I’m not sure how the Lord is leading you to pray for your children. But here’s what happens.
Sometimes these prayers feel like a boomerang. And a boomerang, you throw it. And it gets further and further and further away. And sometimes we pray for these things. And it’s almost like they get all the way out of sight, out of sight, out of mind.
And we wonder if God will ever answer that prayer. Would you keep praying that prayer? Because in so many instances, I have seen an answer from God boomerang back in from an angle that I wasn’t even expecting.
Would you keep praying those bold prayers for your children, and I’m believing that God is going to boomerang some of those answers back into their lives.
Now, let me share one last thing. I think we overcomplicate parenting. So let me make it simple. I feel like my responsibility is to make sure that my kids learn to hear the voice of God, learn to discern God’s voice. Why? So that when they can’t hear my voice, they can hear his voice.
It’s about shaping their conscience in a way that it’s not about mom and dad keeping an eye on them. It’s about them being dialed into those promptings of the Holy Spirit. But here’s where I believe it starts. I believe God has called us to bless our children—now I wrote a book a couple of years ago, “Double Blessing.”
And in that book, just a friendly reminder, before Original Sin, there was original blessing. Blessing is God’s most ancient instinct. God wants to bless you beyond your ability to ask or imagine—that is the heart of God, towards you.
And so just as the Heavenly Father has blessed us, it’s our responsibility as parents not to withhold, but to give that blessing to our children. And it takes lots of forms and fashions.
And listen, some of it is playful. When Summer was a little girl, I used to say to her all the time, if all the little girls in the world were lined up, and I can only choose one of them to be my daughter, I wouldn’t choose you.
And then I would give her a big smile. She would smile back, and it was playful. But guess what? It’s true. And it was me pronouncing blessing on her life.
[embedded content]But I want to take it one step further. The most powerful prayers that we can pray are biblical prayers. And so it was many years ago that I took Luke 2:52 “make you grow in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with man.”
And I started praying that prayer over my children. I prayed it 1000s of times.
I’ll just share the most recent—my son Josiah just went off to college. And as we were taking him to the airport, I started praying that blessing, and it was a moment because sometimes you wonder if your kids hear you. Doesn’t really register—does it get from here to here?
And I started praying for him. May you grow in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with man. I looked in that rear view mirror. I saw the smile on his face, and I could tell how much that blessing meant to him.
Parenting. It’s hard. It’s taxing. I know sometimes at the end of the day, you feel like calling it quits or you’re so tuckered out you just want to tuck your kids in instead of reading that bedtime story.
Those are holy moments where you can pronounce blessings on your children.
Looking for other resources on prayer?
Summer traditions: Teaching our children to pray for the world
How to Pray for Your Unborn Child
How to Pray When You’re Feeling Depressed
