Prayer For Help With Relationship Issues

Friday May 22, 2020

God longs for us to experience love and blessing in relationship with others. Sometimes it seems like there are complications and we're not sure how to sort things out. During these times of extra stress and tons of time together under one roof with no way of escape, we find attitudes and words and actions not always going the way we know they should. God wants to guide us and help us know how to live well, how to interact, and when to let go of things from the past.

As we choose to trust God’s goodness and make healthy choices, often in spite of our feelings, we will begin to experience satisfying change and a richer life than anything we’ve previously known. Turning our will and our life over to God always involves action. If we simply say that we have entrusted our life to Him without allowing Him to make changes on His terms, then there’s not much new that’s taken place. What does it actually mean to turn our will and our life over to the care of God in this whole area of relationships? What kind of care can we actually expect to receive from God? We find answers for that in God’s word, The Bible, and as we ask for His help in prayer. Let’s do that now.

Let’s take a good look at the way we’re living

and reorder our lives under GOD. If we claim

that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling

ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense.

On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make

a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down;

he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins

and purge us of all wrongdoing.

Lamentations 3:40; 1 John 1:8-9

Loving God, Our behaviours are too often rooted in self-absorption that is fueled either by a desire to seek pleasure or avoid pain. At some point we began to believe that we were entitled to whatever would give us pleasure and keep pain at a distance. We became focused on ourselves and our needs to the exclusion of every other relationship. We didn’t know how to love others in a healthy way, and we believed because of our feelings of self-rejection, that we were blemished and unlovable. Whether in negative thoughts or destructive behaviours we too often have sought to cover the pain of our broken relationships rather than bring them to You for help and healing.

We come to You today, God, humbly acknowledging that we don't know how to live well in relationship on our own. As much as we know to do, we bring a willing heart to You so we can learn how to receive and give love well in relationship. Loving God, take this broken person that we have become and change us into the persons You created us to be. We need loving relationship with You and then in the security of Your love for us and Your affirmation of our value as beloved people, learn how to live in wholesome loving relationships with others.

Blessed be the God and Father

of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has

blessed us with every spiritual

blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

just as He chose us in Him [Christ]

before the foundation of the world,

that we should be holy and

without blame before Him in love,

having predestined us to adoption

as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself,

according to the good pleasure

of His will, to the praise of the glory

of His grace, by which He made us

accepted in the Beloved.

Ephesians 1:4-6

Lord, we know our behaviour is rooted in what we really believe. That is why we want You to help us uncover not just where we’ve gone wrong in our relationships but also why we went the way we did. No matter what pain this causes us, help us to resist the temptation to cover up and hide from guilt and shame but rather take comfort from You that You are now in control of us and our relationships and You are full of love and care for all of us.

Show us who we are – who You say that we are – so we don’t have to live in the lies or accusations of who others say we are. Help us though to be radically honest with where we have failed and how we need to seek forgiveness and make a new start for our stumbles and the ways we have caused pain.

In view of all this, make every effort

to respond to God’s promises.

Supplement your faith with a

generous provision of moral

excellence, and moral excellence

with knowledge, and knowledge

with self-control, and self-control

with patient endurance, and

patient endurance with godliness,

and godliness with brotherly affection,

and brotherly affection

with love for everyone.

2 Peter 1:5-7

Like a skillful surgeon we know You can safely remove those things that hinder us from living well with others today. Help us to live with healthy boundaries so we protect the love You have for us and the person You have created us to be. Teach us to not just know what love ought to be but how to live in love with You and in our relationships as You intend. We need Your help and so we ask for that, confident that You give us what we need so we can get through and know Your care in it all. Amen

There are wonderful words in the Bible about what love looks like and they are a wonderful reminder of the love God has for us, and also an inventory around which we can evaluate ourselves in our relationships today.

‘…no matter what I say,

what I believe, and what I do,

I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.

Love doesn’t strut,

Doesn’t have a swelled head,

Doesn’t force itself on others,

Isn’t always “me first,”

Doesn’t fly off the handle,

Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,