What Does the Bible Say About Marriage Struggles?

Genesis 2:18-25 tells the story of the establishment of the marriage institution. The last verse of this scripture says, “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” This is the genesis of marriage, a union that is birthed in trust, unity, and where there is nothing to be ashamed of between the husband and his wife.

Ephesians 5:22-33 gives us a detailed analysis of the rules of engagement in marriage. It tells us what God expects of the husband and his wife in marriage. The husband is to love his wife unconditionally and sacrificially in the manner in which Christ loves the church and died for her.

And the wife is to submit to her husband as unto the Lord. It is biblically established that the husband is the head of his wife, as Christ is the head of the church. But if Christ is the example of leadership that God has used, then we can all agree that the husband is expected to be a servant-leader and not a boss-leader. He is expected to lead through service and sacrifice. 

In Jeremiah 29:11, God says, “For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” If God has said this concerning His plans and dealings towards us, then the marriage is not designed for struggles, even though challenges may arise in a fallen world.

When we talk about struggles in marriage, it can be seen in two ways. First, where there is no peace within the marriage and the husband and wife cannot seem to find a common ground for the marriage to exist, or where there are external struggles that the husband and wife have to deal with as a unit. This is more like us against the world.

In this blog, we will be looking at the two scenarios and trust God to help us understand how to deal with each situation Biblically. The first scenario that I want us to review, which I also think is more important, is the struggle within the marriage.

Genesis 2:23-24 tells us that the wife is bone of bone, and flesh of flesh to her husband. And it is declared that the man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. We find this same thing written in Malachi 2:15, Matthew 19:4-6, and Ephesians 5:31. The oneness of a man and his wife cannot be overemphasized, both in scriptures and reality.

While I will not undermine the struggles experienced in marriages, either by the wife or husband or both, attacking the struggle should not mean attacking one another. What God sees when it comes to marriage is not an individual man or woman, but a unit of one flesh and spirit existing in two physical bodies. And like Paul said in Ephesians 5:32, this is a great mystery.

The Bible in Ephesians 6:12 says, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” If your spouse is flesh and blood and not a spiritual host of wickedness, then they are not your enemy.

You have been convinced in the wrong direction, and you are fighting the wrong battle. While I do not encourage, support, or promote violence and abuse in marriages, whether physical or emotional abuse, the way you wage war against this struggle is very important.

While removing yourself from harm's way, you war against the spirit that is causing struggles in your life and marriage, rather than war against the one you should be warring with. Your spouse is flesh and blood, and if they have become a channel through which the devil is infiltrating your marriage and peace, the truth remains that they are not the real enemy.

They may be acting under deception or spiritual influence, but that does not remove responsibility for their actions. And we see God addressing this in Malachi 2:13-16 and 1 Peter 3:7

Again, I would repeat that while not putting yourself in harm’s way, your battle is against the spiritual forces exploiting brokenness, sin, or unhealed areas that affect your spouse, which is responsible for the struggles and chaos you are experiencing in your marriage. Praying for the deliverance of your spouse rather than waging war against your spouse is the actual fight that your marriage needs.

I know what it feels like to have such a struggle in marriage because I have experienced it before. I was convinced I needed to walk away for my own peace of mind. I assumed getting a divorce would free me from the heartache that I was going through. But I also asked God for His leading. I prayed about my situation with an open heart, ready for what God had to show me.

What I learned is what I am sharing with you in this blog post. Today I have a very beautiful marriage, and the love in my marriage has been restored. My marriage will be 22 years old in about a month, and the bond and love I share with my husband feel so strong and beautiful. I will tell you that it was not like this about 8 years ago.

The next marriage struggle we will be talking about is the challenges that couples face from external sources. The husband and the wife joined together as a unit, warring against an external force. And this kind of struggle or challenge is a lot easier to win than the one we just finished discussing.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 talks about this in a beautiful manner. It says two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. And then goes on to say that one may be overpowered, but two can withstand him. This is such a powerful truth because there is power in unity.

Deuteronomy 32:30 tells us how one can chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight. That arithmetic is only possible where there is unity, and your Rock is God. Matthew 18:19-20 sheds more light on this when Jesus declared that when two agree concerning anything, and they ask, it will be done for them by our Father in heaven.

These are the truths about struggles in marriage based on the Bible. God did not design marriages for struggles; what we see as struggles are attacks from spiritual forces of wickedness. They are not from God. And for every trial, God always makes a way of escape if we let Him take the lead and fight for us.

Your first concern as a married person is to fight for the unity, peace, and stability of your marriage. In good times and bad, you need to shield your marriage with prayers. Cover your spouse in prayer lest they become vessels that the real enemy uses to infiltrate your peace and engineer struggles into your marriage.

You have the word of God as your weapon. 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 tells us that “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.” That is what we have to war with, and we war against spiritual forces and not our spouses; instead, we war for and with our spouses. 

If this message stirred something in your heart, don’t stop here. My books go deeper into these truths—offering clarity, encouragement, and practical faith for real-life seasons. Each one was written to strengthen you where you are and help you walk forward with confidence in God. Explore the books and take the next step in your faith journey today. Click on the button below for details

                                                    

Why Does God Feel Silent When I Pray?

