Praying Men: A Gift To Families

Before we get started today, I just wanted to say the year's almost over.

How do you feel about that? What a year. And as the year comes to a close, I think our listeners need to know it's a critical moment in the life of family life because year-end giving, financial giving, sustains us to go forward and have another incredible year.

Yeah. And so I just want to ask you as you think about family life and what we've meant to you and your year-end giving, the exciting news is we have partners who have matched up to two million dollars. Which is incredible. Two million dollars.

That's astounding. And so anything you give is going to be doubled. But I would really ask you to pray and consider helping us because we can't do what we do without you. And I know you have a lot of opportunities to give, but man, if this ministry has blessed you, I pray that you'd be a blessing to us. And you can just go to familylifetoday.com and make a gift there. Or just call us at 1-800-FL-TODAY and say, I'm in. I want to be a partner.

And again, know your donation is going to be doubled and this ministry will continue to thrive and make a difference in your life and others as well. So I know this about myself and men, and I can't speak for women, so Ann you'll have to do this, but I know for me and every guy I know, we hate to do things we're not good at. Oh yeah.

I think that's true for women too, but is it especially true for men? I think, I mean two or three weeks ago, I played the worst round of golf and I got in the car and said, I'm done. I'm never playing this stupid game again. Why do I keep trying to do this 30 years in? And I just, I quit. I just quit.

I'm not, I literally threw the clubs in the back of the car and I'm like, I'm just gonna burn these things. Why do this again? Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson, and I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app.

This is Family Life Today. Ten days later, I'm out again and I, my front nine, I shot par. I've never, I mean I shot par. I had the best round of my life.

Of course, I didn't shoot par on the back nine, but I had the best round. But it gave you hope. And there I was again, but I thought as men, and I'm sure women are same way, it's like we don't like doing things we're not good at.

So we just sort of quit, or we give up, or we moved on to something else. And I thought, okay, when it comes to prayer, I think a lot of men feel the same way I did about my golf game. It's like, I don't understand it. I'm not good at it. My wife's a lot better at it than I am. I'll just let her be the prayer warrior in our family, and I'll just sort of not do it. From what I've heard from women, I hear from a lot of women, they struggle because their husbands aren't necessarily leading in that area.

You've just given them an answer. Like this could be one of the reasons why they struggle. Yeah, and I think for a golf game, or for anything else, what do I need to do? I need to get a coach. I need to learn how to hit a ball, which I did, and it helped.

But I want to train. And prayer's something we haven't trained much in. So we have a guest in the studio today.

Yeah, we got a prayer trainer. I mean John Yates is with us today. Welcome back, John. It is great to be with you all again today.

Glad to have you here. I mean you are one of our mentors. You may not know this, but you and Susan, for years you joined the Family Life team of speakers. You know, a team of us that do the Family Life Weekend Remembers all around the country. How long ago?

Yeah. And how many years were you on that team? Well, just 20 years. Just 20. Just 20.

Didn't seem like very long, but they were great years for us. Really, you know, we encourage people to go to the marriage weekend to remember we know how much impact it has on them. But what they don't realize is how great it is for the speakers. Exactly. Yes, speaking changed our lives.

Speaking changed our marriage, too. Absolutely. Yeah, and that was one part of your life, but for most of your life you're a pastor of Falls Church in Falls Church, Virginia. Right. How many years? 40 years? 40 years.

Yeah. And you and Susan have been married how many years? 52 years.

Woo! And we're not old yet. You're not old. You're young. You look younger than I do, I know that.

And 21 grandkids? That's right. You know, Susan was on here last year, Family Life Today, talking about your cousin camp book. Oh, the cousin camp book, yeah. Yeah, which is, I mean, it was so inspiring to think. We've only got six grandkids, but we already did our first little cousin's camp. Oh, that's great. Just a couple weeks ago.

