Tip Thursday: Praying for Your Children

As parents we worry about our kids. We wonder if they are eating enough…or too much. We worry if they are measuring up to the growth charts at the doctor’s office. We worry if they are on schedule developmentally. We talk to our friends, our parents, anyone who might reassure us that our kids are “normal.” However, we often neglect to really pray for our kids until they are in trouble.

How often we hear people whose kids are in trouble say “the only thing we can do is pray.” In reality, the BEST thing we can do is pray…and it should be the first thing we do! We forget that God loves our kids even more than we do!

Check out this quote by Dennis and Barbara Rainey in The Power Of Praying for Your Children: "The sobering news about raising children is that we really have no ultimate control over whether our child will choose the narrow gate that leads to life (Matthew 7:14) or the wide gate that leads to destruction. If other experiences in life have not humbled us and shown us how dependent we are on God, then parenting a preadolescent or teenager will.

Understanding our desperate need to depend on God is the good news. Once we give up the naive idea that we parents can dictate the choices our children will make and the spiritual gate they will walk through—narrow or broad—then we are ready to slip on the knee pads and get serious about prayer."

Here are some resources to help you pray for your children:

40 Ways to Pray for Your Children

Praying for Keeps

31 Biblical Virtues to pray for your kids
Scriptural Blessings to Pray for Your Children