Credit: The Parent Cue
As parents, how would you describe your average prayers for your children? Safety and security? Health and well-being? When I was growing up, I remember hearing my own mother praying for these things for myself and my sister. But what about passion? What about purpose? When you lift up your kids in prayer, are you doing so with the hopes that they will not only seek out Jesus, but that they will seek to fulfill God’s purpose for their lives? Are you praying that they will find a piece of God’s Kingdom that they can be passionate about?
Often, it can be difficult to look beyond the here and now. We see what’s immediately in front of us and that’s what we pray about. We see our friends’ and family’s pressing needs and present those things to God. But God looks at us through the scope of eternity. The things that can seem so important to us in the moment, are important to God as well, but what’s on God’s A-List? Those are the prayers that seek to influence the big picture: that God receives glory through the lives of our kids, that God shows Himself through their life decisions, that God provides them with ways to powerfully affect His Kingdom for eternity.
What if God’s purpose for your children leads them down a road you never planned on for them? What if it means they won’t have a solid 401k? What if it means they don’t get married and start a family around the same age you did? What if it means that following His will involves packing up and moving to the other side of the world? Are you ready to accept that if it happens? Moreover, are you ready to pray for that very thing to happen in your child’s life?
Over at The Parent Cue, Sarah Anderson shares her story of facing this very conundrum. While participating in the celebration of one young woman’s commitment to a future in missions, she asks a mother how she’s feeling about seeing her daughter move so far away. The answer she receives surprises her and even awakens her to the reality of just how important her prayers for her own children really are.
Though our humanity protests, though our emotions resist, what we must know is that though our children are forever bound to us, they are never really ours.
I encourage you to read Sarah’s story and to take her words to heart. Pray for not only your children’s health and protection in this world, but for their passion and purpose as they seek to be used by God to change this world.
- Recommended Link: A-List Prayers