It's true.  When my wife and I stood before the minister and made those optimistic vows to one another, there was one determined to see it fail.

I try not to find a reason for all my problems in the demonic, but Scripture makes it very clear that we have an enemy whose objective is to kill, steal and destroy all that is divinely beautiful.  And if Christian marriage is intended to be anything, it is intended to be divinely beautiful.

I have many regrets about my first years of marriage, but the greatest is that I did not take more seriously Satan's hatred of it and my responsibility to aggressively fight against him for it.  Put simply, I wish I had prayed more for my wife and with my wife about our marriage.

"Our struggle is not against flesh and blood," Paul reminds us in that familiar passage of Ephesians 6, "but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

I confess I was pretty passive about that spiritual struggle in those early years.  When difficulties came, I rarely thought about evil forces.  My wife and I prayed together once in a while, but it was never an intentional habit of ours.  That has changed over the years, and our marriage has changed--much for the better.

Sure, there are plenty of places to blame marital challenges: old habits of the sinful flesh and a fallen world that opposes all that is Kingdom-minded are two that come to mind.  But let us not forget that there is one who opposes a thriving, God-filled union.  And let us rejoice that our Savior has defeated him!

Any thoughts on building regular prayer into your marriage?  How do you do it?  I'd love to hear ideas...