming to be with you, I noticed that this dynamic between Elizabeth and Zacharias as a married couple is not really one that I’ve ever dissected.
You all are Bible scholars here.
So I’m just gonna give you the cliff notes version Zachariah is a high priest angel of the Lord comes to visit him.
He says, hey, homeboy, something is about to happen.
I’m gonna create an Ebonics version of the Bible in the next lifetime is gonna win so many songs.
You have no idea. The angel of the Lord appears to Zacharias and says to him that your wife is gonna give birth, it’s gonna change the world.
He’s gonna be the front runner, the forerunner for Jesus.
He tells them all of these things and Zacharias says, how is this gonna happen? We’re old.
She’s bearing, there’s no way. And because he doesn’t believe he is rendered mute.
And now I’m looking at this interestingly because I realize that there is a man in a marriage who has been rendered mute, but also been given the task to produce.
So even though we’re silent in our marriages, it doesn’t rob us from the responsibility of needing to produce, which means that we have to find a way to fill in the silence.
We have to find a way to communicate in spite of the potential for being misunderstood, the potential for having to sit there for hours after hour saying that’s not what I said, that’s what you heard.
We can’t allow the silence to have the final say.
And I’m looking at Elizabeth and Zachariah and I’m realizing that he’s been given this task to produce, but that he’s got to find a way to communicate in spite of the facts that what he is used to depending on no longer exists.
Elizabeth and Zachariah are forced into silence, they’re forced into silence because Zacharias has lost his belief.
It’s interesting that he’s lost his belief because he is still functioning as a high priest.
He’s on the outside looking in doing all of the things that would suggest belief.
But there’s something down on the inside of him that has been shaped by the disappointments he has experienced.
Whether you believe it or not, your disbelief shows up in your marriage, your disbelief shows up in your marriage.
It’s not that he doesn’t believe in the marriage.
Something happens to him outside of the marriage that affects his ability to connect in the marriage.
And for some reason, we believe that we’re able to compartmentalize our lives that if something happens at the office or my job is on the line or the money is looking a little funny as long as I don’t speak it, it won’t affect my marriage.
But the truth is that that is gonna show up in your marriage anyway.
If you’re taking notes, I want you to write this question down and you can ask yourself it later.
How has my disbelief shown up in my marriage?
Those areas where I don’t believe in my potential anymore.
Those areas where I don’t believe in that dream that I sold her when we first got married because life comes and life changes your belief system, but we don’t talk about the way that it changes us.
And then something happens that forces us into silence. In this moment with Elizabeth and Zachariah.
It forces them into silence. The areas where you have lost your passion and, or individual unbelief.
It doesn’t just affect you. It affects your partner too.
So you’re writing down that question, how does my unbelief show up in my marriage?
What God does to restore the unbelief that Zacharias is experiencing?
And what I believe God is doing with you this weekend is that he gives the marriage a new vision because when your marriage has a new vision, it affects every area of your life.
It doesn’t seem connected. But in this weird kind of way when things are right at home, I like to work out a little bit differently.
I don’t know when things are right at home. I show up at my office a bit differently.
I’m more confident in my ability when I’m speaking, when things are right at home, when my marriage is tight, everything around me seems like it is within reach.
And it’s possible, my dreams see, seem tangible.
And when we don’t have our belief system together, we have to go back to assess the foundation of our life lives.
Because when we get married, it changes the foundation of our life and sometimes we’re praying that God would give us a new job and sometimes we’re praying that God would do something outside of us when what we really need to be praying is that God would give us a new vision for our marriage.
Maybe we just had a vision to get the kids through school.
But now we don’t have a vision for what we’re going to do after them.
Every now and then, you’ve got to go back back to the drawing board and say God, what is the vision for my marriage?
Now? At first it was one thing 10 years ago, but now we’re 10 years down the road and I need to know what the vision is now because what if God is doing a new thing in your marriage?
But you’re still functioning off of the old plans.
You did not just come here for a conference, you came here because God is getting ready to give you new vision for your man marriage, new passion, new purpose, new promise.
And he’s only gonna give it to the people who are willing to lay down what they knew about who their spouse was to lay down what they knew about who they were and say God, what are you doing now?
I’m not married to the same man.
