A Prayer For Affection - The One Year Women's Friendship Devotional

A Prayer for Affection

Love each other with genuine affection. Romans 12:10

Today’s verse is the basis of the most powerful prayer I’ve prayed for our marriage of thirty-eight years: “Lord, help us to love each other with a genuine affection.” Paul meant this verse as an admonition to the Roman church, but it applies to all of our relationships as well.

C. S. Lewis once said, “Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.” Yet how lacking so many marriages are in real, genuine affection, which one dictionary defines as fondness, tender attachment, or warmhearted love.

Affection busters such as stress, busyness, anger, and unforgiveness drain the life out of many relationships. I first noticed today’s verse when our marriage was in a dry wilderness and some of those affection busters had done damage. Although my husband and I were committed to each other, our marriage was anything but affectionate. I wrote Romans 12:10 on an index card and tucked it in my Bible. Day after day, it resounded in my heart and in my prayers. As I confessed my own lack of love, I realized that although our human love may wax and wane, God’s never changes or runs out. He is a God of great affection who exults over us with joy and loves us (and our spouses and other loved ones) with tenderness, generosity, and an intimacy beyond our wildest dreams. We can tap into his inexhaustible supply of love for anyone in our lives or families. We don’t have to pretend; we can be real: “God, my well of love has run dry. Would you love my husband (or sister or child) through me and give me your affection for him?” As I prayed this over the months (it was not a quick work!), the Holy Spirit placed his love for my husband in my heart and gave us a fresh affection for each other that continues to this day. —CHERI

Lord, help me to love ___________ with a genuine affection. Help me to experience your love and then to love others with that same unconditional love.

There is nothing you can do to make God love you more! There is nothing you can do to make God love you less! His love is unconditional, impartial, everlasting, infinite, perfect! God is love!

—RICHARD C. HALVERSON (1916–1995), PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER AND FORMER U.S. SENATE CHAPLAIN