Prayers for a Christian Marriage that Defies the Odds

The Bible says in Genesis 2:18 that it is not good for man to be alone. Enter the marriage covenant. God honors marriage because it showcases His entire image. The man brings the godly characteristics of sustenance, authority, and headship. The woman brings the godly characteristics of multiplication, nourishment, strength and humility. For this reason, says the Lord, a man shall leave his family and be united to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

It is not a popular trend to marry under the covenant of God in recent times. Culture has twisted the propaganda to preach that you can love who you want and marry who (or what) you want regardless of it going against holiness and purity. But I stand with God on this matter. If you are a man seeking to marry, you should marry a woman. If you are a woman seeking to marry, you should marry a man. Homosexuality and transgenderism were never a part of His original plan. Therefore, let us honor marriage as God would have us do.

I’ve personally written three prayers that you can start praying over you and your spouse to bring health and healing to your marriage and bless your household.

The Wife’s Prayer

Lord, thank You that what You put together no man can break it asunder. I ask that You strengthen me to be my husband's help and not his burden. Teach me to be an excellent wife who is gentle, patient, and self-controlled. Lead me into a Proverbs 31 mindset where I can honor him in such a way that I become the crown of his head. In Your name, I pray, Amen.

The Husband’s Prayer

Lord, I thank You for my wife. Give me the grace to love and cherish her as if she were the last woman on earth. Help me to walk in my authority as head of the household in meekness and confidence so that I can carry my family without fail. In Your name, I pray, Amen.

The Unity Prayer

Heavenly Father, we place You at the headship of our marriage and trust that You will guide us through every disagreement, heartache, and adversity. Help us to see eye to eye, and learn to put our wills aside for the sake of our marriage. (Husband) “Teach me how to love her like You love the church.” (Wife) “And teach me how to honor him as I honor You.” And together, we will stand as one against every plot, scheme, and gimmick set up by the enemy to cause division. We declare that NO weapon formed against us shall prosper. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.

Go in the peace of God

I’d love to know if you found these prayers helpful in the comments below. Also, if you’re looking to grow into a Proverbs 31 wife, I have a video you’d enjoy.

Praying for you.

How to grow your business from a mustard seed into a massive tree (Bible basics)

I get it. Things happen, life is hectic, kids are crazy, your job is demanding, friends are pushy, and spending time on your dream gets pushed to the side.

I’ve been there before and I’m conquering it each day.

It’s easy to curl up on the couch and binge Netflix shows. It’s hard to sit at my desk and work. But here’s the thing: I always regret wasting time. Hours that could’ve been spent getting something done.

Growing a business is hard work, but it’s worth it.

If you came to listen to me tell you the opposite, you clicked on the wrong blog. But if you came looking for proven tips to take your baby from ground zero to blast off, you got what you were searching for.

Btw, this post is derived from an episode on my podcast titled: Fruitlessness to Fruitfulness. If you hate reading and rather listen to me talk click this link. If not, keep reading.

What is the difference between a fruitless business and a fruitful one?

Fruitlessness is exactly as it sounds. The absence of fruit or success. A tree with branches and roots but no fruit. Oddly enough, this happens to physical trees at times when people are in charge of growing their own trees. The tree fails to grow fruit due to this number one reason: doing wayyy too much.

Over-fertilizing and over-pruning.

The same happens in business. People do far too much and receive very little or no results at all. We over-fertilize and over-prune until we’re doomed.

Sweating, toiling, fussing, and of course…cussing (let’s be honest, we hate it when things don’t go our way) becomes the final product of our dream.

This hard labor is not what God wants for us.

He doesn’t want us to break out into a sweat and receive little harvest. Jesus says in John 4:38, “I sent you to reap what you haven’t worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Woah, woah, woah, wait a minute now! Adriel, are you telling me I don’t have to work hard? I can grab a glass of Chardonnay, sip and chill until the money crawls to me?

Uh, no. Sorry to disappoint but that’s not what I’m saying in the least bit. Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”

There’s a difference between hard work and working too hard.

We’re supposed to put in effort while God puts in grace. But if we’re sending ourselves into a stroke from excessive labor, that means we didn’t leave much room for grace to step in, right?

Yes, work hard. But do it in balance. Let God help.

When it comes to success, being fruitless can point to a few things. It can mean your business plan is corrupted because of your own immorality. Such as prioritizing the love of money instead of loving and serving people. Oh! That reminds me, here’s a little freebie I didn’t include in the podcast (hehe). To grow a business, focus on growing your community first. Let your joy be in the pursuit of souls and the money will follow. The people do matter. Wealth should be the consequence of that.