I mean, it didn't, it wasn't as big as the Yates cousin's camp, but maybe someday we'll get there. Well, like I said, you're mentors to us because it's like watching your life is inspiring us young people to coffee and finish well. And then you revised the book you wrote over 20 years ago called How a Man Prays for His Family. Yeah, How a Man Prays for His Family.

Why did you rewrite it? And I know Susan told you to do it, but I mean, do you feel like men today need to learn how to pray just like they did 20 years ago? Yeah, I just felt like this might prompt some more men a little bit later on in life to rekindle an interest in prayer. And I had heard so many stories from people who loved this simple little book. You know, it's just, oh, God's got a guide to prayer.

That's all it is. But I'd heard so many people say what it meant to them. And men study it in small groups and they talk about it.

And there weren't any copies of it around, you know, as they were all gone. And so we just said, well, let's redo this. Yeah, and like I said, many of us as men, I know it's true for women and wives as well, we need a trainer, somebody to help train us. So what would you say, and it's the title of your book, How Does a Man Pray for His Family? Yeah, how do I pray for my family? How does a man pray for his family? You know, as a parent, you do everything you can for your kids. And you don't expect somebody, anybody to help you.

You do everything you can. But there are a lot of things you can't do. And those are the things that you have to turn to God for and ask Him to help you with. I can't change my teenage grandson's attitude about whatever it is.

You know, I can talk to him, but I can't change his attitude. Only God can do that. And so I think if a man wants to pray for his family, first of all, he needs to know what's going on in their lives. For instance, I'm praying a lot for grandchildren now. One of my daughters-in-law, whenever one of the children has a birthday, she will write us a letter and she will say, here are the things that you need to know about this girl's life so that you can pray for her. So she helps me know how to pray because I'm not in Charlottesville.

I don't know what's going on. That's a sweet gift and what a good idea. But it's a great thing for a parent to do for a grandparent. But another way that you can learn to pray effectively for your family is set aside some time. Well, I'll tell you what Susan and I have done.

Yeah, give us some homework. I'll tell you, every year in late August, early September, as the kids were going back to school, my wife and I, we would pull away for an overnight, go to some hotel somewhere or something, spend the night, get some rest, and all the next morning we would spend talking about the children. Okay, here's my son Chris. Okay, how old is he? Well, say he's 17 right now. He's trying to make a decision about college.

Let's talk about him. And Susan will say, what do you think are some of the needs that we need to be aware of in Chris's life? So we would think physical needs, what's going on physically, you know, what are what health problems, how's he doing in athletics, that sort of thing.

Physical needs, spiritual needs, emotional needs, intellectual needs. We would just sort of talk through that child. She would share what she was seeing. I would share what I was seeing. We would make a list of the needs that we saw in this boy's life and goals that we wanted to see accomplished.

But they were not goals that we could bring about, only God could bring them about. So that became my prayer list for my son all that year. And you know, the funny thing was Susan always was so much more aware of needs in her life than I was. And I always felt a little bit chagrined, but one summer I was able to take the summer off and just be with my family all summer. When September came, we went away and had our little retreat again, my wife and I. I was every bit as aware of the needs in my children's life as my wife was. Because you had spent time with them.

Because I had been with them as much as she had. And if a dad's working full-time, well mother's working full-time, it's really harder to see into the needs of your children's life. But anyway, so you try to understand what their needs are, and then you try to discipline yourself in some way to bring these family members to God in prayer and ask God to be working in their lives to meet these needs. I mean it's pretty simple, but it takes some thought, it takes some discipline, and it takes some love, I guess. So now let's talk about, okay, is it different as you think you have a chapter in your book about how a man prays for his wife?

What's that look like? Yeah, in some ways it's a little different because your relationship with your wife is, it's closer, it's more intimate. You know, a husband and wife can kind of be inside each other a little bit, and you're more aware of internal struggles, and so that helps you to be able to pray perhaps more wisely.

But if I want to pray for my wife, then I have to bring to God certain things on her behalf. And so, for instance, I think about, okay, what's her schedule this week? What's going on in her life? What is she doing?

