Skip to main content

Families' Fridays


Four Daily Prayers for Your Children

Article by 
Chad Ashby
Pastor, Newberry, South Carolina


Our kids never seem to be at a loss for words. Even with tiny vocabularies, it is astounding how well they are able to fill any silence with a thousand little syllables. We parents are a different story. In homes full of questions and needs, it can be hard for our fried brains to put together even broken phrases. Sometimes I find myself stuttering as I try to talk to my kids — like I need a hard reset.
Especially with small kids, prayers can be difficult to lace together. We have a thousand requests for our children: that they would be saved, that they would learn obedience, that they would finally learn to eat broccoli, that they would quit hitting other kids in their class, and on and on. Where do we start?
I believe one of the ways the Spirit graciously intercedes for us as parents is by giving us prayers to pray from the Scriptures (Romans 8:26).
As I struggled recently to express my heart’s desire for my kids, one succinct little sentence from Luke’s Gospel kept coming out of my mouth: “Like you, Jesus, may my kids increase ‘in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man’” (Luke 2:52). Consider with me this Spirit-inspired verse, a perfect, four-part summary of our prayers for our kids to become like Christ in every way. Let’s examine each of these in turn.

1. Increase in Wisdom

Our children are little sponges. My son knows the names of every dinosaur that ever walked the face of planet earth. However, our prayer for our kids is not merely that they would grow in knowledge but in wisdom. Wisdom is a disposition toward God and a way of walking life’s path. In Proverbs, Solomon explains: “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil” (Proverbs 3:6–7).
Read the rest HERE

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Ready for Friday

Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him, and say, "Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You have become what you were not so that I might become what I was not." --Martin Luther
Post a Comment
Read more

Families' Fridays

From Focus on the Family 10 helpful tips for single parents Imagine this: you’re the sole parent for your children. You get them up, get them fed and send them to school. You do the housework, maybe you go to work yourself, you get home and you’re still the only adult there. There’s no one to relieve you. No one to pass the baton to while you take a shower or take a few minutes for yourself. You make dinner and gather the family around the table to eat. You play with them, read to them, give them baths, get them to bed and there’s no one there to sit with and process your day. There’s no one there to laugh with you or pray with you. Instead you keep working. You clean up the house again. You pack lunches for the next day. And you eventually crash into bed, knowing you’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow. For many, this is not an imagined scenario. When you parent alone – whether due to divorce, the loss of your spouse or having a spouse who works away from home for long periods of...
Post a Comment
Read more

Oops!

I can be a real klutz.  I have very few manual skills and I never grew out of the "tripping over my own feet" stage of life.  I have fumbled and dropped more than my fair share of balls. In other words, "oops" has been a regular part of my vocabulary. It is not only in the physical world that I have fumbled things.  I have messed up relationships.  I have prejudged people before ever getting to know them.  I have used and abused those who love me most in this world.  I have failed and sinned my way into more than one tight corner and created untold disasters.  Oops is not even sufficient for the ways that I have blown it. Perhaps that is why something Paul, our worship leader last Sunday, said resonated so deeply with me this week.  He said "Oops is never said in heaven."  Our God never is clumsy.  He never makes mistakes. His plans never go belly-up.  He never fails.  He never ever has to say oops - and that comforts me.
Post a Comment
Read more