Here are five things that hopefully will challenge and encourage you as a parent regarding prayer.
1. Prayer changes our family.
If we want to see our families get better, stronger, and healthier it comes from prayer.
We must pray for our children… our relationships… our weakness…
Prayer can and will help our families. Prayer gives God space in our lives and in our family. The simple act of submitting to him in prayer opens up our families to his holy work within us.
2. Prayer must be modeled.
Don’t pray alone.
Show your children what it means to be a person of prayer. If you show them, they will know how to pray. They will learn from you.
If you want to see prayer change your family, the more people that are praying the better off you will be.
Build up your family to pray with you.
In order to do that, you must show them how to pray. When you show, you don’t have to teach or preach every time. We learn by watching (then doing).
3. Prayer is always an option.
You can always pray. As parents, we deal with things so often. Early mornings… late at night… from waiting up on our kids to make it home… to dealing with screaming newborns…
Parents have to deal with problems 24/7.
When the banks, pharmacies, stores are closed, we can pray.
There is always time to pray, because God is always available and ready to listen. When you are in need as a parent, pray. Allowing God space in our families—any time of day—is always an option.
4. Pray in advance.
Don’t wait for the problem to come before you pray.
Get ahead and stock up when times are good. Like our finances, it is always a bad day when we have unexpected expenses. Yet, when we save up knowing some time will come down the road where we need the money, we find ourselves covered and at peace.
Pray now. Pray in advance, so that when the time comes when you need help, you will already be in a healthy place.
Invest now. Pray hard.
5. Pray for traits you want in your family.
I read in 8 Secrets to Raising Successful Kids the idea of praying for the traits you want in your kids. I have it listed in my amazon store here.
The author suggests that we can’t control behavior, but we can shape character and character traits that we want to instill into our children.
One of the most important ways we can do that is through prayer. We pray for our kids to be kind, wise, strong, caring, righteous, etc… (on a practical note, we need to model that as well. (“8 Secrets to Raising Successful Kids” talks more on that if you want to check it out. To be transparent, I did have some tension with parts of the book. Check my Goodreads review for more on that.)
If you need more peace in your family, then pray for more peace.
If you need hope, pray for hope…
Pray for the things you want your family to become.
This is a quick and short encouragement, but I hope it helps challenge and encourage you to pray for your family. We all need prayer.
Take 5 minutes today and pray for your family!
Leave a comment and share a story of your parents or family members who prayed for your family!
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