Praying for Your Family - 7. Wednesday

Wouldn't it be awesome to know that your family loved Christ and followed Him so well, they had some impact on changing the world? It will not happen if we don't pray for it and actively teach our kids by example.  World changing sounds very large scale, and when I think of large scale happenings, I usually think "That is going to take a really smart person to figure out how to do that."  Gaining wisdom naturally would lead into helping our family change the world.  The Bible has a lot to say about the value of wisdom and asking God for it.  

Wednesday- World Changers/Wisdom: 

Dear God, 

Please help my children change the world by living for you in a big way. Help them to always remember that you said to 'Love God and Love Others' as our top priorities. I know if they embrace that with humility and follow you with their entire lives, then they will change the world around them. Help me to model a People>Projects attitude, and show loving kindness when I'd rather lash out so that I can teach them only servant hearts can change hardened hearts. Guide my husband to seek you first in all things, because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Help him to seek you for answers and pray about decisions instead of making them in haste. Give him the wisdom to know what to preach about, which scripture, for exactly the right time people need to hear it. Help him to bring world change one sermon at a time. Please give me the wisdom to know what to do and say at the right times to be a good helpmate and mother, and when to silly be still and listen so they can hear your wisdom louder than mine. Show me and my husband how to demonstrate your wisdom that is pure, peace loving, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering and not hypocritical.  Help us to be wise by seeking you first in all that we do. Let your will be done through us. Help us to change the world around us by making wise choices to further your kingdom, not our own.  Help my children grow to be wise, making Godly decisions. In Jesus' Name, 

Amen. 

This is the seventh post in a series on Praying for Your Family: a 31 Day Challenge.  You can go to the main 'landing page' for a list of all the days by clicking here:

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Praying for Your Family - 6. Tuesday

Culture, media, general society, and the world have fed us all lies that we sometimes (often) believe.  These lies are especially difficult to fight when life is tough.  We must cling to the truth of the Word of God the most when we are faced with trials of any kind.  Truth and trials seem to go together for that reason to me.

Tuesday- Truth/Trials:

Father God, 

In a world of relevant truth, I beg you to help my children always know that You are Truth. Your word gives us absolute truth. Help them to know you and your word so well that they can identify the lies of the enemy, the lies the world would have them believe. Help them to not just know with a head knowledge, but to believe with a heart knowledge your truth that will always set them free. Help them to hunger for your Word so they can build a foundation of truth-seeking from an early age. Help them to be honest little people, and value telling the truth even when it is costly. Help my husband to hear and understand your truth in order to effectively share it with others. Help him to identify the devil's lies he has believed and to replace those lies with your truth.  Be with my husband and kids as they experience the trials of this life.  Lord, I pray they always know you are carrying them through. As they deal with trials, please remind them to put all of their hope and trust in you, because you are the only one who never fails.  In their trials, remind them that you are the God of angel armies, and you go with them and before them, and nothing can stand against You.  Show me how to cultivate a house that speaks the truth in love and goes straight to prayer and praise in my trials instead of fear, yelling, and anger. Help me to truthfully repent to my family when I am wrong and to point my eyes, my heart back to you in all of my trials. In Jesus' Name, 

Amen. 

This is the sixth post in a series on Praying for Your Family: a 31 Day Challenge.  You can go to the main 'landing page' for a list of all the days by clicking here:

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Praying for Your Family - 5. Monday

I know most people don't feel this way. 

 Maybe Mondays don't have to be so bad if we focus on praying our way through them a little more! 

Even if you feel like this.

Better outlook!

Best outlook!

Wouldn't it be nice if we could help our children choose their spouse? Here's the good news - we CAN through prayer! I cannot wait to tell my future daughter and sons in laws "I have been praying for you for years." I think it is just as important to pray for our children to be good spouses as it is to pray for their future spouses. 

This is not verbatim what I pray, it always changes, because prayer is just a conversation with God. This is the talking, so don't forget to listen! After you pray, take a few deep breaths and open your heart to receive a word from the Lord, usually some scripture will come to mind for me.

Monday: Mates/Ministry - 

God, 

I don't know if my son's wife or my daughter's husband is born yet, so please be with their parents. Draw their future in-laws to your love, to seek you and your ways, to raise their children to love you. Lord, help Jonah's wife to love his silly side and make Karis' husband be her soft place to land.  Prepare Jonah's wife to enjoy his sense of humor and be quick to laugh at his humor.  Prepare Karis' husband to give lots of affection, because she thrives on it. Help their future spouses to grow healthy and strong in mind, body, and spirit. Show me how to set a good example of the wife Karis needs to be and the wife Jonah needs to look for.  Help John to show Jonah the best way to treat his wife.  Help John and Jonah be men who love their wives well. Help me to be the mate my husband needs me to be. Help me to submit under Godly leading and teach Karis how to respect her husband.  Help me and my girls to be wives who honor and respect our husbands.  Help us to remember to show affection and love in front of our children so they can always feel secure in our marriage.  Lord, please let us teach and model that marriage is for life, and forgiveness is the way to start over every day.  Show my husband how to make his ministry glorify you. Let his ministry be only what you lead and inspire. Lead him to the people who need to see your love through us. Guide him in making decisions and meeting people. Thank you for leading us to where we are now.  Help us to make ministry always about you, sharing the gospel, and making disciples.  Show me how to be a wife who helps her husband's ministry in every way. Help my children to know how you want to use them in whatever future capacity they are called to ministry. In Jesus' Name, 

Amen.

