¹⁸ “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

¹⁹ “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Dear God, I find it interesting to see all of the areas of life where this passage applies. Agreement between believers is huge and it is powerful. I am seeing it in my own family right now.

For probably a couple of years now my wife and I have not agreed on a key issue in our marriage. We have been married almost 20 years, and it has been a great marriage. But I have felt this disagreement slowly tearing strands of our relationship apart. She has felt that she couldn’t trust me in this one area, and I have felt like I couldn’t trust her in the same area. But lately, in fact, just this morning, we abruptly got on the same page. They say that every alcoholic has to bottom out before they will get help. Well, I think we needed to bottom out before we come to agreement on how to manage this one aspect of our lives. While there is some difficulty ahead as we forge this path together, I actually feel more relief and hope now than I did even two hours ago.

Father, help me to be the husband my wife needs me to be—the husband you need for her to have. Help me to be the father you need for my children to have. I have so much to learn, and I make so many mistakes. My wife would tell you (and I’m sure she does because she is a beautifully faithful woman) that she makes mistakes too. But the beauty in her and, I hope, in me is that we are willing to repent and turn from our mistakes. Help me to do that. Help her to do that. And help us to train our children to be able to do that.