To make more moolah, serve more people.

Carrying a fruitless business can also mean you’re suffering from what I like to call the loner success effect—trying to grow all on your own without God. You’re putting in years of pointless effort to see nothing good and durable come from it. My friend, this means you’re over-pruning. And if you find yourself taking over this position, you’ve stepped on God’s toes because that’s His job, remember? He cuts off every branch that doesn’t bear fruit, while every branch that bears fruit He prunes to make it more fruitful (John 15:2).

A weak foundation is another reason for fruitlessness. You don’t know where to start or how to build correctly. But don’t worry, we can fix this. Success isn’t a gift we’re born with (even though others make it seem that simple). Success is a learned skill. It has to be taught by wave-pavers who have been there, done that.

You may be thinking, “Who the heck is she to be teaching me about success?” Well, I have loads of personal experience to be quite honest.

I’m a seven-year depression survivor (even after suicidal attempts). Boom, success!

I became pregnant at 19 years old, dropped out of college, and married the love of my life at 20 years old. Success!

I gave birth to my second child completely natural after I was induced, and survived the pain. Success!

At 9 weeks pregnant with my third child, my bones broke (symphysis pubic dysfunction) where I couldn’t walk, bathe, or sleep without excruciating pain and I survived. Major success!

I could feel my muscles tear out of place around that ninth week of pregnancy as well (the worst case of diastasic recti, ever!) and I survived. Success!

That same baby was almost 10 pounds at birth (9 lbs., 14 oz) and I birthed him vaginally. Hint: I survived. Success!

I wrote a book teaching women how to be freed from depression, and I designed it all on my own from cover to cover without any prior experience while I was taking care of my huge baby and broken body. I survived. The book is a success! (*tear)

I had surgery to pull my muscles back together and I survived. Success!

I lost faith in God and gained it all back to the point where I even teach His Word on a podcast and throughout my life as a believer. My faith survived. Another success!

My marriage was on the verge of ending three years ago. We not only survived, we thrived. Yup, success!

And now I’m here, doing this, and I’m surviving. Success!

Every morning I wake up, I’m a walking successtimony (see what I did there?) because God has been with me. I know how it feels to wanna give up. I know how it feels to live in fear. I know how it feels to dream even when you’re seeing the total opposite of that in your mind, body, and soul. But I also know how to get on the right path to…success.

Now that I’ve given you my credentials, let me teach you how to finally build your business, brand, or idea.

We talked about fruitlessness and we both agree we don’t wanna be that guy—the one who isn’t anywhere close to reaching their goals. But what about it’s enemy, fruitfulness?

Fruitfulness is a tree that has gotten planted in the right soil with the right maintenance. A fruitful business has a strong vision, a unique voice, passion, a balance of labor and harvest, sustainable wealth, and a great leader behind it who loves what they do. This leader focuses on serving people and pleasing God, and the money comes as a result of them building a tree with strong roots (or a business with a strong foundation).

This is the guy we all wanna be. But how do we get there? What are the steps we should take? Welp, that’s what I’m here for, to teach! Diving right into my first point!

If you are going to change anything about yourself, change your point of view.

Success depends largely on the way you see things. It starts there. Not just the way you see yourself but the way you look at an opportunity. Can you find an opportunity in a cloudy situation? Because this isn’t gonna be ice cream and lollipops. You’ll have to deal with some crap along the way. But the question is, will you find an opportunity out of it?

Frederick Langbridge once said, “Two men look out the same prison bars: one sees mud and the other stars.”

The one who saw the stars looked beyond the fact that he was in prison and instead thought about the opportunities waiting for him once he’s released. He saw into the unseen.

Which of the two are you? Are you the one who sees the mud or the one who sees the stars? Will you believe the unseen of your dreams or will you allow shaky circumstances to block your imagination?

Look at the story of Joseph, the dreamer. He was sold into slavery by his brothers because they were jealous. Long story short, Joseph becomes a success (Genesis 39:2). He becomes overseer, the number one dream interpreter, governor, and even lord of Egypt! How? Because Joseph looked beyond the prison bars and thought of the many opportunities in queue—potential moments for God to blow his mind.

The Lord was with him. And because of that (and a positive mindset), Joseph prospered in everything he did. Talk about favor explosion!

Did you know that our thoughts are energy? You think positive, you will birth positivity. You think negative, you’ll birth negativity.