I used to be married to and I’m not married to the same woman I used to be married to and God, I wanna know how I can serve them.
Now, I need a new vision for my marriage.
It’s not just as simple as being understood.
It’s not just as simple as I need fidelity or we need more money.
No, God, I need a new vision for my marriage.
I need to understand the kind of parents we’re gonna be.
I need to understand how we interact with my family. I need a new vision for my marriage.
How do we love after this pain? How do we love with the Children here?
I’m functioning off of this old vision and I’m wondering why it’s not working.
I hear God saying that there’s nothing wrong with your spouse. There’s nothing wrong with your relationship.
There’s something wrong with the vision. But God says this is 2020.
This is the year of perfect vision and that He will give you a vision for your marriage that will see you through the next decade.
I feel like prophesying in this place and it is a Saturday morning and ain’t nobody got time for that.
But if I could just prophesy for a minute, I would say that God has a vision for you and your husband, you and your wife to be a power couple that is not just a power couple that can show up when the lights are on, but a power couple that can show up in their own bedrooms in the middle of the night that can go to war for their families that can get down on their knees and start praying, saying not my child I’m tired of hearing about praying mothers only.
I’m tired of hearing about praying fathers only. I believe in the power of marriage.
I believe in the power of unity.
And I believe that when we get together, when two of us are gathered in his name, that he will sit down in the midst and that we will chase every devil out of our household and we will chase every disease out of our marriage.
I don’t know about you but I didn’t get married just because he was fun.
I got married because we make hell nervous.
I got married because I got a vision for what we could do on the earth.
I got married because I believe me and him are unstoppable.
So you need a rider. Let me get gangster with it for a minute.
You need to marry a rider.
You need to marry somebody who will go down in the hell with you and take back everything the devil stole from you.
I got a vision for my marriage. I got a generational curse to break.
I got a statistics to prove wrong.
I’m not doing what’s always been done.
There’s a vision for my marriage.
What God does for Elizabeth and Zacharias is he breaks up their routine because your marriage could die by routine.
No, and marriage could die my routine.
So he shakes things up and he gives them a promise to produce a seed, but he makes him silent.
Zacharias was supposed to go home and turn on Luther Vandross.
He was supposed to tell Elizabeth we’ve been waiting all this time and God’s about to download something in here tonight, but he can’t speak.
He can’t show up the way that he would normally show up in this instance.
And so now he has to explain how he became broken and he has to explain how he became silent while recognizing that he still has a promise hanging over his head.
See, God’s not like us.
When Zachariah didn’t believe he didn’t take the promise from him, he just made him change the way that he functions so that it forced him to be vulnerable instead of using all of the techniques he’s used to.
When God gives you a new vision for your marriage, you can’t use your old tricks.
You gotta be willing to be vulnerable and find a new way to communicate.
There’s a vision for your marriage, that’s your whole, there’s a vision for your marriage that you have trust.
There’s a vision for your marriage that you don’t have to choose between the spouse and purpose that God will make it all work together.
But you can’t use your old tricks, you gotta become vulnerable to a new way of functioning.
And so now Zacharias has to learn to communicate in a different way.
Some of us with this new vision are gonna have to learn a new language.
Did you know that just buying flowers is not an apology.
Putting on that lingerie that you bought 10 years ago is not an apology.
It helps. But this new vision may require that you open your mouth and express what you were thinking and how you were hurting and why you made the decision that you made and how you’re gonna change it.
Next time, this new vision may require that you admit that you’re not passionate about the job anymore and that you feel like there’s a greater purpose for you and that you need help trying to get there.
Because in this new vision, we don’t pretend.
And in this new vision, we don’t act like we’re OK when we’re not.
And in this new vision, the miracle is more important than our comfort because what if there is a miracle hanging over your marriage’s head?
But the silence is the only thing keeping you from manifesting that miracle Zacharias got a word and that word is that we’re gonna be able to produce in a way that we’ve never been able to produce before.
And he has to communicate that word to Elizabeth.
So that Elizabeth is on the same page with him because he recognizes the power of miracle moments hanging over your marriage.
I want to prophesy in this room tonight that there are miracle moments over your marriage and that the silence if you allow it to stay will keep you not just from connecting, but from manifesting the generational miracles that your family needs to see.
