Prayer Prompt #18: To Have a Friend (Friendship Part 2)

After David had finished talking with Saul, he met Jonathan, the king’s son. There was an immediate bond between them, for Jonathan loved David. . . And Jonathan made a solemn pact with David, because he loved him as he loved himself.

1 Samuel 18:1, 3 NLT

These verses speak of the friendship between David and Jonathan.

We all know the value of a true friend.  Someone that will share our joys and carry our burdens. Someone to build us up when we’re down. Someone to love us enough to gently tell us when we’re out of line. And so many other wonderful things.

Dear LORD, I pray my children will have David/Jonathan type friendships at each stage of their lives. Please give them friends that are loyal and honest and will “love at all times” (Proverbs 17:17). Provide friends that love and pursue Jesus so they can be iron sharpening each other (Proverbs 27:17). Give them friends that will build and refine their character and not damage it (1 Corinthians 15:33). In Jesus’ name, amen.

Prayer Prompt #17: To Be a Friend (Friendship Part 1)

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Colossians 3:12

Everyone remembers the child that was always alone on the playground, shuffling through the dirt in the shade of a tree or sitting solitary on a swing while everyone else played kickball.

Some of us were that child. Some of us were the child that teased her and made others laugh at her. Some of us were the child that invited her to sit at our lunch table even though we’d be mocked. And some of us have been all three of those at different times.

What you were on the playground matters very little compared to what you are today in Christ, and in Him we are all equipped to teach and show our children the joy that comes when they choose to extend a hand of friendship like Jesus did.

Dear LORD, may my children be clothed in the compassion and kindness of Christ in all of their interactions with their peers. Help them understand the transformative power of friendship rooted in the love of Christ. Make the kind of friendship demonstrated by Jesus (like to Zacchaeus in Luke 19 and the woman caught in adultery in John 8) their model and ambition. Give them a heart like His, to be a friend to the friendless and reach out to the outcast. Release great joy in their hearts as they practice remembering the forgotten, including the excluded and loving the unloved. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Prayer Prompt #16: When You Don't Understand Your Child

For you created my inmost being:
     you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made:
     your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
     when I was made in the secret place,
     when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
     all the days ordained for me were written in your book
     before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139:13-16

Along with the explosion of love and lack of sleep that accompanies a new baby, does anyone else remember the utter confusion?? Clean diaper? Check. Fed? Check. Well rested? Check. Cuddled? Check. Played with? Check. Comfortably dressed? Check. Okay -- so why in the world is this tiny person still crying . . . 

I was so befuddled by my first newborn! But it helped me see God as Maker and I began to see that, even though I didn't always understand my child's behavior, that God did because He designed him. All the quirks, habits, dreams, fears, and thought patterns that I'd spend his whole life trying to figure out were already known and understood completely by his Maker. 

So those unexplained newborn cries? And, as he grows, those thoughts and behaviors that seem to pop up out of nowhere? I learned to go to God with a prayer like this:

Dear LORD, You created the inmost being of this child.  You have knit him together and in a wonderful way - there is nothing about him that is hidden from You.  Right now I don't understand what's happening with my child, but You do so I need You to tell me what I should do in this situation. Thank You for being my interpreter and adviser and enabling me to raise this child in a way that honors You and who You have programmed him to be. In Jesus' name, amen. 

Prayer Prompt #15: A Samuel-Inspired Prayer

But Samuel, though he was only a boy, served the Lord. . . . Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord. . . [and] grew taller and grew in favor with the Lord and with the people.

1 Samuel 2:18, 21, 26

Oh, that our children would grow up in the presence of the Lord! May our homes be filled with it, may our lives be filled with it, may it be our daily place of abiding.

Look at the beautiful things that accompany growing up in the presence of the Lord: serving Him from youth and finding His favor. May it be for our children as it was for Samuel.

Dear LORD, fill our homes with Your glorious presence. Help us, as mothers, to invite and usher this presence into our homes. Make it real, make it tangible - let our children feel it. Let it impact their hearts and draw them closer to Yours. Let them find favor with You and with people and grow in their desire to serve You. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Prayer Prompt #14: A Job-Inspired Prayer

No, not a prayer for our children’s future careers. A prayer inspired by the man in the Old Testament that suffered immense losses but never stopped trusting and praising. Job’s story teaches us that God allows us to suffer but uses the suffering to strengthen us.

Read more at Four Reasons Why You Need “Job Experience”

No words adequately express how painful it is for a mother to watch her child suffer. But we have hope that God does not abandon us in our trials. He is always good and always trustworthy. Everything He does comes from a place of love because He is love (1 John 4:8).