Lesson #1: Optimism coupled with creativity is the solution to every hiccup that appears while growing a business.

Mistakes will happen. But don’t fight them. Instead, be a brave dreamer, stay positive, and get creative!

Submit your business plan to God and be flexible.

Success is quite possible without God. But good success, long-lived success, meaningful success…is only possible with God. Make Him your business partner and understand the power of submission. He’s already put in an application!

Approach God in prayer and say, “Okay, Lord, here’s what I wanna do, but what do You think about it? What are Your thoughts on it? I’m open to suggestions.” Then open your heart for a response. He may answer you through a YouTube video, a song, a billboard, a person, or by some other means. You will get an answer, though. Trust me. It’s gonna be that idea that sits on your heart and you can’t shake off.

If it’s something that glorifies Him and is apart of the assignment on your life, He’ll be with you and things will work out in your favor. If it’s something that may not be in His plan for your life, He’ll redirect you to a better niche.

And yes, it will always be better so you can let the fear of the unknown go.

Now if you’re a Joseph or David, whatever you do, God will prosper it because He’s with you.

The other important bullet point here is to remain flexible when building your business or brand from the ground up. When you accept the Lord, what’s yours is now His. That’s not to limit you, that’s to expand you. Because He’ll do something jaw-dropping with it. God’s imagination is greater than ours, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and the direction that He gives cannot be duplicated or replaced.

We can learn that from Lydia in the Bible. Lydia was a successful businesswoman and acquired wealth from selling purple cloths. Once she accepted the Lord, what was hers was now His and she was okay with that! She used what she gained financially to glorify God by making her home (a really spacious home, actually) a meeting place for believers to come and worship. You go, girl!

And it was through her flexibility to the Lord’s will that the gospel was presented to the continent of Europe. Yes, you read that correctly. The CONTINENT of Europe. So although she was successful before God, she was even more successful with God.

Lesson #2: Don’t exclude Him, or you’ll put a cap on your wealth due to the loner success effect (I mentioned this earlier). This is the notion where trying to grow the fruit of success is capped when it’s done without God. But the cap will be blown off from overflow when you do it with God.

Success without limits is what we’re reaching for.

You can’t put a cap on favor or blessings. In Habakkuk 1:5 the Lord says, “Be utterly amazed for I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.”

God’s looking to do something with your business plan that He can’t even give you the full rundown on just yet because you wouldn’t believe it if He told you. So, you might as well submit your business plan to God and be flexible with where He wants to take it because it’s God’s limit for you.

Set bold, clear goals and follow through.

This statement is derived from Habakkuk 2:2 where the Lord says, “Write the vision and make it plain.” The message Bible even takes it a step further and says write it out in big block letters so it can be read on the run.

Lesson #3: If you want to be successful, your goals have to be measurable.

You need to secure the root of your business first. Write down what attracts you to growing this business or brand. What is the message or vision behind it? Why do you want to do this? Then, build branches around it. How exactly am I going to get from phase A to phase B? What are the actionable steps I need to take to accomplish this goal by this date?

You can’t say I wanna make a $100,000 per year from my business and stop there. You have to be clear with that goal and make it measurable. Start small and work your way up.

For example, if you have an online store, you’d write “In order for me to make $500 per month, I’d need to sell my $25 product to 20 people each month. Then go up, “In order to make $3,000 per month, I’d need to sell this $25 product to 120 people. Keep increasing the goals as you meet them.

Next, write down your ‘how’. How am I going to sell this product to that number of people? What sources will I use to bring in leads? Facebook ads, IG stories, YouTube, a personal blog?

Of course, this is just an example. Replace it with whatever your niche, project or idea is. But the highlight here is that you must set clear goals and make them measurable. The Bible says, without vision, the people are unrestrained (Proverbs 29:18). Meaning, you will fail before you start if you haven’t written down clear objectives.

And while you’re doing this, go ahead and schedule out time to work on your business through the week. Get a planner, block your schedule, and follow through. The absence of a schedule brings unwanted distractions. Or distractions you do want but definitely do not need. Your business is more important!

Grab some snacks, it’s a journey.

Habakkuk 2:2-3 from the Message Bible (Yup, Holy Spirit and I were really feeling this book I guess, haha) says, “Once you write the vision, the vision cannot lie. Even when it seems slow in coming, wait. It’s on the way. It’ll be here right on time.”

Simply put, success is not a destination, it’s a journey. -Mark Twain.

