Can God Save Your Marriage? Why Praying and Waiting Slows You Down

Can God save your marriage? Yes. I believe in miracles, and I believe God can do what I can’t. But if all you’re doing is praying and waiting, you might be turning down the help He is already sending. Prayer without action slows you down.

Can God Save Your Marriage? Yes, and Here Is the Catch

God can work miracles. For a lot of people, though, He is putting them through pain, the way Esther went through hard things before she became queen. You can pray and pray and pray, but you also have to do the work.

I’m not telling you to stop praying. I’m telling you not to make it the whole plan.

I Was Raised Atheist and Angry at God

I came to this late. I was raised atheist. I was agnostic when I met my wife Kathryn, and I had no interest in hearing or finding God. It was a frustrating road until about April 2024, when I went to Africa and found Him.

Even before that, church made me mad. I smoke too much, and I’d sit there hearing people say they were healed of their addiction, delivered from it. I thought, why not make it easy for me? I just want to quit. I was angry at God over that too.

Looking back, He was in the gaps the whole time. It wasn’t only the books, the podcast, the coaches, or the trial and error. I wrote a song about it called Always in the Gaps. That song is my testimony. I couldn’t hear Him then, and He was still there.

The Man Who Turned Down Three Boats

I tell men a story about a guy stranded on a desert island. He prays, “Lord, save me.” A boat comes by and the driver says, “Get in, I’ll take you off this island.” He says no, he’s good. A second boat comes. He says he’s waiting on the Lord. A third boat comes, same answer. They all leave.

Then he cries out, “God, why didn’t you save me?” And God says, “I sent you three boats.”

God answered the prayer. It just didn’t look the way he pictured it.

A lot of us pray the same way. You’re in an addiction Bible study or an identity study, you pray about it, you learn about it, and now you wait for God to do the rest. He might. He won’t if your eyes are closed to every other way He’s helping you move forward. Those ways often show up as a person, a coach, or a program. If a coach is one of your boats, marriage coaching is where I’d start.

Kathryn says the same thing about success. You pray for it and expect God to deliver it as a promotion or a bigger business. What if He does it a different way? If you only look at it from one angle, you will miss what He is doing.

Pray “Change Me First”

I created a 21-day prayer challenge Bible study for men, to save their marriage and to help save others. The second challenge song is called Change Me First. Kathryn warned me that people might do it and not do the work, so I’ll say it here too.

The question is simple. How many of you pray for your partner to change instead of realizing you can change yourself? If you keep asking your wife to carry what you won’t, read why she’s tired of carrying the marriage.

You can pray for the person struggling with an addiction and for the person living with them, at the same time. The first prayer in the challenge is about desperately wanting to hear God.

Change your perspective and the direction of your actions first, then bring God into it. That is the order I’d work in, and it’s the same one behind how to grow as a man to save your marriage.

Praying and Waiting Can Be a Way of Doing Nothing

Here’s where I get hard on men. Why do you go to a counselor and sit in your pain? Why do you call a friend to get validated and hate your spouse together? Why do you ignore your wife and go to your phone, your kids, or your job?

All of that is the same as praying and waiting. It’s literally doing nothing.

People pray and wait for literally decades. I’m not saying don’t pray. I’m saying we must do the work, and the more we can hear Him, the more we can be obedient.

You don’t know God’s plan or His timeline. Abraham and Sarah waited about a hundred years. If you don’t know the timeline, work on the part you can see. Purpose matters here too, and why saving your marriage isn’t enough goes deeper on that.

Obedience Looks Like the Next Step

God came into my life and gave me things. I was blessed. Kathryn would add that I was also obedient.

When she asked me, “Why don’t you coach men?” I didn’t tell her that was crazy. I said let’s try it. Then the next step came, and I took that one too. Kathryn says that question probably came from God, and that I didn’t know I was being obedient to the Lord at the time. I was just respecting my wife.

Without obedience, Kathryn says, you’re spinning your tires doing something God didn’t tell you to do.

If you’re wondering whether the pressure on your marriage is spiritual, read is the devil attacking my marriage.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can God save a marriage if only one spouse is praying?

I can’t promise you how God moves in your wife. I can tell you where the prayers I wrote start, and it’s with yourself. Pray for her, and put “change me first” ahead of it.

How long should I wait on God before I act?

You don’t know His timeline, and some people in the Bible waited a century. Use that as a reason to do the next thing you already know, not as a reason to sit still.

Is it wrong to pray for my wife to change?

You can pray for her. My question is how many men pray only for their partner to change and never see that they can change themselves.

How do I know what God wants me to do?

I can’t hear for you. The 21-day challenge opens with a prayer about hearing God. Kathryn’s story is a good picture of how it can go: she said “coach men,” I tried it, and one step led to the next.

Does my purpose have to be big?

No. Kathryn says someone’s purpose might be working as a janitor at an elementary school, because of the joy and love he brings the kids. Your job can be your purpose.

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Pray, then get in the boat.

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