Is It Time To Pray Now?

A Blog for Parents

 

Two vital questions for parents:

  1. Do you pray daily for your children?
  2. What do you pray when you pray?

Parenting carries multiple responsibilities. We are to love, care for, provide for, guide, encourage, set boundaries, teach personal responsibility and pass on our faith. Not an easy agenda in the best of times.

But we must also fulfill our parental duties in times of distress, pressure and mounting opposition. Truly, being a parent isn’t a job for sissies.

So back to prayer. Prayer is one of your greatest tools to insure success in your endeavors. It calms you down when agitated. It provides direction when feeling confused. It gives courage to make the tough decisions. It’s a direct line to your own personal Father and allows you to tap into his parenting skills.

OK … we should pray. But pray what? What do I say? What’s legal and what’s not allowed? What areas of my child’s life should I include in my praying?

Let’s start with a prayer of blessing! Often when we’re incited to pray, blessing is not on our minds. But a prayer of blessing is not a ‘crisis’ kind of prayer. It’s the kind of prayer you pray over your child when he’s asleep and sweet and innocent and no threat to your sanity.

It’s the prayer that pronounces God’s blessings and intentions over your child. It’s agreeing with God that He has a wonderful plan for their life and is allowing you the privilege of partnering with Him in seeing it come to pass. It’s asking God to make the road before them clear and obstacle-free. It’s asking for God’s provision to be theirs throughout their life.

A prayer of blessing is declaring that there’s more to that young life than just the disappointments, disasters or challenges you had today. It proclaims that there is a God-plan for your son or daughter that will give them both a future and a hope. Your child needs this prayer in his life.

Now release your heart’s desires for your child as you ask God to guide them, protect them, keep them from physical dangers and moral pitfalls. (Obviously, what you teach in these areas works hand in hand with prayer.) This is where you ask that your child will seek God diligently all through life. This is praying toward the future. It’s setting margins and painting the picture that both you and God can see in your child’s future.

And then you can bring up the ‘crisis’ areas as you continue to pray. Here you cover things like a hard, stubborn streak. You pray for discipline, good grades, a resolution with a contentious friend. You ask God to give you patience and strength to get you through a particularly difficult season as a parent. In other words, you are asking for divine help in areas that you are finding impossible to deal with on your own.

Obviously, this blog is only a most basic introduction to the subject of praying for your family. But it’s serious work with incredible potential. It’s important enough that you may want to make the following commitment:

“Lord, raising Godly children in this day and age isn’t easy and I’m not always capable. So in asking your assistance, I will endeavor to do the following:

 

–       Pray every day for my children

–       Establish a prayer list of those things needing inclusion

–       Believe that in spite of what I am seeing at the moment, my hope is in You as I look to their future

–       I will not give up, but will be faithful for as long as it takes

–       I will give you the praise when these prayers see answers

 

In Jesus Name, Amen!”

 

 

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