Monday 1 April 2013

30 Days of Praying for our Children

My friend Marcy from Ben and Me has been sharing about the book Lead Your Family Like Jesus and has invited us to join her for the month of April in seriously praying for our children every day. Prayer is not something I find easy to do while in the trenches of parenting and school and home duties. I prayed through Stormie's book The Power of a Praying Parent years ago and was amazed (yes I know I shouldn't be . . .) at the changes I saw in them and more importantly the changes in in me and my attitude over that dedicated month.

Marcy shared a quote by Tricia Goyer from the book which really spoke to me this morning.
Prayer is an essential act of will that demonstrates whether we're really serious about living and leading our families like Jesus. Without it we'll never be able to connect our plans and efforts with God's plan for His kingdom, or engage the spiritual resources Jesus promised in the work of the Holy Spirit.

Marcy shared a how Tricia broke down prayer into four main areas in our children's lives: head, shoulders, knees and toes.

Heads: Psalm 3:3
But you, O Lord, are a shield around me;
you are my glory, the one who holds my head high.

Shoulders Psalm 55:22
Cast your burden on the Lord [releasing the weight of it] and He will sustain you;
He will never allow the [consistently] righteous to be moved (made to slip, fall, or fail).

Knees James 4: 8-10
Come close to God, and God will come close to you.
Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts,
for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.
Let there be tears for what you have done.
Let there be sorrow and deep grief.
Let there be sadness instead of laughter,
and gloom instead of joy.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.

Toes Hebrews 3:12-14
Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters.
Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving,
turning you away from the living God.
You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,”
so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.
For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed,
we will share in all that belongs to Christ.

If you are committing to pray for your children for the next 30 days, leave a comment below so we can pray for one another on this journey of praying for our children.

Blessings
Chareen


Graphics from Ben and Me Facebook Photo Stream

3 comments:

  1. Chareen, This is such a wonderful idea! How do the prayers work? Do you meditate on these four prayers every day or do you say informal prayers? Or are there different prayers for every day? I'd love to pray this with you.

    God bless:-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Vicky
      Good questions I will email Marcy and see what she says :)

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    2. Marcy shared some ideas over here 30 Days of Prayer for Our Kids begins today! when I emailed her this was her response:

      "there are no real rules -- I just wanted to get folks praying for their kids and the head, shoulders, knees, toes model is easy to use.

      I did write out some sample prayers using the Scripture references. Did you see that post? There's even a downloadable PDF "

      Delete

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