Jeremiah 33:2-3 says, “Thus says the Lord who made it, the Lord who formed it and established it (the Lord is His name): Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” This scripture was not the imagination of Jeremiah, nor his wishful thinking, but this was a declaration from God Himself through Jeremiah, and God does not lie, nor does He speak without doing (Numbers 23:19). So, why do we still feel unheard when we pray? Why does it appear as though God is silent when we pray to Him?

The big problem is not whether God is silent or not; the issue is whether we hear Him speak or not. If God says we should ask, and He will answer, and He is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should repent; if He has spoken that He will make good His words, then the problem is not about God not speaking but about us not hearing.

Jesus said in John 10:27 that His sheep hear His voice, and He knows them, and they follow Him. So, two things we have established so far. First is that God speaks when we ask, and that the sheep of Jesus know His voice when He speaks, and they follow His leading.

So, there is no doubt about God speaking or not; Jesus already testified that there are people who have been able to recognize His voice, and He knows these people, and they follow His leading.

To the one who feels that God is silent when they pray, narrowing down to this problem is finding a way to be among the category of people who recognize the voice of God when He speaks and follow the voice of God. So, God is not silent; you probably are just not hearing Him.

Having the feeling that God is silent is not coming from God, but from you, the recipient, and this is not to your discredit. Many times, we assume God is silent because the way we expect an answer is not the way He answers.

So, we are probably searching for answers in a different direction from the one in which God is choosing to show up. The truth of the matter is that we can’t dictate God’s approach for Him; He chooses the what, the how, and the when by His sovereignty. And His ways are always perfect.

The second possible cause of us feeling like God is silent when we pray is that we allow our challenges and the noise of our problems and fears to overshadow the voice of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We let fear conquer our faith.

The miracles we seek need a substance of our faith to happen. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that without faith we cannot please God, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Obtaining answers from God requires faith.

The Bible describes faith as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Making it simpler in my own words, faith is the confidence that when you pray, God will answer. When you ask, He will give. But how do we build this confidence? What does it take to have faith that commands answers from God?

Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So, you build faith by consuming the word of God. God is a Spirit, and that is why we always say, “the Spirit of God.” When God speaks, He speaks to your spirit. Your spirit can only communicate effectively with the spirit of God when you feed it and keep it healthy. You can only keep your spirit healthy and alive when you feed it with the word of God. So, the food of your spirit is the word of God.

When Jesus speaks of His sheep, He is speaking of those who have fed their spirit fat with the word of God, and so hearing Him when He speaks is not a problem for them. Discerning is getting a leading from God in your spirit and acting out what you have heard in the physical. It all starts with the capacity of your spirit to be able to receive from the Spirit of God.

Another truth that I’d want to share with you is that not all answers from God are immediate. Remember that I shared earlier that He chooses the what, how, and when to answer your prayer. Sometimes you have to wait, and waiting is where the strength of your faith is tested.

In Habakkuk 2:2-4, God tells Habakkuk that the vision is for an appointed time, but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. The just shall live by faith.

Your trust and confidence in God should not be time-bound. If it is, you will miss your miracle. Your one resolve should always be that God will do it, because He has said He will answer, and He does not lie.

To wrap this up, I will share a personal story of faith that happened to me very recently. Just last month, I was very short on funds. I had spent all the money available to me, including from my credit card. I don’t have a job and no hope of how and when to pay back my credit card spending. So, I began to pray.

Now, the twist to this story is that the platforms on which I deployed my website charge a monthly subscription fee. Though it was just roughly CAD $70 monthly, hitting that on my credit card will send it to overdraft mode.

Without having a means of repayment and the threat of accruing interest charges sent me into panic mode. I needed to put money into my account before my next due date. I couldn’t discuss this with my husband because I was sure he would tell me to shut down the website and stop wasting money. That platform is my sweat and labor. I built it from scratch, and that is where I have all my blogs, books, and work.

It felt like God was silent when the days began to draw near, and it looked like nothing would happen. So, after a couple of days of silent worry and intense prayers, I gave myself some peace and told God whatever He wanted to do was fine by me.

The subscription fees hit my account, and the account went into overdraft mode. And the day after that, which happens to be my credit card due date, my husband told me to show him my bank balance without any prompting.

We didn’t pre-discuss; I didn’t disclose my issue with him, didn’t share that burden with him; I just laid it at the feet of Jesus and left it there. To cut a long story short, my husband transferred almost two thousand Canadian dollars into my account. Paid the credit card and handed me my phone. I only had $5 in overdraft charges.

Note that I was only praying for about $150 to clear my immediate mess. But God exceeded my expectations in His own way at His own time. Did it feel like God was silent? I can confidently tell you yes. Did this test my faith? That is another big YES. But by the time I had just a couple of hours before my subscription fee would hit my account, I had resolved to let God do for me what I cannot do for myself. I chose faith over fear.

In that situation, God didn’t speak to me; He spoke to the person who would do His bidding in my situation. Why did God wait till the very last minute before showing up, or should I say past the last minute as a matter of fact? That I would never know, but every day my faith grows by these little experiences that though it tarries, I should always wait for it because it will come to pass. God will never fail.

I pray that the Lord quietens every noise in your life and birth clarity in your spirit that you might hear and receive from clearly in Jesus’ name.

If this message stirred something in your heart, don’t stop here. My books go deeper into these truths—offering clarity, encouragement, and practical faith for real-life seasons. Each one was written to strengthen you where you are and help you walk forward with confidence in God. Explore the books and take the next step in your faith journey today. Click on the button below for details