The main focus here is unhindered prayer in order to carry out God's economy. My whole perspective is that my family would be useful to the Lord as a channel to reach out to others and as a unit of blessing for the Lord's use. So as I consider my wife, she is my fellow heir of the grace of life! We pursue the Lord in the same way with the same burden. We pray together. We struggle together to accomplish what the Lord is after. The husband's role is to dwell with his wife in such a way that she will become his helper, his coworker in Christ, his partner.

Without such a heavenly vision, there isn't such a need to take care of our wives. But once we desire to serve the Lord and have our family become useful to the Lord, one of the greatest matters before us is the condition of our wife. We inherit grace together, meaning that our family is a haven of grace, a receptacle of grace, which exudes the fragrance of God in our home. When we labor with people, they do not so much need our preaching, but a living example of the presence of Christ. If we only desire help with our marriage we can buy book after book for hints and suggestions, but if we desire to serve the Lord and become a vessel useful for His purpose, we must learn to seek Him for our wife's sake. Without God's economy in view we will never have the motivation to struggle before the Lord on behalf of our wife. We will react to her lack of willingness, we will get angry at her refusal to submit, and we will never match Christ's exercise for His church as we described earlier in this message. But when we see God's economy that He desires my family as a vessel for His purpose to reach others and manifest Himself, then we will never settle for a lack of harmony with our wife or family. We will constantly seek the Lord to satisfy her need so that we become fellow heirs of the grace of life. My wife and I become one in our service to the Lord.

I knew a leading brother who had been frustrated with his wife for twenty years because she seemingly is worldly and not consecrated. Recently I asked him whether he believed the Lord gave him his wife. He responded, “Of course.” I said, “Brother, if she is not cooperative it is your fault!” He was upset with me, but I spoke the Word of God to him. Eventually, I asked him, “How do you know that the Lord didn't give you this particular wife because He may not want you to serve Him according to your concept?” He had a peculiar concept of what it meant to serve Christ, and she couldn't fit his mold of serving. She would drag him down and wouldn't cooperate in his desire to be well-known and manifested before others. “Brother, is it possible that the Lord gave her to you in order to prepare you for His return according to His desire and not yours? Maybe no one will appreciate you. Maybe no one will remember that you helped them in the Lord's name. Yet, the Lord desires for you and your wife to enter the kingdom of God in the coming age together. So the Lord assigned you a wife that would break your concepts and force your to your knees to pray and seek Christ thousands of times.”

Many parents have this same attitude with their children. One brother came to me concerning his son who left home and refused to talk to him. I told him to drop all of his serving in the church and to spend time to gain his son back. He did. For a whole year he sought the Lord tearfully and consistently on behalf of his son. Praise the Lord, their relationship was healed and the son returned home. We should see our wives in the same light: we must seek the Lord constantly for her to gain her as a counterpart and partner in our service to Christ. God is not after some thing, but after His work in our lives. Brothers, the Lord is preparing us for His return and He will use our wife as a primary element in our transformation and preparation by training us in the Spirit to cherish our wife and to nourish our wife so that we become fellow heirs of the grace of life. Then the two of us can pray together. For many this is a pathway to being perfected by the Lord. We may not be used by the Lord in some big way, but our children will be blessed and our wife will surely cooperate and coordinate. When we do have to serve the Lord and be away from home, the husband must take much care to make sure that his wife is a fellow heir of the grace of life with him, a partner. They are so close and intimate, working together, so that even the wife sends the husband with the Lord's grace. She will not say, “I'm losing my husband because of this serving to God!” Instead, she will be free to allow her husband to serve more. The husband must endeavor to produce the harmony in the home.

We do not endorse the books that speak about quantity and quality time with our spouse and kids. No, we take the Bible as the Word of God. Once we are a God-seeker for our wife and a God-seeker for our children, the Lord knows exactly how to raise our children. Once we seek Him, the kind of pathway He will walk us through begins with our wife and with our children so that our family life becomes the base of our serving life.