Oh, so I like this. You have to know your wife and know what's going on in her life in order to pray specifically for her. Every wife is like, yes, I want my husband to ask me these questions. Well, you can pray much more helpfully, I think, if you know what she's doing. And it's not just what's on her schedule, but it's also what her concerns are. Okay, there she is.

It's Monday, I'm going off to work. What burdens is she carrying today? I know what my burden is.

What is she carrying today? And you just think back, and you reflect, well, I think she's probably concerned about this. She's concerned about that. And you pray.

And you don't have to pray some long prayer. You need to say, Lord, here is Susan. Now, she has this meeting tonight with these young women who are coming over, and she's tired. She doesn't feel too good. And these young women are full of questions, and they're very needy, and they look to her for answers.

So I just want to pray that you'll give her energy for tonight, give her strength, give her wisdom, help her to be able to respond to them as a real mentor and mother, that sort of thing. You know, you ask yourself, what responsibilities is she carrying? What things does she have to get done that nobody else knows about, but I know about, and I know they're weighing on her? Lord, help her with this. Help her with that.

What about her character? What's going on inside? God, what's going on in her mind about things? Is she fearful? Is she anxious? Is she doubting?

Is she feeling overwhelmed? You pray about those things. So you're looking at mental, spiritual, physical, like you're looking at all the areas of her life and how you can pray for her. I get teary thinking of someone, and especially you, Dave, praying for me like that. Yeah, and I think probably a lot of wives feel that way.

Yes. Help us understand. What is it that makes you teary? It's that our husbands would know us so well, or even they're asking those questions and they care about what's going on in our hearts because we all long to be known. We all long to be understood, and we all long to be loved unconditionally. But then to take all of that and take it before God, that's one of the most loving, most powerful things a husband could do for his wife.

Of course, you can't really pray for your wife unless you know her and you're talking to her and you're hearing those things. I know just a couple weeks ago on a, I think it was a Monday night, Anne was going to host a women's night for a new ministry that our son is birthing that has been a dream of yours for literally a dream from God about a women's ministry birthing. And this was like the first...they'd had meetings, but this is the first public. And I get asked to speak the same night to a men's group on the other side of town. And so Anne didn't even know this, but I get on my motorcycle to ride across town because it's a beautiful night in Detroit, Michigan. And the whole time on my bike, I'm praying for Anne's night, just praying for everything, details, her message, the women being moved, and a movement being started in Michigan that we think could be national for women.

I can see it right now. I'm standing in front of all these men at this men's event speaking, and during a pause in my message, I'm praying for Anne. You know, I just throw up a prayer right there, and I come home and all I care about. I couldn't wait to get home. It's like, how'd it go? And nobody told you you had to do that or you should do it.

It was an honor. It's because you've been married, what, 40 some years? Forty-one years. So you've been married all this time. You know her. It's not that hard to pray for your wife.

And especially as you've logged some years together, when you think about it, you know what she's dealing with. Have you ever had this happen? Because when I got home that night, which was late, I come running in the house.

You probably don't remember this. And she's sitting there. She got home before me. And I'm like, hey, so how'd it go? You know, how did I go? Do you remember?

She was like, can we talk about it later? I'm sort of tired. You understand? I've been praying.

I've been wanting to know. But you didn't tell me that part. I didn't tell her that. I just was like, and because when you pray for someone, yeah, you feel invested, you feel invested, you feel I'm part of this. God and I have been talking about you and your event. And of course, we talked about it later. But the initial thing, she was like tired.

Like I've had a long weekend of tired. But that's what happens when a man prays for his wife. I will say that before I left and Dave knew this has been on my mind.

I've been thinking about I haven't been sleeping because I keep going over the details of the evening. But it was so sweet that before I walked out the door, he just grabbed me, hugged me and prayed over me, put his hand on my head and just blessed me, blessed the night, prayed over me. There's so much power in that.

