Praying for Your Children

This post is based on the message Praying for Your Children that I gave at the Joshua Prayer Group’s “Be the Man, Be the Woman” Conference on June 15, 2019. 

I have the incredible privilege of being the mother of three amazing little boys. And though the oldest is only about 3 feet tall, I’ve already learned something very important . . . I can’t control him.

Sure, I can set parameters. I can enforce consequences. I can try to teach and influence him -- but, ultimately, I can’t control my child’s heart. And a child’s heart is a critically important place because it sets the pattern of his or her life and behavior.  Proverbs 4:23 instructs us to “guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”

Even though I can’t control my child’s heart, I am so thankful that God’s business is changing hearts -- so I’ve learned that the best leverage I have with my children is to pray, putting them in God’s hands so He can work in their hearts.

Why & What to Pray

Consider the Bible your parenting prayer book: it was written by a parent (because God is Father and He calls people His children) with the absolute best hopes and dreams and promises for His children. So when we pray, we can use His words, take His promises - and make them our own. We don’t say these words from the Bible simply as a recitation though; we say them in faith, remembering that faith is simply agreeing with God’s Word, the Bible (an example Scripture-based prayer is included at the end of this post). 

The Bible has so many beautiful thoughts and promises for our children! These are just a tiny sampling: 

* I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. They are always generous and lend freely; their children will be a blessing. (Psalm 37:25-26)

* Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands. Their children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. (Psalm 112:1‭-‬2)

* Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. (Psalm 8:2)

* I will pour out My Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing shall be on your offspring. (Isaiah 44:3)

Pray what your child will become, not just what he is today

Maybe you’re thinking, “it seems like my son/daughter is so far from those things that I can’t even pray it”.  But don’t let where your children are today discourage you, and DON’T let it stop you! Because prayer is not about what your children are now, but about what God intends them to become. 

When we pray God’s Word for our children, we choose to share His perspective on our child and pray for what he is becoming rather than doom him to stay as he is today.

Don’t grow discouraged if you don’t see overnight changes; be patient, be persistent. And be prayerful: make prayer a primary part of your parenting.  Prayer is a continuous labor. Train yourself to pray in the moment too, as issues arise or cross your mind. Train yourself to pray preventative and protective prayers - you will never know how much hardship your child was spared because of your prayers!

Speak words of faith consistent with your prayers into your child’s life

One other practice goes hand in hand with your prayers, and that is the words you speak to them. 

Your words to your children and about them should be consistent with your prayers. Proverbs 23:7 tells us that as a person thinks in his heart, so is he. That means if you tell your child that he is lazy, he will think he is lazy, and he will become lazy. If you tell your daughter that you are disappointed in her, she will think she is a disappointment and she will become disappointing.  

Proverbs 18:21 tells us that the tongue has the power of life and death.  With my words, I can give life to my child’s defeated soul. Or, with my words, I can wound my child’s sensitive spirit. As mothers, we should use our words to call forth what our children will become. We should use our words to draw out the godly character that our children are called to embody.  

I recently stepped into the bathroom to find that one of my children (who loves art projects) had painted the toilet seat with my bright pink nail polish -- because, who can resist that tiny little nail polish brush? Realizing his infraction, he had also tried to clean it off with my shampoo, and was busy pumping the economy-sized bottle of shampoo onto the toilet seat and wiping it with a wad of toilet paper. 

How do I respond?

Moms: even when our children do something wrong, our words can honor them as people apart from their sin (“Sneakiness is not who you are; you are better than that. If you are curious about something, ask me - I love you and won’t withhold anything good from you.”) rather than identify them as their sin (“You are so foolish, what were you thinking?”).

So, as mothers, we ought to be filling our children’s hearts with the promises of God so what they think about themselves is consistent with what God thinks about them.  Our words will help shape their futures by shaping what they believe about themselves. 

What, then, is the summary of a mother's responsibility to pray for her child? Read the Word; Pray the Word; Speak the Word.

Example Prayer for Your Child’s Love for the Bible

Dear LORD, thank you for the heritage and reward You gave me when You gave me my child (Psalm 127:3). You created my child’s inmost being, knitting him together in my womb; he is fearfully and wonderfully made because all of Your works are wonderful (Psalm 139:13-14). My child still has so much to learn, but You, LORD, will teach him and give him great peace (Isaiah 54:13). Place truth in his inward parts (Psalm 51:6). Help him to fall in love with your Word and hide it in his heart so he will not sin against you (Psalm 119:11).  Keep him on a path of purity by living according to Your Word (Psalm 119:9). Cause him to delight in the law of the LORD and meditate on it day and night (Psalm 1:1-3). Even in his youth, may he set an example for other believers in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, so that no one can look down on him (1 Timothy 4:12). In Jesus’ name, amen.