That’s powerful because so many of us believe that our marriages are called to break generational curses.
And we’re gonna be first time homeowners and we’re not gonna walk away the way that some of the other people in our families walked away.
There’s a miracle hanging over our marriage. Some people need big miracles. We need billions of dollars.
But others of us, we need regular old miracles like I just wanna learn to communicate in a way that my mother didn’t know how to communicate.
The miracle for me would be recognizing who my husband is and treating him like the king that he is a miracle for me would be able to be faithful in a way that my father was never able to be faithful.
There’s a miracle hanging over your marriage’s head and I hear God saying that the only thing you have to do is find a different way to function, to access the miracle that He has for you.
I hear God saying that He is already giving you the power to manifest the miracle that is hanging over your head.
But until you become vulnerable to the person you are connected to, you will never manifest it.
But if you do dare decide to become vulnerable and to get on the same team, instead of feeling like we’re in opposition with one another, then I hear God saying that you will recognize that the battle was never with the person you were laying next to the battle was with the devil that was waiting outside of the house.
I hear God saying that somebody in this room has been making the wrong person, their enemy, that’s not your enemy, baby, that’s your teammate.
And when you recognize that that’s your teammate, then you get your game plan together and when you get your game plan together, then the miracles can come forth.
I mean, the type of miracles that your family has never seen.
I mean, the type of miracles that your community has never seen.
I’m talking about changing the way that you do family. I’m talking about changing the way that you do business.
I’m talking about changing the way that you do finances. I know you’ve never seen it.
I know it’s hard to believe it. But when belief makes you feel like you don’t have what it takes.
You gotta do like God did Zacharias and shut doubt up.
Doubt has no space in your marriage that has no space in your miracle.
I don’t care what the history is shown in the past.
When God says he’s gonna do a new thing, you better get on board with what the new thing is going on.
There’s a new thing, there’s a new thing happening.
There’s a new thing happening in your marriages.
You don’t come to environments like this and conferences like this and not get exposed.
To a new thing, God, what if there’s a different way for us to connect?
What if there’s a different way for us to show up?
And so they start producing from the place of the miracle.
My text very quickly, I’m gonna share this with you and then I’ll be out of your way.
It starts in verse 57. And this is important because at this point in the text, Elizabeth is giving birth to her and Zacharias child, which means that Zachariah found a way to explain why he was silent.
And he also found a way to produce in spite of the barrier that they had, he found a way to overcome that barrier.
So she went 10 months without speaking and connecting with her husband the way that she is used to.
But they found a way to connect anyway.
In verse 57 it says now Elizabeth’s full time came for her to be delivered and she brought forth the son when her neighbors and relatives heard how the Lord had shown great mercy to her, they rejoiced with her.
So it was on the eighth day that they came to circumcise the child and they would have called him by the name of his father, Zacharias.
That was the custom of the time they’ve had a male son. They’re supposed to name him after his father.
His mother answered and said no, he shall be called John.
She knows this because that’s what the angel of the Lord told Zacharias they found a way to communicate and now she is communicating on the same page as what God said about what they would produce.
But they said to her, there is no one among your relatives who was called by this name.
So they made signs to his father, what he would have called him.
And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote saying his name is John.
So they all marveled immediately, his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed and he spoke, praising God.
This is all I wanna share with you about that moment because we’re all gonna be given the opportunity just like Zacharias was given to prove to choose between our history and our customs and what God said were all gassed up at the marriage conference.
But 10 months down the road, when we have the opportunity to be pulled back into our old customs, it’s gonna be a moment just like this with Zacharias where we have to choose.
Do I function in the new vision or do I start acquiescing to the way that I used to be?
And Elizabeth makes a stance and she says, no, we’re gonna do what God said we should do.
And Zachariah, he does the same thing. He makes his stance.
But when he does this, it’s really important because it proves to us that they found a way to get on the same page about what was next for them.
They found a way to become one in the face of those who expected something different from them.
God help us there. The people in their community thought that they were headed in a certain direction, but nobody knew that because of what they had been working on, on the inside of their marriage.
When no one was looking that just when they thought that they were gonna be headed in one direction that God had called them to a different arena.
And this was their opportunity to prove to their community and to prove to their customs that they were gonna do something different that they had never been done before.
