Prayer Matters. That’s a lesson author and speaker Jodie Berndt learned years ago when she was in the thick of parenting the four children she delivered in six years. Already a committed Christian, Jodie felt the need to pray more purposefully and specifically for her children, as she took the responsibility of raising them well seriously. A Mom’s in Prayer group taught her how to apply God’s words from the Bible to shape prayer. As she began seeking God more intentionally through scripture, she realized the Bible was not just a book to read. She felt God creating desires in her heart that corresponded with his plans for her children as she prayed through his word.

She refers to John 15:7, “If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” She cautions against a “name it and claim it” mentality. “Just because we slap a Bible verse on something doesn’t mean God has to do it,” she explained. “But the more we dig into the Bible, the more we read it, think about it and soak it into our souls, the more our thoughts will align with God’s and our prayers will reflect what he already wants to do. And when that happens, when the desires of our hearts are the things God wants to give, we see our lives bear fruit, we bring glory to God and people can tell we love Jesus.”

Already a professional writer with several books published by Zondervan, Jodie decided to share the gift she found accessing God’s will and presence through his word with others. She queried friends, “If you could ask God to do one thing for your family or children, what would it be?” (And this was before the days of easy online questionnaires.) She included the question with the family Christmas card, cornered peers in the pre-school carpool line, and spoke to people in the grocery store.

“People wanted safety, protection, health, good friends, good sibling relationships, faith, character traits like kindness, and for their children to have a purpose in life. Some were already praying for their child’s eventual marriage partner,” Jodie said. She gathered the top 20 and began scouring Scripture to see where the Bible addressed these areas. “There’s not a need we’ll face or a concern we’ll have that God hasn’t already thought of and provided for,” she said. The content became Praying the Scriptures for your Children: Discover How to Pray God’s Purpose for Their Lives, (recently updated in a 20th anniversary edition). As the Berndt children grew, so did the concerns for which to pray. Her next books included, Praying the Scriptures for Your Teens: Opening the Door for God’s Provision in Their Lives, and Praying the Scriptures for Your Adult Children: Trusting God with the Ones You Love. 

Each chapter starts with a verse pertinent to the topic, offers biblically based encouragement and includes stories from real-life moms and dads navigating the parenting journey. True to life, the situations don’t all have tidy endings. Chapters conclude with a dozen or so prayer sentences based on a specific promise from the word of God with room to personalize. The format suits both seasoned warriors or those less comfortable praying aloud or in a group. When Jodie updated the book for the anniversary edition, she recognized God’s amazing faithfulness.

“It’s so precious how many kids are still walking with the Lord,” she said. And even if they are not, the moms are still praying because they have seen God’s power in prayer, the peace they access as they pray, and evidence of God’s provision – even if God’s answers don’t always look like they expected. “It’s a testament to the faithfulness of the mothers who’ve prayed,” Jodie said.

Fans and followers kept requesting Jodie write a book about marriage, and her publisher convinced her there was a need for her voice in the marriage resource space Jodie felt might already be overcrowded. Her newest book, Praying the Scriptures for Your Marriage: Trusting God with Your Most Important Relationship, published in April 2023 to a ready audience of her readers who were already well acquainted with the concept of praying with scripture. “As we pray scriptures over our marriage, we receive God’s provision, find joy in his presence and open the door for his peace,” she said.

As she did with her first book, Jodie began with a question. “What do you want God to do for your marriage?” Answers included deeper spiritual intimacy, help overcoming conflict, better communication or just to have more fun. She enlisted her husband to provide a male perspective to keep the content from being one-sided.

Each chapter starts with a joke instead of a Bible verse, but, similar to her other “Praying” titles, they include inspiring stories from real life couples and scriptures to pray.

Discussion questions help couples learn to trust God to lead to “a sweet spot of grace, “Jodie added, and might be as simple as, “What’s something I could do to support you this week?”

“Even though I know women will be the ones picking the book up, we wanted to create a resource that would be super accessible” whether a couple was just starting out or entering the empty nest years and trying to figure out their legacy. Jodie recognizes that couples may not be comfortable praying out loud together – something even she and her husband of 40 years, Robbie, sometimes have to overcome. “Our prayer styles are so different it can feel awkward. I wanted a resource a couple could pick up and use to open the door to ignite intimacy” whether they answer the discussion questions, pray the prayers already written with each other, go through the whole book or just open up one chapter dealing with an issue like forgiveness or communication.

