Ephesians 5:18, 20, 21, 22a, 25a NLT‬
[18]”Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life…. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit…
[20] And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[21] And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
[22] For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord…
[25] For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church”….

Paul’s ‘therefores’, following his teaching on God’s grace in this letter, form patterns of behaviour for those who have been saved by grace. What does he mean by ‘saved’? Only when we understand what sin has done to us can we begin to fathom the extent to which God’s grace has gone to rescue us from sin’s consequences.

So, Paul says, God has given us a blueprint for life after we have been rescued from death and made alive by God’s Spirit. His patterns include every category and level of the people who make up His family.

God has chosen His Son to be the model for every child of His. Jesus is the only one qualified to be the model since He is the only human who lived on earth as a perfect Son. He is the blueprint for God’s children, the one after whom the Holy Spirit is patterning everyone who has been born from above and saved from sin.

Included in these patterns is God’s blueprint for marriage. God intended marriage, between one man and one woman for life, to be the visual aid of the intimate union between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Trinity.

God is a family. His plan was to bring into His family the humans He had created to enjoy family life with the Godhead. He instituted marriage on earth to be a family, including the children born from that union, to give us a taste of life in His heavenly family.

The fact that humans failed to follow His pattern did not deter God. He set up His plan of salvation, based on His grace, to bring His pattern back on track. Through Jesus, He brought us back to Himself and restored His power to live life His way.

Although God’s patterns are for us to follow in every situation in life, He akso has another purpose for them.

Our prayers are often based on the problems we encounter. Families are struggling, for example, and our prayers focus on what’s going wrong. We end up giving God advice or telling Him what to do.

However, God has told us the purpose for marriage and the ‘how-to’ in Ephesians. So, He says, pray the pattern, not the problem.

We know that God hears us if we pray according to His will.

‭1 John 5:14-15 NLT‬
[14] “And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. [15] And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.”

Instead of praying lengthy, wordy prayers, (like the pagans), for ourselves and others, just say ‘amen’ and ‘thank you’ to His pattern because it has already been approved.

‭2 Corinthians 1:20 NLT‬
[20]” For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” (which means “Yes”) ascends to God for his glory.”

So, we can apply this principle to every situation we encounter for a sure solution. It’s God’s prerogative to answer in His time and in His way, but it’s our responsibility to trust Him by giving thanks for His answer.

God wants to change people. He allows situations to happen so that He can apply His grace. He gives us opportunity to participate with Him through prayer to reveal His grace to us too. In that way, we worship Him and He gets the glory, which is the ultimate purpose of prayer.

‭John 15:7-8 NLT‬
[7] “But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! [8] When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.”