Like I felt like I'm covered. I'm covered by my husband's prayers, covered by his love for you men. I just want to say that makes us feel seen. It makes us feel cherished and it makes us feel like you really care about our spiritual walk with God in every part of our walk in life. Well, it's interesting that the name of her women's ministry is Heard. Heard because so many women want to be heard. And when a man prays for his wife, I think she feels heard. Yeah, absolutely.

I do. So why don't we do it? Why is it so rare? One, we don't think about it. Two, we don't feel adequate. Three, we're afraid we will be embarrassed.

Four, maybe, maybe our faith is pretty weak. But if we could really understand how much it means to our wives, we probably would attempt it more frequently. And let me encourage the wives that are listening. If your husband prays for you, even if it's a short prayer, even if it's a sentence, even if he's prayed for dinner, can I just encourage you to encourage him just to say thank you like it means so much to our family. When you initiate that prayer, like that means so much to me.

Thank you. Don't say, well, finally or about time, or I've been wishing you, you know, kind of that voice or that tone. Or you call that a prayer to encourage whatever step he takes toward prayer. I would just encourage him and pray for him to have that confidence.

Be confident in him when he doesn't have the confidence in himself. John, you brought your prayer notebook. Do you have any prayers in there that you've written about Susan? Can we hear one that you prayed for her? Is that very personal?

Geez, that's getting pretty much, I don't know. It's a prayer journal between him and God. I know, I'm just nosy.

Share it with the world. Oh, here's a whole list of things I was praying for Susan in fall. Oh, let's hear that.

Fall of 1996. Well, let's see, what can I read for her to be encouraged and peaceful about our family and our marriage? That God would feed and nourish her and her spirit. That God would be preparing her for the time when the children are gone.

Because that was not too long before they started leaving. Oh, I prayed for her relationship with a teacher in our high school. This was a really difficult woman.

And it's too long a story for me to go into it, but I prayed over this relationship for 20 years. And before this woman died, we saw amazing answers to prayer in her life. She was one of these teachers. She used to mock the kids because of their faith in school. And then her whole life changed around because of your prayer.

Yeah, well, part of it because of my wife's persistence, probably. But asking God to guide her in her writing. She was writing, beginning to write some books then. And I was asking God to control her imagination because she has a pretty wild imagination and sometimes it gets the better of her. I don't know if God answered that one.

I don't know if he did. Probably her imagination was from him. Anyway, just that sort of thing.

You know, I just say to the men, when you're praying for members of your family, just talk to God. Just say, God, here's my wife. You know her. You know that she's got this concern about her health. She got this report the other day. You know, she's worried about it.

Lord, please give her assurance that she's going to be OK. Help her to feel secure. I can't seem to pull that off, but you can, God. I mean, that's not as good as the Lord's Prayer, but it's good enough. I mean, God doesn't care, you know? Yes.

Well, in some ways it sounds like, you know, we live in a natural world and we're asking God to do something supernatural in our natural world. I'm going to do everything I can. I'm going to love her and communicate with her. But like you said earlier, I can't change her heart.

I can't change my son or daughter's heart. God, you have to do that. And so I'm going to come to you. Let me ask you this. How often, how many times do you maybe pray the same prayer?

You know, that's a really good question. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, he said, you know, knock and the door will be opened. Seek and you will find.

Ask and it will be given to you. But the way he said it in the original, the tent is ask and keep on asking. Knock and keep on knocking. And I used to think it was foolish to ask for the same thing repeatedly. But then I thought about my relationship with my children. When they came to me and asked for something, I wasn't always all that clear how serious they were, how important it was to them, what it meant to them. But if they came back over and over again and said, Dad, I really need your help with this or whatever, it's a way that they demonstrate to their father how important something is in their life. And so when we bring something to God in prayer and we bring it back again a few days later, we bring it back again, there's no shame in that.

There's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes God answers a prayer by saying, yes, right now. Sometimes he says, you've got to be kidding, no way.

Sometimes he says, not now. A wise man used to talk about how God works in response to our needs, and he said, delay is not denial. So if God – he may say in prayer, you keep asking, in my time, I will do what is right.