Malachi 3:16 says that God listens and hears, she added. “I believe life-giving and loving conversations can be received as prayers even if they are not super formal with hands held and heads bowed. I want to frame prayer as very natural and doable for husbands and wives.”

Jodie considers prayer important because it “relieves us from the burden that we have to get it all right. We are inadequate. We need help from outside of ourselves. God can make us willing to forgive or help with finances. He invites us to ask. When we reach out to the Lord, and he answers, it injects peace. It is to the Father’s glory that we bear much fruit,” she added. “He wants us to be fruitful, impactful, purposeful people.”

Jodie did not anticipate how much her own heart would expand as she worked on and prayed through the book’s content. “I’ve heard the teaching that the marriage covenant relationship should reflect God’s love for us, but that truth came home again and again. In Ephesians 5, Paul lays out how a husband and wife should walk in love the way Christ loved us. We have 100 little opportunities each day to give ourselves up for each other – to put the other first.

“Every time I choose to make a sacrifice for Robbie, small or big, I’m partaking of the Gospel. That went from head knowledge to being in my heart. I get to partake of the Gospel every day as I choose to give up myself for him.”

To help couples foster prayer, Jodie also created a prayer calendar perfect for hanging on the refrigerator close to the coffee pot. https://jodieberndt.com/resource_category/calendars/. Couples can take just a minute or two in the morning to look at a verse together and create a simple moment of intimacy and connection with the Lord.

Brad Wilcox, Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, wrote about Jodie, “The research tells us that couples who pray together are not only much more likely to steer clear of divorce court but also to be happily married (most of the time.) Jodie Berndt’s breathtakingly honest, wise, and funny Praying the Scriptures for Your Marriage shows couples how to pray well for each other and how to find a spiritually grounded intimacy that sustains them amidst the challenges of contemporary life.”

Even secular research points to the benefit of prayer in marriage. “Prayer is such an intimacy builder. Couples who pray together report greater satisfaction in marriage and even a better sex life,” Jodie said. Prayer can help you calm down in a moment of frustration and reinforces the idea that you are working together. “Sometimes we can feel like our spouse is the enemy. We do have an enemy who seeks to sow discord, but that’s not our spouse.”

Not long ago the Berndt family gathered to celebrate the engagement of Jodie’s third daughter. One son-in-law spoke up to advise the couple to remember they were on the same team. You don’t want to win, because that means your spouse lost, and that’s an overall loss for the team. Your team is bigger and more important than any victory, Jodie paraphrased.

Jodie’s favorite chapter in the book addresses kindness. She refers to research published by the Gottman Institute that states kindness is the number one predictor of satisfaction and stability in a marriage. She also points to research at the University of Virginia about how creating an upward spiral of generosity in marriage by putting the other’s needs ahead of one’s own becomes “a Virtuous Cycle.”

“That has stuck with Robbie and me,” she said. “The more we do a kindness for the other – getting a cup of coffee in the morning, going to the office party, forgiving when we don’t want to —that creates a climate where love can grow.”

“Kindness can work like a muscle, getting stronger with use,” she wrote in the chapter. “It’s the number one thing that glues couples together.” Small acts of service are easy to do, except when they are not. “For the times I don’t feel like it, if I think I’ve been wronged and don’t want to forgive, I start with a prayer asking God to help me be willing to be willing.”

Silly little things can mushroom unless you shift your perspective. As a newlywed Robbie had a habit of leaving his T-shirts on the floor instead of in the laundry basket, Jodie said. When she felt herself getting irritated, she would remind herself that doing his laundry is an opportunity to thank God she has a husband she loves. “We can welcome opportunities to give up our ‘rights’ and choose joy rather than resentment,” Jodie said.

In the chapter she references 1 Corinthians 13:4 (a verse that often finds its way into wedding ceremonies.) “Love is patient, love is kind.” One of her prayers — “Don’t let us get tired of doing good and showing kindness to each other, since at just the right time you promise a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”

Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, endorsed with, “Jodie Berndt understands how tough marriage can be, but she also knows that nothing is too difficult for the Lord. When we are guided by the very words of Scripture in lifting our union with our spouse before God, there’s no telling how He will transform our marriage.”

You can find more encouragement and insight on Jodie’s website, https://jodieberndt.com/, where she also offers Marriage Minute videos and Blog posts.