Five Lessons from Under a Broom Bush

Have you ever been enjoying the view from a spiritual mountaintop, only to experience a sudden crash down into the valley? You’re not alone.

After Elijah’s victorious showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (see 1 Kings 18:18-40) - both a physical and spiritual mountain top! - he receives a death threat and flees for his life.

1 Kings 19:1-8 tells the story:

Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.

What a remarkable passage! Here is a powerful man of God who just fought and triumphed over the powers of darkness - and now he has fled and succumbed to hopelessness. I am baffled by Jezebel’s boldness after all of her prophets were slaughtered and the Lord sent fire from heaven. She should have been shaking in her sandals! And I wonder how Elijah could have been so fearful of one person after the Lord had given him victory against the hundreds of prophets of Baal!

But let’s not criticize Elijah from slipping from mountaintop to valley, because which of us hasn’t experienced the same fall? I find great encouragement in this passage because it shows that the “Bible superheroes” (like Elijah) were normal people, like you and me.  They are not immune from sadness or despair.  Rather, what made them “super” was that they prevailed through their troubling times in the strength of the Lord.

When Elijah was at the end of his own strength, emotionally and physically, God literally prepared a table for him in the wilderness.  The tangible bread he ate that nourished him physically is, for us, a metaphor for the Word of God that nourishes us spiritually, as is written in Deuteronomy 8:3 (NIV) “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord”.  Most of us have not experienced being fed physical food and drink by an angel, but God still does feed us in our wildernesses with the bread of His spoken Word.

Let’s look at five observations about how Elijah was fed to understand how we can receive the Word of the Lord in our wilderness:

1. Elijah was alone.

Elijah got alone with God.  He even left his servant behind in Beersheba as he continued on to a very lonely place - the wilderness.  Our lives today are full of noise: overscheduled calendars, constant dings on our phones, social media screaming for our attention - noise, noise, noise! Yes God can thunder above the din but you will have a much easier time hearing him when you separate yourself from all the racket and get alone with Him.

2.  Elijah put himself in a posture to hear from God.

In the depths of his despair, even wishing that God would let him die, Elijah initiates a conversation with God.  We won’t hide the fact that his words were not exactly faithful or inspiring! “I have had enough, Lord. Take my life.” But they are honest words to a caring Father that already knows how he feels anyway.  The point is this: Elijah spoke to God. Even if we don’t know what to say, even if the only words we can muster bely the depth of our discouragement, even if we feel like we have no hope or no faith left, we can whisper a prayer.  We don’t need to sound like we have it all together - God can handle the mess and even invites it so He can clean up for us.

3.  Elijah ate twice.

Yes, perfect faith will take God at His Word the very first time. But often, we don’t have perfect faith. And that is okay, because God knows that we are dust (Psalm 103:14) and He is compassionate and gracious in our weakness.

Consider Abraham, the father of our faith, who was told not once but twice that His descendants would be as the stars in the sky (Genesis 12:2 and 15:5).  And the second time, Abraham honestly tells God, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir” (Genesis 15:3) before the covenant is confirmed! Likewise Gideon set out not one fleece but two (Judges 6:36-40).

Sometimes asking God twice is not an indication of “doubt”, but rather an indication that we are “down and out”.  We don’t need to be convinced; we need to be encouraged.  And God will graciously give us that second meal to strengthen us.

4.  Elijah went on the strength of that food 40 days and nights.

Though tangible, this was no natural bread.  Only a supernatural meal could carry Elijah that far and that long. This bread was straight from heaven, delivered by angels, prepared for a man with no strength left in the natural.

So it is with the Word of God.  It gives strength that worldly advice or platitudes like “don’t worry, be happy” simply cannot offer. You can’t explain it; you can’t manufacture it. It’s supernatural.

Several years ago I walked through a long stretch of darkness that often threatened to overwhelm me. But in the very beginning - before it even began, in fact! - God gave me a word similar to the one He gave to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-2: God told me to leave the comfortable place where I was dwelling and journey to a new, unfamiliar land, and He would bless me there. The strength of that Word, that supernatural bread, carried me through the many long difficult months ahead.

5.  The food did not carry Elijah through to the end.

It only carried him through to the next step.  Elijah arrived at to Mount Horeb - “the mountain of God” - and God spoke to him again: go anoint Elisha as prophet (see 1 Kings 19:9-18).  

If we only had to connect with God once and then could make it all the way to heaven, all the way through the assignments that He has ordained for our lives, then what need would we have for connection with Him? But God is a relational Father and He does not want to just wind up a robot and watch it scurry around until it dies.  He wants to be the Vine to our Branch. He wants to be the Father to His child. He wants to be the place where we abide and continually receive nourishment from Him.  He wants to walk with you like He walked with Adam in the Garden of Eden.

Don’t expect the Word to answer all of your questions and predict all of your future. Expect it to be what you need today, and then expect God to provide another meal tomorrow.