Delay doesn't mean I'm denying your request. I was looking in a little list of prayers that I was praying for my wife back in the early 70s. I threw it in the briefcase on the way down here, and I looked at it and I saw, my goodness back in 1971, I was praying about this particular character trait. And I'm not praying about that thing anymore, because that part of her changed.

But there are other things I've been praying for for 50 years, and still not exactly the way I would like it to be. So then I just remind myself, well, just think about all those things she's been praying for God to do in your life that haven't happened yet. It's funny, I just found in our kids' room, it was a box that in the evening, sometimes when they would go to bed, I would just ask for their prayer requests.

And I would write them on a note, and then I would put them in this little box, and I forgot all about it. What a sweet thing. And I pulled those out, just as you had talked about earlier, John, and I started reading the prayer requests, realizing that a majority of those prayers had been answered, some of them miraculously. And it's funny how we can pray something, and maybe over and over, and then we forget about it. But God's never forgotten about it. And it's so good to do that kind of thing, to write down what we've prayed about. Because then over the years, you look back and say, look at God's faithfulness.

Look at his answers. And some of them, I remember our one son was praying, please, Jesus. I had written this down, like, what do you want me to pray? He goes, oh, Mom, please.

I think he was nine years old. Mom, will you beg Jesus, and this is my prayer every night, and I'm thinking, oh, this is like big. What's he gonna say? He said, will you just pray, Mom, that I'm five nine, so that I can get a D1 scholarship in football? And I said, wait, is that not gonna happen if you're five eight?

He goes, probably not. I need to be at least five nine. So I wrote that down. And he's five nine. He's five nine. He should have prayed to be six foot. And he did get that D1 scholarship.

He got that scholarship at five nine. Isn't that so beautiful? Yeah, like, God cares about these things because we care about them. But I just think that's always a good idea to write down and for our kids to see that this matters to us, that, oh, Mom's writing down my prayer requests, or Dad is writing this down. This must be significant and important to not only them, but to God. Well, you have a journal about praying for Susan.

Do you have the same thing with your kids? I've got little lists of things I was praying for them all the way back to before they were married and, you know, things I prayed for their mates. And God doesn't always answer the way you want him to, but many times he does. And I would like to make another point about prayer, though. One of the things I've come to appreciate is I've got a little more time now is prayer is also being still before God. And prayer is trying to listen to God.

I know you know this. But now, because I don't have to hurry in the morning and get off, I have more time just to sit with a cup of coffee early in the morning and just sit with God, just be with God. And I will eventually get to those lists, you know. But I've found that it's very helpful just to sort of reflect in God's presence on the day before, you know, think about the conversations, think about what we did, to give God thanks, to sort of go back and reexamine, how did I handle that, oh, I need to do something about that, make a little note, you know, don't forget to do this. And I've just found great delight sort of in sitting in the presence of God and reflecting on the day before, reflecting on the day ahead, asking His help on the things that are coming, the things that are coming up, and not being in a hurry so that I'm able to let my mind go in whatever direction it will go.

And you know, every morning your mind goes in different directions. But to do that in the presence of God, I've found it to be very, just a great blessing. You know, I was coming home from visiting my dad in Ohio, driving back home to Michigan, and I had just lost my mom.

She was 90 years old, my parents had been married 70 years. And I remember that drive is four hours, and for the first hour, I remember just talking to God the whole time, telling what I was feeling, crying. But there was an intimacy of love that I felt about my Heavenly Father. And I remember saying, Jesus, you're my best friend. Like I felt and feel about Jesus, the way I had first felt about Dave when we were dating, like I can't wait to be with you, I can't wait to talk to you, I can't wait to hear what you think about this, or to feel your presence and your power and your majesty in the car. And it's that overwhelming sense of peace that just comforted my soul. And I thought, oh, Lord, that's the greatest gift, your presence, and being able to talk and be in relationship with you is one of the greatest gifts that you give us as your children.

