Lord, we thank you today for the institution of marriage, which you designed and gave to us as a beautiful and profound gift. All of creation tells us that you exist, but marriage tells us who you are. You are a God of relationship. Within the Godhead, you are rich, harmonious, honoring relationship. As people made in your image, we have the joy of reflecting that rich, harmonious, and honoring relationship in our marriages.

It is a privilege and responsibility to tell the truth of who you are. Through our marriages, we can reflect the truth that you are a faithful Covenant Partner: you cherish, you protect, you provide, you nurture, you support, and you comfort. You never abandon; you never belittle; you never stop loving.

Lord, we confess as your people that we have failed to tell the truth of who you are through our marriages. We have failed to turn to you to let you love us so well that we can then turn to our spouses and love them well. We have not leaned on you as the one who will always welcome us, the one who will always comfort us, and the one who is always trustworthy.

God, we hold up to you now every marriage within the body of Christ in this nation. We ask that the marriages of your people would be rooted and grounded in you. We ask that we would love our spouses as our highest ministry and that we would value our spouses as people created in the image of God, worthy of respect, attention, and compassion.

Show us how to encourage the marriages around us. Teach us that our marriages are not private matters; they are personal but not private because we are part of the Body of Christ, and we hurt and heal together.

Lord, we pray now for marriage in this nation to be honored. We recognize that the fabric of marriage is being shredded and that the very meaning of marriage is being repressed and slandered. We pray that marriage as you designed it will be valued; we pray that couples will be strengthened and will gain hope to keep doing the noble work of marriage; we pray that couples will be encouraged to nurture their marriages because people are always worth loving.  

Make us bold, unrelenting, and kind in holding onto marriage as you designed it—
marriage as the best cradle for a child,
marriage as the strong, enduring foundation underneath our children’s lives, and
marriage that tells the truth about who you are.

You are a promise keeper, a faithful lover, a devoted covenant partner to us, and we adore you.

For the sake of Christ, we pray this. Amen.