INTIMATE ACTS (Beyond Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!)

It still never ceases to amaze me, when talking with, or counseling men, women, and couples, how many married couples actually believe that the most intimate act in their marriage is a three letter word.

I submit that indeed, the most intimate act in marriage, is actually a four letter word, though certainly not the vulgar expletive many of us anticipate, as a synonym of that big three letter word, SEX.

The most intimate act between husband and wife is to pray, believe it or not.

And, if you know that making love is, or can be powerful, evocative, relaxing, relieving, tender and/or thrilling, cultivate the practice of prayer together – open, honest, creative, and non-mechanical.

Praying together as husband and wife is simply indescribably magnificent, indeterminably powerful, beyond even happy superlatives like supercalifragilisticexpialadocious!

There are no proper directions for husband and wife making love. There are rich guidelines and numerous fascinating positions, and certainly some good useful advice for any number of issues that arise (actually, ‘pop up’ is often more like it), when we are face to face with each other in the primordial posturing  so clinically called sexual intercourse.

Divine Prayer Formula. But for prayer, the most intimate act between each of us – then both of us and GOD – The WORD of GOD has already offered a powerful pattern in The LORD’s Prayer:

 
• Worship/Praise (Hallowed by Thy Name);
• Petition ( Give us this day our daily bread…. etc.)
• Worship/Praise (Thine is the Kingdom, The Power & The Glory, forever & ever

In short, we begin with worship and we end with worship. Praise and worship envelop our petitions (whether these are requests, or spiritual warfare against principalities and powers).

I’m addressing these matters, because for so many couples, praying together is not yet something that flows in their relationship.

We are ‘in CHRIST’, for ‘in HIM, we live and move, and have our being’ [Acts 17:28]. For us who are in CHRIST, praying eventually becomes like loving, like breathing. There’s a beautiful worship ballad whose words start:

This is the air I breathe,

This is the air I breathe,

Your Holy Presence living in me.

This is my daily bread,

This is my daily bread….

Your very Word spoken to me.

Avoid Sin In the ‘old days’ during the ‘old conversation’ between me and my Beloved, if there had been friction, disagreement, or one of us had ‘given offense’, of any kind, one of us would refuse to pray together before we moved out from our matrimonial bedroom into the world, as is our own covenant custom.

Forsaking our daily prayer covenant together was very painful, and embarrassing to say the least, because it only pointed up an area of lingering sin (falling below the mark) in our relationship, both with each other, and with our Father GOD, LORD JESUS, HOLY SPIRIT.

Once you make a covenant of shared daily prayer, and that includes praise and worship, reneging – or going back – on that covenant is breaking the three fold cord between each other and GOD, the Holy Trinity, something we must assiduously and studiously avoid doing.

Once you are married, please take praying, and praise and worship together, as your necessary food, your daily bread. It’s not the number of minutes – it can be a minute, or less, an hour or more. You and your Beloved may not be able to, or even want to, make love together every single day for one ‘reason’ or the other, but consider daily prayer (including praise and worship) as a covenant matter in your walk together, with each other, and together with GOD. Powerful Agreement.

Again I say unto you where two or three are gathered together, in MY Name, there am I in the midst of them. [Matt 18:20]

JESUS is the silent active Presence in the midst of your prayer, your praise, your warfare, your worship.

Again, I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth, as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them, of my Father which is in heaven. [Matt 18:19]

What are we waiting for? HE said “agree, touching anything”. Then, indeed, we have the Divine assurance that what we ask together in HIS Name will be done (has been done) by Father GOD. What an awesome privilege we have as husband and wife, children of the Most High; and then that means, we also share an awesome responsibility – to ask wisely, to intercede for others faithfully, to seek with a discerning spirit.

A Three Fold Cord

We marry before GOD and the witnesses of men and women. Our marriage to each other is a covenant relationship, in the horizontal; and a covenant relationship in the vertical, between the two of us in marriage, and GOD, The Father; GOD, The Son; and GOD, The Holy Spirit.

Thus, neither one of us in the couple should ever despair. We need not be dismayed. We must not fear. For we are never alone, nor helpless.

Moreover, agreeing in prayer empowers us: Remind yourselves repeatedly, that one can chase a thousand, and two can put ten thousand to flight. [Dt. 32:30]

And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not easily broken. [Eccles. 4:12]

In that most intimate act of praying together, literally everything that concerns the two of you, your dreams, your disappointments, your gratitude, will be worked out, through CHRIST, to your relief and honor, to GOD’s eternal Glory!