If there's been a heaviness around your sex life lately, I want to share something I've been learning in my own marriage. Maybe it's distance you can't quite name, old shame you thought was long buried, or the two of you just missing each other. That heaviness isn't an invitation to get mad at each other or shut down and walk away. It's an invitation to pray.
Over the last six months, my husband and I have walked through a season of unusually intense spiritual warfare. I don't say that lightly. And I want to bring you into what we've been learning, because I don't think we're the only ones.
Not every hard thing is spiritual warfare
Let me be clear. If we have a mouse problem or the dishwasher breaks, I'm not calling that spiritual warfare. Hard things happen. Life is messy.
But there's another level, where you sense real opposition aimed right at your intimacy and your oneness. I think most of us would agree there's a battle around the idea that sex is God's gift to marriage, that our bodies are good, and that our female and male anatomy is beautiful, not shameful. We bump up against it in real life. We feel it in our nervous systems. This good gift can be really, really good, or it can be really, really hard.
Why the enemy targets your marriage bed
The enemy of our souls hates unity, and he hates union. And sex is an embodied expression of union with another person. It's a picture of the gift we've been given for eternity: that we would be one with God forever.
That blows our minds, because we're so used to putting our spirituality and our sexuality in separate camps. I'm still healing in that area too. But there's a bigger story happening than what we face on an ordinary day. There's a battle for self-giving love, for humility, and for intimacy where hearts are fully vulnerable.
That vulnerability is where healing happens. We can't be naked and unashamed and guarded at the same time. Naked and unashamed was God's original garden design, and in a safe relationship it tells us something we desperately need to know: I'm loved, even here. Isn't that the gospel? I'm loved in my weakness, just as I am.
What Philippians 2 has to do with your sex life
There's a passage that has guided me through more than 20 years of marriage. Paul wrote it to the church at Philippi, but the more I read it, the more it applies to the marriage bed.
In Philippians 2:1–4, Paul says that if we've known any comfort from Christ's love, it should change how we treat each other. He calls us to be one in spirit and purpose, to do nothing out of selfish ambition, and to look to the interests of others, not only our own.
Now picture both spouses doing that. Not one-sided. One says, "This isn't about me, it's about you," and the other says the same thing back. That's full self-giving love, and there's so much honor in it.
Our sexuality, even our capacity to give and receive pleasure, was never meant to be a take, take, take thing. When both people are fully self-giving, they're open enough to receive each other with real vulnerability. That's a beautiful display of healing love. And the enemy hates healing love, because he comes to kill, steal, and destroy.
Why prayer, and not just more information
One thing I've noticed is that the enemy hates order. He hates intentionality and discipline. So in this season, we've brought prayer back into a more consistent rhythm in our home. That's looked like daily prayers, praying against the enemy's work in the name of Jesus, and anointing our home. Our kids have joined in, too, learning that prayer matters.
What I'm seeing is that the answer isn't always more information. Sometimes it's deep prayer, deep vulnerability, and deep healing.
The marriage bed should be a place of energy that gives life, not energy that takes it away. That doesn't mean a life without pain. We've known a lot of struggle, heartache, and disease. But through it all, God has kept ministering to us through our union.
And when a marriage is marked by unity, humility, and self-giving love, it changes the whole climate of a home. Our children feel the difference.
A prayer for your sex life
Here's part of the prayer I've been praying over my own marriage. I'd love to pray it over yours.
Lord, I thank you for the gift of marriage and the gift of our bodies. Thank you for love that's not just words or intentions, but love expressed through a body. Thank you for the gift of embrace, of pleasure, and of two becoming one. Thank you for desire, drive, and union, and for the gift of self-giving love.
Motivate us to do nothing out of selfish ambition, but to consider the needs of each other before our own. Heal us in our wounds, our worries, and our weariness. Deliver us from bondage, fear, shame, manipulation, fragmentation, and pain. Purify our hearts, our intentions, and our desires, and bring us into a true expression of embodied love.
Holy Spirit, hover over every place of love and communication in our marriage, and bring life, truth, healing, reconciliation, and freedom, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
In the episode, I pray the full prayer over you, including a moment to notice anything rising up in your heart, mind, or body that resists the goodness of God's design.
You don't have to walk this alone
Consider how God might be inviting you to pray for your marriage. Maybe that's setting a specific time each day or week to put your marriage and your sex life under the name of Jesus.
And if you're not experiencing healing yet, know that there is healing. It happens through understanding how our bodies hold our stories, through prayer, and in community. If you don't have women around you to walk this out with honestly, I'd love for you to join us in the Circle, my group mentorship where women gather to talk honestly about healing and discover God's good design together: Circle.
Have a question you want Francie to tackle on the podcast? Send her an email — she's always taking notes.