Lesson #4: Slow success builds character, overnight success builds ego. Don’t rush it.

If you rush it too soon, you’ll lose it just as quickly. You don’t want your success to outrun you or you won’t be able to keep up with it. That’s the reason a lot of kid celebrities get on drugs and end up in rehab. Because their success outran their personal growth, and they didn’t know how to handle it. It was too much pressure.

That’s why Jesus didn’t start teaching until 30 years old. He built character.

That’s why David was anointed to be king at a young age, but wasn’t crowned until 30 years old. He built character.

Success is a marathon, not a race. The Bible says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping promises, as some understand slowness. He’s patient, not wanting anyone to perish.” (2 Peter 3:9) He doesn’t want you to get crazy and blow it once He gives it to you. He wants you to be able to keep it.

There are ads and videos everywhere teaching you how to get rich quick, but did they build character? Did they invest? Did they gain enough wisdom to be able to handle their money? Will they have it today and lose it tomorrow? Maybe.

Let God take you on this journey and build you up as a spiritual house, just as Scripture says. “We are being built into a spiritual house.” (1 Peter 2:5) The key word in there is “being”—which signifies a process, something that is happening and takes time.

Don’t seek overnight success to glorify your ego. Desire slow success so that God may be glorified through you.

Plus, you’ll make many more memories and have a much greater testimony when you’re able to sit back and take note of each and every moment, every single baby step.

Create without apologizing. Produce without permission.

Don’t get into the habit of people-pleasing. Especially when your business or brand is but a fetus. You don’t have to run an idea by everyone in your contact list to determine whether or not it’s a functional idea. You also don’t owe anyone an apology if they dislike something you do along the way.

Lesson #5: Do not allow people to build your business for you.

Jesus created influence without human feedback. He preached what He wanted to preach. He healed who He wanted to heal (even on a day that was forbidden to work on). His entire ministry was to please the Father, not people. When they questioned His business moves, He never changed His mind based on their opinion.

Did He listen to Peter when he challenged Him about going to the Cross? Absolutely not. If He would have, humanity would be in trouble and death would still rule.

Jesus knew the importance of building a business without apologizing and producing without permission. He followed the Father’s vision for His life. Take note.

The vision God gave you was only shown to you. So if you’re constantly asking someone, “Do you think I should do this? Is this cool?”, they will give you an answer outside of the scope of God’s vision for you.

Now, that doesn’t mean you should never ask for feedback, but you need to be careful not to make it a habit.

Did I ask people for feedback when I was writing my book? No! Everything written in there is a product of my heart, my, soul, my creativity. I told it like I wanted to tell it and it came out fantastic because of it. Whatever you do from your own heart will always be the best decision, and it’ll be the one that will make you the most proud.

So, create without apologizing and produce without permission.

Never get so comfortable that you stop learning.

School may have lasted only a season, but gaining wisdom and knowledge should be a lifetime. When you stop learning, you stop growing—hindering your chance at success. Why? Because the world evolves, society moves on, culture changes and you have to be able to keep up.

Lesson #6: Always look for ways to stay intellectually sharp.

The best leaders and entrepreneurs are those who never got so comfortable in their success that they stopped learning. Bill gates is worth 114.2 billion dollars and he never stops learning. He reads 50 books a year! Being that there are only 52 weeks in a year, he’s pretty much reading one book per week. Impressive, right? I know, but clearly he gets it. He knows the power of education, and he takes advantage of it. You should too.

There’s always room for self-growth. There’s always room for improvement. Fill that room with something yummy for your brain.

Learn a language. This prevents Alzheimer’s and speeds up your memory.

Learn from podcasts (I have one!).

Learn from others in your niche. There are countless resources on this handheld device to keep you sharp. And most of it is free. That’s an offer you can’t refuse!

When you make learning a habit, your business will thank you.

No matter what you do, keep showing up.

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated. So, keep showing up.

If you make a mistake, keep showing up. Success is on the way. When you’re afraid, keep showing up. It’s coming. When you’d rather be doing anything else, keep showing up. It’s coming!

Let your dreams believe for you when your faith slacks. Because…

Lesson #7: A business cannot grow without its owner. Be there for roll call tomorrow morning.

I promise you this hard work will pay off in unimaginable ways when you make small efforts towards your goal each day. A little really is a lot. Especially when you look back on all you’ve done and pop a wine bottle to celebrate your new wealth as a successful entrepreneur.

Things will come together, dear friend. I’m rooting for you!