And I just wanted to let you know here at this marriage conference that before the year is up.
God is gonna put you on blast.
He’s gonna put your marriage on display and when God puts your marriage on display, it’s gonna release a sound.
And when your marriage releases a sound, you wanna make sure that that sound looks like what God said.
When you were sitting in this moment and you received this word, you have the right to remain silent in your marriage.
But I suggest that you don’t use it because when your marriage releases that sound, it sends off a signal to heaven and hell that it just gained a new army and that army came in the form of your marriage and that no weapon formed against your marriage because it’s prosper when Elizabeth Zacharias and God got on the same page and shook up everything around them.
But they were able to withstand the shaking because they knew that they were standing and planted on a word from God.
It doesn’t matter who understands it.
It doesn’t matter who gets it all that matters is that you and your spouse and your God are on the same page about what he’s gonna do in your marriage.
Some of you are gonna spring up businesses.
Everyone thought that you were satisfied, but you’re gonna be moving to another state. Why?
Because me, my husband and my God are on the same page.
Me, my wife and my God are on the same page. Why do you keep chasing that child?
Because me, my God and my spouse are on the same page. And God said, don’t give up.
And God said to write the book and God said to bring up the business and God said, it’s not gonna make sense to your community.
So if you wait on your community to get on the same page about what God said.
He’s gonna do in your marriage, you may miss God and gain the community.
But if you dare to stand out amongst your community and do what God said to do, you will never have to worry about missing God.
Then the silence creates division.
But our commitment to filling the silence so that we can get on the same page so that we can release our sound is the most important journey that any of us can make in our marriage life comes and it hits us hard and it changes who we are and it changes who we thought we could become.
And it changes the way that we believe.
But when we stood in front of God and said that we could rock with you in spite of all the changes.
What we were saying is if you let me in, if you allow me to have access to those pieces of your heart that you’re trying to keep from me, that you’re trying to keep silent.
And I believe we can get on the same page.
There is nothing more powerful than unity in your marriage.
I thought about Zachariah is coming home after being at the temple, mute, silent.
And I thought about Elizabeth being at home in her bonnet when he came in different.
And I wondered if Elizabeth judged him, how could it be that you’re the high priest serving in the temple?
But when God said something, you didn’t believe, then I wondered how many of us do that same thing with our spouse’s vulnerability when they come to us, hoping to be seen, not judged how we question how they could be divided as if we don’t understand that pain ourselves.
I believe that as we’re here, that God’s gonna give us wisdom on how to love and connect with the person we go home with.
I believe that this is just a new beginning for the rest of your marriage.
And I wanna pray with you as I prepare to close, I was praying.
And I asked God, I said, God, what is it that you want me to share with these incredible couples at the marriage conference?
And he told me, I want you to tell them that I intended for every married couple to be a power couple.
That when I created Adam and Eve and I told them to be to multiply and fill the earth to, to subdue it and to have Dominion that I made them the first power couple.
That when I had this encounter with Zacharias and Elizabeth, that that was the moment that I pushed them from being just regular into becoming a power couple because I wanted to trust them with what I was doing in the earth.
So I gave them a miracle that only they could perform in the context of their marriage.
And if they were willing to take the chance to perform that miracle that my power would live in their marriage, the goal is for the power of God to show up in our marriages.
For us to start believing in God to do impossible things in our marriage.
I need a vision for my marriage so big that it requires God because I need to be a power couple.
We didn’t get married to be housewives. We didn’t get married to be on Bravo.
We didn’t get married so that we could finally have the white picket fence.
We got married because we stood in front of God and said, there’s no one else on this earth I can do life with.
So God, I need you to help us get back to your power functioning in our marriage.
It takes the power of God to forgive, takes the power of God to trust again.
It takes the power of God to receive your husband’s heart without hurting it, to receive your wife’s past without judging it.
That takes the power of a God.
My goal is to love my husband so well that it brings him closer to God that He would look at how I loved him and that He would say God, if this is any fraction of how you love me, thank you.
And I want that in return, I’m not gonna lie.
I wanna feel so safe and so whole and love with my husband that when I give him my heart, that it makes me marvel and thank God not question Him, but we’re human.
And we have those moments where the person who we thought would fight with us becomes the person we’re fighting with.
