the right godly spouse. For them
to surround themselves with
Christ-like people but to have
a heart towards those different or struggling. We pray they
make wise decisions. We pray
that everything we taught them
helped them in this phase of life.
We pray for their salvation.
Like I mentioned, each of our
lives and our children’s go
through seasons. There are
many children raised in a Christian home who will walk away
from the Lord. I myself had my
own ‘lost years’ as a teen and
young adult. I urge you if you
are in this position or are ever in
this position as a parent to not
lose hope, to never ever stop
praying. God may be working in
their life in ways you cannot see,
but I know the situation may be
a complete mess in your eyes.
The enemy will try and convince
you that God has given up or left,
that you have failed and it’s a lost
cause. But please don’t forget
who the devil is. John 8:44 says
“You are of your father the devil,
and you want to do the desires
of your father He was a murderer
from the beginning, and does not
stand in the truth because there
is no truth in him Whenever he
speaks a lie, he speaks from his
own nature, for he is a liar and
the father of lies.”
Let me tell you from experience
that your prayers are crucial and
the only thing you can actually
positively do in the situation is to
cling onto God’s rope and bring it
all to him. God notices when we
stand firm against the lies of the
enemy and seek him instead. I
know watching your own child,
whom you have hopes and
dreams for, suffer especially
away from the Lord, is one of
the hardest things as a parent.
The reality is you cannot have a
relationship with Christ for your
child, as they are older they
need to get there on their own.
God is so good that he always
has a plan, he uses everything
for his good. So this is where
your prayers are crucial. There
are amazing books to help you
if you are struggling to go about
that. The power of a praying
parent by Stormie Omartarian is one that has helped me
immensely. What these books
can do is help you organize
your prayers into areas that
you need to be praying over. I
mentioned my own lost years
earlier. My grandmother prayer
vigorously for me and had
others in the prayer battlefield
for me for years. It is such a
blessing to say that I have such
a renewed and intimate relationship with my saviour now,
and he is using all those years
for good to help others and to
fulfill his purpose in this world. I
give entire credit for those praying for me over those years, I
can say with complete confidence that I would not be where
I am today or possibly even on
this earth if those prayers were
fervently being said. Prayer is
powerful, prayer works better
than any other earthly answer.
This is not to say nothing else
should or can be done but
prayer has to be the foundation
of the efforts.
detrimental than beneficial and
we need to know the difference.
There are times in our children’s lives where we need
to be hands on involved, and
others where we need to lay
it at the cross and trust God
to handle the situation. Sometimes our involvement is more
● Ask God to show you where
he needs you.
The big question then is how
do we decipher between the
two. First we need to look at our
hearts and our motives. When
we are praying, are we trying
to manipulate or are we trusting
God with the situation. If there is
a situation with our children that
needs to be dealt with from God
alone, it is very hard with parental instincts and unconditional
love for our children to take a
step back and let God work.
Mostly because God doesn’t
always work in the ways we
would choose because we can’t
see the big picture. I think this is
also why as parents God needs
us to step back, because we are
so close and emotionally tied to
the situation that we cannot see
it like he can. We cannot understand why it has to be that way.
We do not like to watch our children hurt, suffer or even be sad.
Sometimes our children especially as they get older and are
learning independence need
those trials, but our instinct as
a parent is to protect and shield
them from those feelings. Those
instinct may unfortunately be
standing in the way of God working in our children’s lives, hearts
and minds and as hard as it is,
we need to trust he knows better
than us. If you are in a situation
where you are questioning your
own role there are a few things
to try and help
God is amazing at showing clarity when we ask for it in the right
heart. The times I have gone to
him to as this guidance I have