Recently I shared on praying for our children at a Mom's group that meets at my house. I thought I would share some of the things we talked about.
Praying for our children is such an awesome responsibility and so very important. So many times we get bogged down with this and that parenting style or this and that parenting book and worried about so many things pertaining to our children.......like schooling options, friends, extracurricular activities, media influence. And while all these things are important, we tend to neglect praying daily for our kids and speaking blessings over them. I love the book "The Power of a Praying Parent" by Stormie Ormartian. It is a powerful book and I highly recommend it. I have been using this book for over 10 years now. Another book I recommend on prayer is "The Blessing" by Gary Smalley. It talks about speaking and praying blessings over our children, similar to how the Jews pray. I love to do this on my morning walks.
To quote Stormie, "If you are not covering you children in prayer everyday, you are leaving their lives to chance." What a frightening thought! She also says, "God has given you spiritual authority over your children, and your prayers have power. This doesn't mean there will always be an immediate answer. Sometimes it can take days, weeks, months, or even years. But your prayers are never meaningless. If you are praying, something is happening."
I like to seek God specifically for each child and write down in my journal prayer requests for them and any area their are struggling in. My husband and I also pray together for them, which I think is very powerful. Prayer is not something you have to have long stretches of solitude and silence to do either (we all know that with small children this is hard to come by : ) I like to pray when I'm doing laundry, the dishes, in the shower, in the van driving around and like I said on my walks.
Colossians 4:2 "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful."
This post is perfect!!! And it is SO true. My husband and I decided that we were going to hold hands, get on our knees together, and pray for each of our children during our nightly routine of getting ready for bed. The next morning after we began this, we woke up to our children making pictures with the fruit of the Spirit on them hanging them up in their rooms. There is power with prayer- God's power, and He receives all the glory. He wants us to completely depend on Him. He is SO good! I will be praying for your delivery coming up. Love, Cara
ReplyDeletelove the reminders. I need them. With only half the kids to 'worry' over I need to re-focus some energy into more specific prayers than then other issues that time up my head space:)thanks!
ReplyDeleteI love that book! I haven't read it in a while...I think it's time to re-read it. Have you also read "The Power of a Praying Wife"? I haven't read "The Blessing" yet. I do have it though. Next on the reading list!
ReplyDeleteGreat post! This is an area that I need to work on. Thank you for writing about it and encouraging us. By the way, I made the chocolate cake that you posted about earlier for my baby's first birthday. Yum! :)
ReplyDeleteI have that book. It was given to us when we dedicated our children. Thank you for this wonderful reminder.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you more! I have seen so many huge issues in my children's lives turned around so shortly after we prayed for that specific issue.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this!
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