Family Friday: Praying for your Children

1 Thessalonians 3:10 Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith?  I cannot imagine a verse of scripture or any statement that could better encapsulate the desire that we as parents have for our children, and the fervency with which we should bombard the ears of God in prayer for them. As Christian parents, we not only want to have our children with us, where we are guaranteed to witness every milestone and accomplishment they achieve; we also want them to develop into strong Christians as they grow up.  While we would all love for our children to have a perfect life, free of tragedy and difficulty of any kind, we also know that those are often the seasons of life that will best "perfect their faith" and improve their desire for and dependence on Christ.  I believe it evident that the key resource that we have to ensure that we are able to love, guide, instruct, and lead our children adequately is PRAYER!

Interceding on behalf of your sons and daughters.

As a parent one of the most loving things we can do is pray for our children.

• Go to God with your spouse and child. Let your child hear you pray for them.
• Thank God for the gift of your child, and for entrusting them to you.
• Confess your own faults “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”
• Ask God to reveal any area in your life that has not been given to Him
• Ask God to cleanse you of the iniquity by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• Pray that God would cut off the cycle of sin in your family. Claim the truth of Psalm 103:17, that from now on righteousness would be the heritage of your children: “But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children;"
• Dedicate your child to God.
• Speak your desire to raise this child for the Lord. Pray that your child will come to saving knowledge of Christ at a young age.
•  Pray that his life will bring glory to God.
• Ask God to give wisdom is raising this child for Him.
• Pray for them to save themselves for their future spouse
• Pray for that future spouse to save themselves also.
• Ask the Lord to reveal to you when your child has done wrong, so it can be addressed and corrected.
• Pray for wisdom and discernment in correction and discipline
• Pray for wisdom in training up your child.  Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."