The Power of a Praying Family
One of the blog hops I participate in on a regular basis is my friend, Kate's, Women Helping Women. Her question today was, "Do you pray over your children?" This is something that I can say we have done on a fairly regular basis. There is always room for improvement, but prayer is something that we've taught and done as a family from the beginning.
One of the values of our denomination is that prayer is the primary work of God's people and yet, there are so many people who find prayer to be difficult.
Philippians 4:6-7 ~
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
It is only through praying that we will find peace in the middle of difficulties. Prayer is as simple as talking to a friend. I think the problem comes when we think it needs to be eloquent or flowery. The most powerful prayers I have ever heard were ones that came straight from the heart.
We want our children to view prayer as something that comes as naturally as breathing. Some of the things we do...
♥ Pray before every meal - not just Dan or I, but our children will take a turn to pray too.
♥ When they were younger, we always prayed with them before bedtime. Now it's just Emily and if we get busy, she'll come find us and ask us to pray with her.
♥ When faced with a struggle, we will often pray as a family. I have to be honest and say sometimes we forget this, but when things are overwhelming, we will at times just say, "Let's pray about this."
♥ We give praise to God for the good things. Because prayer should come as naturally as talking, we often do talk these things out loud as prayers. For example, if we receive an unexpected gift in the mail or some way we've seen God meet a need, we always let our kids know. We'll say, "Did you see how God met this need?" "Isn't it wonderful to trust Him?" or something along those lines. We want our children to recognize God's hand on their lives.
♥ If our children are having a particularly difficult task or event coming up, we'll stop what we are doing and pray for them.
♥ Dan & I pray together every night before we go to sleep.
♥ He and I pray together every Sunday morning before church. We'll pray for our service, for our people, and other things. Our children know we do this.
Praying is such a natural part of our lives because we've intentionally made it that way. We want our children to also know they can talk to the Lord about anything going on in their lives as well.
We want our kids to know there is power in a praying family.
One of the values of our denomination is that prayer is the primary work of God's people and yet, there are so many people who find prayer to be difficult.
Philippians 4:6-7 ~
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
It is only through praying that we will find peace in the middle of difficulties. Prayer is as simple as talking to a friend. I think the problem comes when we think it needs to be eloquent or flowery. The most powerful prayers I have ever heard were ones that came straight from the heart.
We want our children to view prayer as something that comes as naturally as breathing. Some of the things we do...
♥ Pray before every meal - not just Dan or I, but our children will take a turn to pray too.
♥ When they were younger, we always prayed with them before bedtime. Now it's just Emily and if we get busy, she'll come find us and ask us to pray with her.
♥ When faced with a struggle, we will often pray as a family. I have to be honest and say sometimes we forget this, but when things are overwhelming, we will at times just say, "Let's pray about this."
♥ We give praise to God for the good things. Because prayer should come as naturally as talking, we often do talk these things out loud as prayers. For example, if we receive an unexpected gift in the mail or some way we've seen God meet a need, we always let our kids know. We'll say, "Did you see how God met this need?" "Isn't it wonderful to trust Him?" or something along those lines. We want our children to recognize God's hand on their lives.
♥ If our children are having a particularly difficult task or event coming up, we'll stop what we are doing and pray for them.
♥ Dan & I pray together every night before we go to sleep.
♥ He and I pray together every Sunday morning before church. We'll pray for our service, for our people, and other things. Our children know we do this.
Praying is such a natural part of our lives because we've intentionally made it that way. We want our children to also know they can talk to the Lord about anything going on in their lives as well.
We want our kids to know there is power in a praying family.
Hi Terri! I am your neighbor at Women Helping Women.
ReplyDeleteYou are such a faithful praying person. How fortunate your children are to have you as an example! They will know prayer is a part of life, and so many people don't know or understand that.
You say that 'prayer is as simple as talking to a friend.' What beautiful advice. Prayer is our communication with God, and how he loves that.
I was also impressed by the way you would make it a point to show your children how God was working in your lives. I really liked that! Children need concrete examples to help with understanding.
So nice to meet you today :)
Ceil
Thank you for the encouragement, Ceil. I find it helps me to talk "out loud" about what God has done for us because it's a really good reminder when I feel like whining! lol
DeleteIt's nice to meet you too and thank you for stopping by. :-)