Marriage Repair and Hedge Prayer

Some time ago, my husband Hugh and I led a small Bible study in our home. We met to pray and study the Word with the intent of inviting neighbors and friends to our small group. 

God did several great things during that time, including a “marriage repair” story involving a young man named Sam (not his real name)—and his desire to reconcile with his wife.

Sam had recently walked through a divorce when he joined our group. He and his former wife had two elementary-age children. But she chose to frequent bars and engage in relationships with other men. Sam began expressing his desire to have his wife come back to the marriage.               

Hugh explained to him the “hedge prayer” and our willingness to employ it on his behalf. Hugh also asked Sam, “Are you sure you can forgive her? Because if you can’t truly forgive her when she comes back, it will not work.” Sam was willing to forgive.     

After that, each week Sam, Hugh, and I prayed this prayer around his wife. Sam prayed it himself during the week. Week after week we prayed. She would often come by our house to leave the children with Sam. Then she was off to the bars or wild parties.

Our hedge prayer times involved asking God to put a hedge around her and bring her to her senses. We prayed she would lose her desire for the bars and other men. We also asked that people who were bad influences over her would lose the desire to be with her. We even prayed that she would have the desire for her husband—and want to be the wife and mother God intended her to be. Every Monday night for about a year we prayed a hedge about Sam and his family.

Then suddenly one weekend, Sam called Hugh and said, “We’re getting married again! Will you do the ceremony?” We were out of town, so Hugh was not able to marry them. But they found someone else—and this family was reunited!

The following weekend, Sam, his wife, and their children came to our home for dinner. She did not even look the same! She looked peaceful, dressed as a mom and a wife would dress.

As we sat around the table eating together, I asked her, “What happened to you? How did you come back?”

She explained, “One night I was in a bar, on the dance floor with some guy, and boom—like a ton of bricks—it hit me: ‘This is not what I want. I want to be with Sam and our children!’ So, I left and went back home to see if my ex-husband would take me back!”

Surrounded with Protection

In the first few chapters of Job, we are told about a man who feared God and lived a blameless life. God greatly prospered him, but then Satan came calling. Satan accused God of protecting Job by placing a hedge around him. Satan was convinced that if God removed the hedge, Satan could so torment Job that he would eventually end up cursing God.

The idea of hedge prayer is that God will surround someone with protection and keep that person from succumbing to Satan’s attacks. Here is the outline of the hedge prayer that we used on Sam and his family’s behalf: 

• Heavenly Father, I ask you, Lord, to rebuke and bind Satan in the name and through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ (Jude 9).
• I ask you to build a “hedge of thorns” around my husband/wife, so that anyone with wrong influence will lose interest in him/her and leave (Hosea 2:5–7; Job 1–3).
• I base this prayer on the command of Your Word, which states, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Matt. 19:6).
• Father God, Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer (1 John 5:15; John 14:13–14).

We witnessed the repair of a marriage and the restoration of a family when we pursued the hedge prayer in agreement with Sam. If God willingly placed a hedge around Job, why wouldn’t we ask the same for those we love?

JO GOWER and her husband Hugh have served in fulltime ministry since 1973. Since retiring, Jo is a freelance writer from Searcy, AR. She blogs at jogopray.blogspot.com.

Taken from Prayer Connect magazine. To subscribe to Prayer Connect, click here.