Be Prayerful Parents

“Pray for your children. Wrestle with God for them day and night”.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Some will understand this quote with ease from their own times of wrestling with God for their children. Others may not quite get it, but give it time. As the years fly by, you will grow to understand.

To wrestle with God doesn’t mean physical wrestling, their is no anger or malice involved. To wrestle with God is directly tied to the first word of the quote, Pray.

Unfortunately not everyone prays for their children, but for those of us that do, we do it with persistence(I pray you do). Although we are in constant prayer for our children, sometimes we see no answer. This is where wrestling with God comes in.

For this instance, wrestle means to struggle in prayer and persevere, even when you dont see your prayers answered. It also means to seek clarity concerning the situation that you keep bringing before Him. Constantly approaching God in prayer, without ceasing.

Some parents do a great deal of prayer and wrestling with God. In my late teenage years I caused my parents much grief and pain. Hurt, fear, and sorrow was probably a common feeling for the both of them for many years, but they persisted in prayer. For years they wrestled with God for me. For a long time they only watched the situation get worse, but they prayed and continued to wrestle.

I do this now as a parent. Not for the same reasons my parents had to do it. My child has a good head on her shoulders, very smart and has a great deal of drive. This doesn’t mean I pray less though. I am always finding myself through the day and night in prayer for her, wrestling with God and waiting for answers. I may never get them, but I persist.

Psalms 127:3 reads “Children are a gift from the LORD, offspring a reward from him.” In Joseph Benson’s commentary he writes “They (children) come not from the power of mere nature, but from God’s blessing, even as an inheritance is not the fruit of a man’s own labour, but the gift of God.”

All gifts are blessings that flow through Divine Providence. And as for God granting me the gift of fatherhood, I see it as the very moment He began to call me. It was a special moment knowing I would soon be a father, but I can look back on that day now and see a greater working. I was given a gift that would change the course of my life. I would regret any moment I failed to pray for this child the Lord has given me.

We spend what seems like only a few years raising our children and then they are off to adulthood in this huge world. Knowing the evil that exists we should continue to pray, and I would say pray even more as they grow into this new stage of life.

Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.” We have hope in this, that God will direct our paths as christian parents, and guide us in the teaching of our children, and He will guide them in the remembrance of what His instructions for life is. We pray that He will bind up His word in their heart so they will not depart from it.

As with all humans, our children will face failures, obstacles, temptations, secular worldviews and worldly, sinful people who will look to destroy any Godly instruction and training we have given them. And as we all know, those things that try to destroy, work harder as we get older.

Our children do not stop being our children when they become adults. Our prayers should go with them daily, wherever they may be in life and wherever they may be in relation to God. We do them a great disservice by slacking up on prayer because they seem to be doing well. And it is with great disobedience to the Lord as well. Never think they are well enough in life to ease up on praying and wrestling with God for them. The world will never give up its attempts to win them over.

Dear Lord let us not find rest without prayers for the children you gifted us. Let our hearts always feel a burden to petition you with prayer for our sons and daughters. Even when the answers do not come, help us remain in constant prayer, remembering your promises, and trusting in the fact that your will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I ask specifically that you guard my child from the evils of this world, and that your word which was taught to her as a child always be a light that will shine and strengthen her in her darkest days. Amen