Sometimes a quote says it all. In this case, Francis of Assisi said it well - "Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

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Let me ask you a question. Do you and your spouse or fiance pray together daily? Eight out of ten couples I ask answer NO. Of all the things that are a paradox in life, this one seems to take the cake. The bible is filled with hundreds of referenes referring to communication with God - praying, calling out and crying out. In the New Testament we see Jesus praying often and teaching us how to pray (Luke 11:1).

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Ironically, we seem to have no problem praying on our own but when it comes to being deliberate about praying with our spouse, it is something we don't prioritize. I've heard couples say that they feel awkward praying out loud or others say they don't pray together because one of them never prays. I think we've missed the point altogether. Praying together isn't an activity - it's a necessary part of a life devoted to God. It doesn't matter who prays or how long you pray. What matters is that you do it, willingly and wholeheartedly.

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The secret to a successful marriage begins with praying together daily. As we discussed in Food & Fruit - it's about forming good habits that will transform our lives. There is a story worth reading in one of our recent blog posts - Spiritual Warfare in Marriage - it explains the power of prayer in a way that we often miss; awareness of the world we don't see. 

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As a couple, your are strategically positioned to bring the power of God into your marriage and your home so that you can experience a life filled with greater love than you might be experiencing now. But it goes further than praying together in the way we might think. Much of what we see in scripture on the topic of prayer is more like calling or crying out to God - in other words, there is an underlying sense of urgency that comes off the pages when you read some of the ways that people in scripture prayed. David is one of the best examples on this - "In the day of trouble I will call upon You, for You will answer me" Psalm 86:7 or later in Psalms when a man named Heman said "O LORD, I cry out to you. I will keep on pleading day by day." Psalm 88:13

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My wife and I prayed together each morning over the phone when we were dating and then engaged. When we got married we started our day with prayer, sometimes with me being in another country and timezone because of work. We then ended each day by praying together before bed. Yes, I realize that this makes it sound like we're so spiritual but I can assure you, we learned to do this because we wanted to make sure that we stayed focused on the things that mattered most simply because it's in our nature to get easily distracted.

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When troubles arrived, like they always do, we discovered that coming together to cry out wasn't something we had to think about. The habit was formed and we knew what to do. We have watched marriages become transformed in a matter of weeks just by getting couples to pray together daily. 

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I firmly believe and am convinced beyond words that we complicate God's word and instruction. We nit-pick it to death and read everything we can into it rather than accepting it at face value. While I don't subscribe to formulas, I do believe that there are certain things that we can do and from them, expect to see great results.

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Praying together is one of those things. Praying may not always immediately change our circumstances but it will always change us.