But the power of God can get you back to where you belong.
And I’m gonna pray that the power of God would fall in your marriage.
And that, that power would not just touch her marriage but that it would touch everything connected to you that it would change the way your Children love.
That it would change the way your parents love, that it would change the way your sister loves that, it would change the way your church loves because they would stand and marvel at what God did in your marriage.
I’m gonna pray that the power of God would fall so hard and so fresh on your marriage that it wouldn’t matter whether you had the kids or not because whether you have the babies or not, doesn’t mean that you’re less of a married couple.
Can we have a real conversation in this room?
I’m gonna pray that God would create space in your marriage for Him to blow your mind.
Elizabeth and Zachariah, they were old. That’s what Zachariah said in the text.
He says, we’re old and we’re barren.
They had been married a long time, but God still had a new thing in mind for them.
I don’t care how long you’ve been married. Three days, been like 300 years.
I says, if you’re still here, I got a new vision for your marriage.
But he can only give those visions to those who are open to receive what He has for them.
And if that’s you, when you’re here and you know, without a shadow of a doubt that you need a new vision for your marriage, I just want you to stand.
I wanna pray with you. Maybe your spouse is here. Maybe they aren’t.
That’s ok when you stand, you represent both of them.
I need a new vision for my marriage. It’s not bad.
It’s just not what I know it could be.
I’m not sure that my marriage makes hell nervous.
I want the kind of marriage that makes the enemy mad.
I want the kind of marriage that makes the enemy wonder what are they gonna do if they ever get on the same page?
I want the kind of marriage that makes the kingdom expand in the territories and industries.
We have no business in. How could a kingdom couple do business on that level?
It was the power of God that fell on my marriage.
How could they do it without any backing without any funding? I can’t explain it.
It was just the power of God that fell on my marriage. God wants to give vision in this room.
But first we gotta get on the same page of needing a new vision.
The first thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna forget those things that are behind.
Forgetting those things that are behind can be hard when they’re bad things.
They can be really hard when there are good things that can be hard too.
Because sometimes we will think that our best days are behind us, but we’re forgetting those things that are behind.
Our best days are only ahead of us. Maybe we had trauma, maybe we had pain.
I know that it hurt. I know that it wounded, but we’re forgetting those things that are behind because it’s time for a new vision.
I don’t know how you ended up to this place.
But I do know that if you’re here and you’re under the sound of my voice, it’s because God has already decided to do a fresh thing in your house.
So spirit of the living God, we make room for you. Father.
We ask that you would help us to not function from the place of our disbelief, but to dare to function and perform from the place of where our miracle is promised.
Father, we can’t afford to be bitter anymore. We can’t afford to be angry anymore.
Father, we can’t afford to be disconnected any longer.
So father, it is our prayer that you would clear the lenses of our souls so that we can see our partner the way that you see them.
Father helped me to understand how they became silent in the ways that they became silent.
But most importantly, Father, give me the tools, the wisdom and the resources to find a way to communicate in a way that they understand.
Father. If I’m too sharp and I’m too direct and father smooth my words out if I internalize and become passive aggressive, father, help that little person in me to speak up like the adult that they now are father help me to not keep replaying the traumas of what used to be and instead to start dreaming about what could be.
Father, what could be if we got on the same page?
What father, what father, what could be if we started doing ministry together? Father?
What could be if we opened up our eyes and realized that we are not enemies?
Father, I pray that you would make them wonder again that you would give them imagination again, that you would help them fall in love in a fresh new way, not a temporary superficial love, but the kind of love that chases out all fear, the kind of love that chases out all disbelief.
Father, I wanna be my spouse’s biggest cheerleader.
I wanna be the one person they can count on when they can’t count on anyone else.
And father, if I partner with you, I will never lose them again.
So father, I turn myself over to you and we turn our marriage over to you and we say have your way.
Great God that you are take as much time as you need to take, take as much room as you need to take.
I believe in the power of Jesus that resurrect it him from the grave can resurrect my marriage like never before so spring false life out of my marriage, bring false life out of my heart.
Dad thinks we bury you. Resurrection power must come up like never before until glory, after glory, after glory, after glory.
It’s all that we experience in Jesus name. I pray.
Can we send up a shot of praise in this room?
Who?
Yeah.