Janice Thompson - Power Prayers: Praying for Your Kids

2015 by Barbour Publishing, Inc.

Print ISBN 978-1-63058-717-8

eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-63409-245-6
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-63409-246-3

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Contemporary stories used in this book are real, though names have been changed to protect privacy.

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For my eight grandchildren: Maddy, Ethan, Peyton, Brooke, Jenna, Avery, Boston, and Harper. Nina loves you very much and dedicates this book to you.

Special thanks to Janet Kilchine, Mary LeJune, and Karen Bailey, who offered to read the book from cover to cover before I turned it in. Thanks for your help, ladies!

Covering Your Children in Prayer

W hat a wonderful privilege, to pray for our children. They are entrusted to us for such a short time. When we recognize this, we take our prayer time very seriously. Not that we only pray about the serious things, of course. If youre a parent, youve probably spent hours praying for MIA homework assignments, lost toys, missing shoes, and scraped knees. Likely youve also prayed for pet frogs, sick hamsters, and invisible friends.

Our prayers for our children dont have to be complex or time consuming. (Not many parents have extra time on their hands, after all.) A steady stream of heartfelt words to our heavenly Father about those precious, precocious kiddos is essential, even if theyre spoken in the shower or while driving home from work.

Why are our prayers for our children so essential? Perhaps we should think of them as an umbrella. They provide a covering for our kids, a protection. We wouldnt send our children out into a rainstorm without an umbrella or raincoat. Neither should we send them out into this world without protection. They need it during the formative years, and they need it when theyre grown. Our prayers for our children never stop, no matter their age. Many of us, whose parents are still alive, know this to be true. Theyre praying for us right now!

How should we pray, specifically? There are so many areas where we need to dig in our heels and cover our children. This book will serve as a guide, giving you prayer prompts for issues like faith, trust, purity, wisdom, dreams and goals, and many more. You will be encouraged to pray for your childs work ethic, diligence, generosity, and even his future spouse (though most parents arent ready to think about that one just yet).

Whether you have five minutes to pray or an hour, you can pray powerfully.

How to use this book:

Power Prayers: Praying for your Kids will help you pray more effectively for your children. Each chapter contains a brief overview of an important prayer focus to help shape their young lives. The balance of each chapter includes starter prayers you can use in your own prayer time. The prayers are divided by topic (twenty-one total) and each topic has fourteen different prayer starters. Because were praying for both boys and girls, the prayers go back and forth from he to she, so that everyone will feel included. If youre the parent of a son, feel free to change the pronouns to he. If youre the parent of a daughter, the hes can become shes. In other words, this is your book to use as you see fit. Your prayers have the power to change your childs life! May this book find a permanent place in your home as you raise your child to love the Lord.

Are you ready to embark on a journey of praying powerfully? Lets get started!

This is the confidence we have in approaching God:
that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
J OHN 5:14 NIV

G ods kids are called to walk in purity, to set an example for their peers. This has always been tough, but never more so than now. Todays children are confronted at every turn with images they shouldnt see, songs they shouldnt hear, and news stories that threaten to weaken their defenses. Television shows, movies, music lyrics, and even TV commercials blast one impurity after another, and its hard to defend against them. Thats why its more important than ever to pray for your childs purity during their formative years. They need your spiritual covering in order to remain pure.

Perhaps youve settled on the idea that its just sexual purity God is looking for. Truth is, He longs for us to be pure in our thoughts, our attitudes, our relationships, and our actions. This extends far beyond what we usually think. Our childs purity isnt just about how she dresses. Its not about keeping her away from the opposite sex. Its about the things she sees, the things she says, the songs shes listening to on the radio, and the attitudes she exhibits. Purity is truly a heart issue, not just an external issue. Because most people dont see it this way, the issue is rarely addressed comprehensively.