“Would You Please Pray for My Husband?”

By Janet Page

“Would you please pray for my husband?” Abigail* asked our prayer group one day. “I want George to be the spiritual leader in our home and go to camp meeting. He brought me into the church, but he doesn’t want to go to church. I don’t want to go to camp meeting without him.”

We prayed for this request for many months, and yet George refused to go to camp meeting. After camp meeting, we decided to ask God how we should pray for him. We prayed together for God to show us, then we waited in silence. The idea came to us to pray that it would be his idea to go to the next camp meeting. We began praying for that, and kept praying he would be the spiritual leader in the home and go to church.

Months went by, and one morning my phone rang. It was Abigail. She said, “Last night George came into the kitchen rubbing his head like he wasn’t sure where this thought was coming from. ‘I want to go to camp meeting,’ he said. ‘I have some time I can take off from work, and I can borrow Frank’s trailer.’”

“Oh, praise the Lord!” I was thrilled. “He has answered our prayers! You need to turn in the registration for camp meeting, because it fills up.”

“No, when it comes down to it, he won’t want to go,” she said.

Now I was frustrated. “God answered your prayer. You need to send it in.”

Abigail wouldn’t do it. Instead she put the application on the front of her refrigerator with magnets.

About three weeks later Abigail called again. “Last night George came into the kitchen and asked why I hadn’t sent in this application for camp meeting since they fill up quickly. I told him, ‘Well, I thought when it came down to it you would not want to go to camp meeting.’ He said, ‘Of course I want to go to camp meeting! I told you I did, and I have extra time I can take off work, and I can borrow Frank’s trailer. I want to go to camp meeting!’”

She was a praying woman, and I think God had her wait until it was really his idea to go to camp meeting!

George and Abigail were there when camp meeting started. But not many days passed before Abigail found me. “Fine!” she said, her arms crossed and foot tapping. “He’s here at camp meeting, but he doesn’t go to any meetings. All he does is sit in our trailer. What good will it do?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll pray for God to get him into the meetings!”

I quickly found some people who would pray, and we poured our hearts out to God, praying for him to get George to go to all the meetings. We met several times and prayed this same prayer.

George never did go to all the meetings. But he did attend one seminar on prayer with Abigail. He had never participated in small-group prayer times during meetings. But this time, the speaker asked George and Abigail to pray with him at the end of the meeting. Whether that was what did it or not, I don’t know, but I know that George went home a changed man. He started reading his Bible, going to church, and leading out in family worships.

About two weeks later Abigail called me in tears. “He is leading out in family worships, but it’s terrible! He is so authoritarian and strict that the kids hate it!”

Well, she was a wise woman. She kept her mouth shut, and we earnestly prayed for God to mellow him. It took a few weeks, but he changed and it improved.

Now whenever the church doors were open, George was there, asking how he could help. He was consistently having his own private time with God, too.

One night after family worship, when the kids were in bed, he asked Abigail to help him with something in the living room. He asked her to wait, then returned with a huge stack of pornography magazines.

“Will you help me burn these in the fireplace?” he asked, shaking all over.

“I would love too!” she responded.

When the magazines were burning, she said, “They’re burning. Let’s go to bed.”

“No! Not till every one of them is ashes. They have so controlled my life!”

George went on to become an elder in his church. He started preaching powerful sermons, giving Bible studies, and winning people to Jesus. Would all of this have happened if we had not prayed? Our little prayer group had no idea George was struggling with a pornography addiction. But we knew he had a spiritual problem. And God knew the answer. It was the convicting power of the Holy Spirit poured out on his heart in answer to prayer.

Janet Page serves as associate ministerial secretary for pastoral spouses, families, and prayer at the General Conference. This story was originally published in “The Journal: A Resource for Ministry Spouses,” Vol. 30, Third Quarter 2013. *Name changed to protect privacy of individuals.

To download this week's blog and prayer requests, click here!

World Church Prayer Requests

for Oct. 1 – 8, 2017

• PRAYER REQUEST: Please pray for our church members caught in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the other Caribbean islands. Pray that God will provide a way for water, food, resources, and supplies to get through to the islands that are in desperate need of help.
• PRAYER REQUEST: Please pray for those still struggling to recover from Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean, in Texas and Florida. Please pray that people seek after God as a result of this crisis. Pray that God will show us how to more effectively help our brothers and sisters in need.
• PRAYER REQUEST: Please pray for those affected by the terrible earthquakes in Mexico City. Pray that God's comfort and peace would be seen even in the midst of this tragedy. Pray for our church members in Mexico.
• PRAYER REQUEST: Please pray for the upcoming Annual Council meetings being held next week in Silver Spring, Maryland. Church leaders come from all over the world to pray, plan and make decisions for the future. Pray that God will give them wisdom.
• PRAYER REQUEST: Please pray for Ted N.C. Wilson, General Conference (GC) President; G.T. Ng, GC Secretary; and Juan R. Prestol-Puesan, GC Treasurer, that God will be their wisdom and strength as they shoulder the weight of leading God’s church.
• PRAYER REQUEST: Please pray for General Conference Vice-Presidents: Geoffrey G. Mbwana, Thomas Lemon, Ella S. Simmons, Guillermo Biaggi, Abner De Los Santos, and Artur A. Stele, that God will give them special wisdom as they chair multiple committees.
• PRAYER REQUEST: Please pray for all the General Conference departmental directors, that God will give them wisdom as we move forward promoting Total Member Involvement, and sharing the everlasting gospel.
• PRAYER REQUEST: Remember he upcoming “Day of Prayer and Fasting” that occurs Oct. 7th. Pray that many churches around the world will take part. (For materials for this special day, click here!)
• PRAYER REQUEST: Pray that more church members take seriously the call to pray and lift up the arms of our leaders in prayer. Inspiration tells us, “A chain of earnest, praying believers should encircle the world, praying for the Holy Spirit. Let all pray in humility…. In response to the prayers of God’s people, angels are sent with heavenly blessings” (In Heavenly Places, p. 93).