So Your Prayers Are Not Hindered

Peter gives husbands a startling warning at the end of an instruction about marriage. He tells them to live with their wives in an understanding way and to show honor to them as fellow heirs of the grace of life, and then he adds, "so that your prayers may not be hindered." How a man treats his wife, Peter says, can clog the pipe between him and God.

This should sober any man who thinks his secret life is sealed off from his spiritual life. The dishonor of pornography, the way it reduces women to objects and leaves a husband disconnected from the real woman beside him, does not stay in one room of the soul. It seeps into everything, including your prayers, which can feel strangely dead when you are living a double life.

If your prayers have gone flat, this may be part of why. The way back is not complicated even when it is hard. Turn toward honoring your wife again, in your thoughts and in your treatment of her, and ask God to clear the line between you and him that dishonor has fouled.