CONFIDENT PRAYERS: USING SCRIPTURE TO PRAY FOR YOUR CHILDREN
Do you want to pray confident prayers for your children? Creating a Christ-centered culture in your home begins with PRAYER. What kinds of prayers do you pray for your children? Is it a challenge to know how to pray? How often do we pray for the physical and emotional needs of our children, while forgetting to pray for the condition of their hearts?
My free ebook, Confident Prayers, contains 10 scripture-based prayers that will help you use the actual words of the Bible to pray for your children.
I John 5:14-15 says, “And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.”
Ephesians 3:12 says, “Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.”
Let’s pray confident prayers!
I often get stuck in the routine of only praying for the immediate needs of my kids. I pray for a situation that is currently challenging, or an event that is coming up. Honestly, my prayers “for my children” are usually really all about me! “Lord, help ME to have wisdom, help ME to have patience, help ME to not get angry with them.”
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with those prayers! God wants us to take all our challenges and requests and frustrations before him. But how often do we pray for the SPIRITUAL needs of our children? How often do we pray for their hearts?
I want my kids to KNOW the Bible and GROW in their love for God and others. I want to prepare my kids to GO into the world as passionate followers of Jesus. I imagine you want the same for your children!
This book is a collection of prayers taken straight from the Bible. Most of them are prayers that the Apostle Paul prayed for the believers in the early church. On the top part of the page, you will find these prayers in their original form, from the New Living Translation of the Bible. On the bottom portion of the page, I have written a paraphrase of the scripture verses, written as a personal prayer that you can pray for your own children.
I recommend using this book as a daily guide to help you pray for your children. First, read the scripture verse at the top, then read the accompanying prayer that goes with it. The prayers use the word “children” but you can substitute the individual name of your child! There are ten prayers in this book, so if you pray for your children five out of seven days in a week, this book will last for two weeks of prayer time. Then you can start over again at the beginning!
Keep this book on your phone or another mobile device. When you’re waiting in the pick-up line, or sitting at the doctor’s office, you can open it up and say a prayer for your child! (Bonus: These are great prayers to pray for your spouse as well!)
Friends, being a mom can be exhausting. All day long you give yourself – your time, your energy, your emotions, even your very body – for these little ones that only ever want more of you. Some days are full of so much joy, and others are filled with so much exhaustion that you just want to crawl under your bed (yes I said under) and stay there the rest of the day (I wonder how long until they actually miss me? Yeah, about two minutes).
You wonder if what you are doing even matters to these little lives that you have been given. This God-given responsibility to raise these children can feel so overwhelming most days! You wonder: Am I doing this right? Am I making a difference? Am I ruining my kids? Will they be in therapy for the rest of their adult lives because of me? I have felt (and do feel) all of these things.But I want to encourage you, momma, and remind myself as well.
I Corinthians 15:57-58 (ICB) says: “But we thank God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So my dear sisters, stand strong. Do not let anything move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. You know that your work in the Lord is never wasted.”
Some days (many days) I feel like I am victorious in absolutely nothing. Between keeping up with housework, keeping my kids alive, and running a small business, there are very few days that I feel like I have done any one of those things well. I’m sure you moms can relate! This verse, however, reminds me that, although I may not feel very victorious on the daily, I have been given victory in Jesus because of his death on the cross. Because Jesus died, rose again and conquered death, I too can have victory through him!
I love the second part of the verse and I think it’s especially fitting for moms of young children… Stand strong! Don’t let anything throw you off course! Always give your whole heart to the work that God has given you to do. Why? Because the work you do for the Lord is never wasted. God will take your feeble and your frazzled, your half-baked cookies and your over-baked lasagna, your piles of dirty laundry and your sticky-faced children and he will make something beautiful out of your lives. Because that’s what he does.
He paints beauty out of your ugly. He creates order out of your chaos. He makes perfection out of your broken.
You can take all your mess and all your questions and all your exhaustion to him. Keep doing the good work that God has called you to do. He promises you that it will not be wasted.
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