And I don't have those moments all the time. It doesn't happen every day, but periodically, and especially when we most need him, the power of his presence is so real and tangible. And I think God longs for that relationship with us that, as Paul said, to pray without ceasing.

That's what it looks like. It's just you're with your best friend, and you're telling him everything that's going on in your heart, with your family, with your spouse, with your kids, your worries. And I love to think and I know that he is intent upon every word and emotion and feeling, because he's a loving God that cares for us.

I'm thinking for me, and I think a lot of men are probably feeling the same thing, I want to get a prayer journal going. I used to do that. And I remember often I'd write out prayers and then I'd put an L on my little paper and put my pen down. L meant listen. And then say, okay, God, are you saying anything?

And I always ask, what do you want me to know, what do you want me to do? But to have that in writing, or you could even do it digitally if you don't want to do it on your phone or whatever, but to have a copy that someday, because I'm guessing those prayer journals are going to end up in your grandkids' hands someday. Maybe they will. And it's going to be a legacy.

Maybe they will. Yeah. Of a father and a grandfather who prayed for them. So would you pray for her? I would love to pray.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you that you're our Father in heaven, and that we don't have to do or be anything to bring you pleasure, Father. But because we're your children, you take great delight in us. We want to please you with the way we live, and the way we speak, and the decisions we make, and the habits we develop. So please help us in these parts of our lives. And in those areas where we fail, have mercy upon us, Father.

And please teach us from our failures. Show us sins we need to repent for. Help us in our families, with our children, with our parents, with our spouse. Help us to be full of wisdom, and patience, and kindness. Give us a sense of peace in our home. We need it. Give us a great sense of humor in our home.

We need it. And give us assurance that you are with us always. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Well, I know I have been challenged and equipped by John Gates this week, talking about how men are to pray for their families, and I love the fact that John has been very specific in telling us about the patterns and the habits that he cultivated in his life. The book he's written, How a Man Prays for His Family, is a guidebook for us as men. In fact, this is a great book for guys to get together and go through with other men, and to really challenge one another, hold one another accountable, to be more disciplined in praying for our families. And as we engage with God in prayer more regularly, to sit back and say, look what God is doing, because I've gone to him and asked.

The Bible says, we have not because we asked not. Or look how God is changing me because of the time I'm spending with him. Again, you can order a copy of How a Man Prays for His Family when you go to our website familylifetoday.com or call to request your copy. Our number is 1-800-FL-TODAY.

That's 1-800-358-6329, 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today or again online at familylifetoday.com. Now with Christmas behind us, we're starting to look ahead to the new year and starting to think about what's ahead for us in 2022. Here at Family Life, there's a lot that we're hoping to be able to accomplish ministry-wise in the year ahead.

But we have to wait really until we see what happens in the next few days because so much of what we're able to do in any given year is determined by what happens in the last days of the previous year. This week, many Family Life Today listeners will be considering giving a year in contribution and whatever we receive this week will play a big role in determining what we're able to do in the year ahead. So we're asking Family Life Today listeners, if God has used this ministry in your life in 2021, if you want to see us continue to advance with practical biblical help and hope for marriages and families in 2022, would you make as generous a contribution as you can today? And here's the good news, whatever amount you contribute is going to be matched dollar for dollar. We have a matching gift fund and we've not reached the amount in that fund yet. So whatever donation you make will be matched dollar for dollar up to a total of $2.3 million. Help us take advantage of this matching gift fund. Make your donation today. When you do, we'll send you a devotional for the year ahead, a book called In the Lord, I take refuge, 150 devotions from the book of Psalms by Dane Ortlund. That's our thank you gift.

When you make a year end donation, you can do that easily online at familylifetoday.com or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate. We do hope to hear from you and we hope you'll pray for us that we're able to meet our funding goal here this week. We also hope you can join us again tomorrow when we're going to talk about how real change happens in our lives, how God uses his word and his spirit to transform us. Dane Ortlund is going to join us tomorrow to talk about that and we hope you can join us as well. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.