Dear LORD, Your Word tells us plainly that in this world we will have trouble (John 16:33). When troubles come to my children, give them hearts like Job to praise You no matter what circumstances they face (Job 1:20).  Help them to cling to You only and not things that can be taken away (and everything can be taken away except You). Strengthen their faith in You so they can confidently declare with Job, “though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).  In Jesus’ name, amen.

Four Reasons Why You Need "Job Experience"

If you’re thinking, “good idea, my career has stalled and I need to get back on track”, then back up.  

I’m not talking about employment.  I’m talking about Job, the Old Testament character who was “the greatest man among all the people of the East” (Job 1:3) - that is, until Satan was allowed to take away ALL his wealth and ALL his children.  Oh yeah, and then Satan “afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.” (Job 2:7)

Wait a minute -- why would I want that?! You can’t be serious!

Actually, yes, I am serious.  But I get it. I mean, there’s a reason that "Job” is never in the Top 100 Baby Names.  Who would want to be like Job, sitting in a pile of ashes, bereft of family and possessions, scraping his sores with a piece of broken pottery (Job 2:8)?

Well, thankfully, that is not the end of Job’s story.  And his suffering highlights several qualities about him that you really do want for your own life:

1.  Job was a righteous man.

“This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.” (Job 1:1)  Job’s reputation for righteousness was so great that God Himself “brags” about Job to Satan, saying, “There is no one on earth like him: he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” (Job 1:8) God is pleased with this man!

Can you imagine if your reputation was that excellent, not only to man, but to God Himself? What a precious thing to be praised by the Lord for being upright!

In fact, it seems that God had so much confidence in Job’s blameless heart that He trusts Job to retain his integrity even in the face of Satan’s horrible attacks on him, his family and his possessions (see Job 1:6 - 2:10).

That’s the kind of heart I want too.

2.  God loved Job enough to allow him to suffer.  

Being chosen to suffer is being chosen to be loved. Sound strange? It’s really not - not when you consider what happened to God’s own beloved Son.  And for us, God allows us to go into the crucible of suffering so we will grow in our faith and abide closer to His heart.

God confirmed this to me last week. As I lay on the floor in a heap of tears, God gently spoke these words to my heart: “There is greater evidence of My love when you are chosen for the refining fire than when you are chosen for a blessing.”

Why would He say that - aren’t blessings evidence of His love too? Yes. But so is suffering.

Suffering is a key vehicle that God uses to draw us deeper into His heart.  Suffering is where we learn to cling to Jesus even if everything else is torn from our grasp.  Suffering demands that we really mean it when we declare our surrender to God’s plan and our trust in Him no matter what.  Suffering “produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” (Romans 5:3)  That’s why Paul declares that “we also rejoice in our sufferings” (Romans 5:3) -- and a guy like Paul, he would know.

God allows me to suffer so I can draw even nearer to Him than before.  He allows me to suffer so He can give new revelations of His all-sufficiency despite my circumstances - a type of sufficiency that I would not have known if everything had gone as I’d planned. He allows me to suffer so my character can be conformed more to the image of His Son, which is a precious gift indeed.

3.  Nothing could steal Job’s praise.

Job was a man of considerable wealth: “he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants.” (Job 1:3)

He was also blessed with ten children and he loved them dearly. He had built a close-knit family. “His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.” (Job 1:4) Job regularly “sacrifice[d] a burnt offering for each of them” (Job 1:5) as a covering, just in case they had sinned. Job was no disconnected dad, but a true family man who cared about his children’s faith.

Then all of his children and all of his wealth was taken from him in one awful day (see Job 1:13-19).

Job’s faith response to the calamity of losing all of his children and all of his possessions is mind boggling: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.  The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away: may the name of the Lord be praised.” (Job 1:20 ) It was as if Job was saying, “Satan, you may be able to steal my wealth, my family and my health - but you will never steal my praise!”

This is a man who understands that nothing he ever had was his to hold on to: everything had come from the Lord’s hand. It was not his responsibility to cling to these gifts, but to cling to the One who gave them.  

4.  Even as Job suffered, he declared unwavering trust in God.

By the end of the book of Job, Job has been completely restored: God blesses him with a new family and doubles what he previously possessed (Job 42:12-13).  “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.” (Job 42:12)

But before God changed any of Job’s circumstances, Job declared, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15 KJV). What an amazing pronouncement of unshakable trust in God no matter what!  Job’s suffering did not break his faith - it confirmed it.

Many of us want what Job had - a blameless heart, unstoppable praise and unwavering faith, but we don’t want to go through the suffering that produces these things. Understandable, because suffering is painful!  Yet, when we lean into our suffering instead of running away from it, it will produce fruit even more precious than a comfortable life.