Praying for Your Children is One of the Best Ways to Love Them

Never underestimate the challenges of parenting.

The journey of raising godly kids in an ungodly world is a relentless roller coaster of incredible heights and crushing depths. Joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, fun and frustration crash like waves on your heart through the events in the lives of your children. Fulfillment and fatigue, exhilaration and exhaustion are all primary parts of the process. Just when you think you have a handle on it, your child hits another stage of development and the path is again clouded with fog.

Remember that there are no perfect children, no perfect parents, and no perfect parenting situation. Also, there are no two parenting situations that are identical. Every parent, every child, every family, and every child-raising situation is unique. We all need all the help we can get.

Never underestimate the power of a praying parent. There is hope! There is a living God who is supremely intelligent and infinitely powerful who already knows and loves you and your children more and better than you ever will. If we will learn to cooperate with God in prayer for our children, He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we can even ask or imagine.

Pray for Your Children Prayer Makes a Difference

The Bible offers several examples of ordinary parents whose prayers produced extraordinary results in the lives of their children. Hannah prayed for a not-yet-conceived son. Her sincere, selfless, stubborn, sacrificial prayers resulted in the birth and life of the great prophet, Samuel (you can read their story in 1 Samuel 1-16).

A Canaanite mother found herself at wits end with her daughter. The poor girl was possessed by a demon. Nothing they tried helped. No one was able to bring relief. Yet that mother’s persistent, resilient, faith-filled prayers brought about a miracle in behalf of her daughter (see Matthew 15:22-28).

The daughter of a government official had died. The simple, direct, faith-filled request of a father touched the heart of God and brought the girl back to life (Matthew 9:18-28).

I have been privileged to know many godly pastors and missionaries. I am astounded at the number of godly men and women who, when asked for the secret of their spiritual success, point back to the persistent prayers of their parents. Praying for your children cannot help but make a powerful, positive difference in their lives.

Prayer is Powerful

When I look at the massive responsibility of trying to influence my children for God, I am stunned by my own insufficiency. I can’t do it. But I know someone who can - God. He can do more in seconds than I can accomplish in years. He can do it better, bigger, and more long lastingly, than I can even imagine.

So the question becomes, how can I somehow influence God to be more influential in the lives of my family? The answer, of course, is prayer.

Because prayer is active cooperation with God on behalf of your children, and because God is almighty, then prayer, in a sense, is omnipotent. Charles Spurgeon agreed. In speaking of prayer, he called it “the slender nerve that moves the muscles of omnipotence.”  R. A. Torrey also agreed and made this astounding observation:

Prayer is the key that unlocks all the storehouses of God’s infinite grace and power. All that God is and all that God does is at the disposal of prayer. But we must use the key. Prayer can do anything God can do, and as God can do anything, prayer is omnipotent. 

Hudson Taylor discovered, “It is possible to move men through God by prayer alone.”  I would add, it is also possible to move children through God by prayer alone.

In discussing the power of prayer, Jack Hayford observed:

You and I can help decide which of these two things - blessing or cursing - happens on earth. We determine whether God’s goodness is released toward a specific situation or whether the sower of sin and Satan is permitted to prevail. Prayer is the determining factor… If we don’t, He won’t. 

Prayer Goes With Your Children When You Can’t

God is omnipresent. Therefore, one of the amazing aspects of prayer is that, in a sense, it is also unlimited by space. Prayer invites God to work in our children’s lives even when we can’t be with them.

You can’t be with your children twenty-four hours a day, every day, the rest of your life, nor should you want to be. But God can and will, if you pray. You can’t go with all of your children to school, go with them to work, or go with them to college or when they get married. But God can and He will, as we pray. You can’t be in two or more places at once, but God can and He will, when we pray.

Praying for Your Children Is One of the Best Ways to Love Them

God gives us a burden, a holy concern for our children. We may not always accept their behavior, but we have a deep, genuine, almost inexplicable love for them.

One of the purest and most powerful ways for a parent to express and exercise such love is in intercessory prayer. “Love on its knees” is the definition and description Dick Eastman gives to intercessory prayer.  Such prayer seeks the best for our children before the throne of God and brings their needs to the One who has the answer.

Praying for Your Children Gives You Necessary Wisdom and Insight

Children have the incredible power to get themselves tangled in situations that seem impossible to unravel. Raising them often brings you to the place of total bamboozlement and befuddlement. There are no easy answers and simple solutions. What can a parent do? Pray for wisdom.

The great spiritual father and pastor, James, wrote to his spiritual children as they faced a variety of stiff trials and tribulations. Near the beginning of his letter, he gave them an amazing promise.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5).

Praying for wisdom is a request God likes to answer.

Solomon is considered the wisest man who ever lived. When he assumed the spiritual responsibility for the “children of Israel” his response was to pray for wisdom.

“Give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may lead this people, for who is able to govern this great people of yours?” (2 Chronicles 1:10).

The content of Solomon’s prayer should be a pattern for every spiritual father and mother.

Every parent, child, and situation is unique. Parenting is learned through on-the-job-training and often involves sailing into unchartered waters. How do we know what to do next? Who has the answers? God does. Often He reveals the insight we need only as we pray.

No One Else Can Pray for Your Children Like You Can

The genuine love you have for your children, the tenderness you feel for them, and your knowledge of their make-up, needs and problems, qualify you to plead with God on their behalf with an urgency and earnestness that will not be denied. Your love for your children fuels the power of your prayers on their behalf.

Also, it is comforting to realize that God is our heavenly Father and the heavenly Father of our children. When Jesus wanted to convince us of the Lord’s willingness to hear prayer, He based his argument on the power of parental love:

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13).

You Are Responsible for Praying for Your Children

It is your responsibility to pray for your children. Yes, it is great if a pastor, youth worker, Sunday school teacher, grandparent, uncle or aunt, or friend prays for your children. But the responsibility begins and ends with you. God tells parents, especially fathers, that they are the ones accountable for the spiritual development of their kids. Although it is not explicitly noted in these verses, praying for your children’s spiritual development is clearly implied.

Pray Scripture for Your Children

We want to encourage you to not merely pray for your children, but to incorporate God’s Word into your prayers. We have found greater confidence, power, insight and encouragement as we have learned to pray the Scriptures for our children.

Praying Scriptures Gives Divine Power to Your Prayers

When we pray for our children, our prayers need all of the power we can give them. No other book ever written has a fraction of the power of the Bible. Put another way, all of the books ever written put together cannot compare with the life-giving power of the Word of God. Therefore, it can only infuse our prayers with power when we pray the Bible for our children.