This is the fifth post in a series on Praying for Your Family: a 31 Day Challenge.  You can go to the main 'landing page' for a list of all the days by clicking here:

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Praying for Your Family - 4. Sunday

I love the Tim Hawkins skit where he says, "Whoever wrote the song 'Easy Like a Sunday Morning,' never tried to get a family ready for church and out the door." Amen to that, right!? Sunday mornings are ROUGH for a lot of people I know, especially those with small children, or in ministry positions.  I think it's obvious that the enemy does not want people to go to church, and so he tries to make getting there all the more difficult.  Raising your children to know and believe the gospel? Shoot - you're really in a battle! However, if you can just set your alarm about 15 minutes earlier, lay out clothes the night before, and wake up and PRAY FIRST - it will go better.  I am not promising it will go 100% better, but your inner peace level will be way more attune to the Holy Spirit's calming voice when you need it the most.  Sundays are a day to focus our own hearts on receiving the gospel, as well as salvation for others.

 My husband is a pastor, so my Sunday prayer may look a little different than yours.  You can also pray for your spouse to have an open and listening heart, a willing and teachable spirit, and a true encounter with the Holy Spirit during the music and the message, if Sunday is the day you attend church/worship. If your spouse has not experienced salvation, obviously you want to be praying for God to soften their heart and give them eyes to see his truth and hear His voice, and a willingness to surrender and submit his or her life to Christ.  This week's She Reads Truth post about the spiritual armor was insightful, if you'd like to check out another resource!

Here are a few diagrams to help with remembering spiritual armor:

Here's my personal prayer example:

Sunday- Salvation & Spiritual Armor:

Lord, 

Please help my husband to rest in His salvation. Help him to feel your grace and mercy and know that his eternal future is secure. Help him to 'work it out with fear and trembling.' Help him to bring others to a saving knowledge of you today and every day, especially our children. As he preaches, use his words through the power of the Holy Spirit to convict hearts and minds that they need salvation. Jesus, please help us to point our kids to a relationship with you at an early age. God, I want them to know you and understand that as much as I love them, you love them more.  I am their mommy, but my greatest desire is to hear them call you Father, and know that your parenting is far better than ours. Lord, please help my husband and kids to put on your helmet of salvation. Give them the heart that desires your breastplate of righteousness and to choose what is right. Tie on the belt of truth to my kids. Help my husband to share words of truth and hope to all those listening to him today. Help them to have your peace deep down, no matter the circumstances, and be ready to share it with others by giving away the gospel. God please help them remember to hold up a shield of faith to deflect the enemy's arrows.  Give them a strong faith to withstand doubt and trials. Help my children to desire to hear more of your truth from your Word, and let my husband uphold it like the sword you say it is, to fight the enemy.  Help my husband and kids to use your word to fight - to memorize and store up Scripture in their hearts so that when temptation comes, they are ready to fight. Help me to model these traits for my family and continually use scripture in our home to point us all back to you, to fight the battles we face. In Jesus' Name, 

Amen.

If you struggle to remember the whole armor of God - it's OK to focus on praying for salvation, or just praying for the parts you do remember.  Several of the individual 'spiritual armor' aspects will be repeated during the course of this month for easier memory. ;)

This is the fourth post in a series on Praying for Your Family: a 31 Day Challenge.  You can go to the main 'landing page' for a list of all the days by clicking here:

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Praying for Your Family - 3. Week at a Glance

When you think about "This week...I need to..."
Try to insert in that dialogue to yourself: "This Week I will Wage War on the enemy."

 If you are a meal planner, or teacher, or anything where you have to make or turn in something "Weekly" that is the perfect time to pray about Waging War on the enemy. The enemy is already defeated - he's just trying to cause as much trouble as he can before Jesus takes him out for good.  When we join with God and say "I'm on your side, Lord, let's fight this battle!" I truly believe there are bigger results than we can see.  The movie "War Room" is a great example of this concept, although slightly more idealistic/cliche than real life.

The Bible clearly tells us that our battle is with the enemy, and why.

This Week: Wage War on the Enemy

Heavenly Father,
Help my family and I to wage war on the enemy by choosing Christ.  Help my kids to choose to love instead of hate.  Help my husband to choose faith over fear.  Help us to choose holiness instead of sin.  Help us to fight on your side, against satan and the powers of darkness.  Help us this week to wage war on the thief of our hearts by turning to you more than we turn anywhere else.  Help us to honor you by remembering we are not fighting each other, but fighting the one who seeks to destroy our family.  Give us your words to say and think at just the moment when the devil would rather have us believe his lies.  Use these prayers to demolish strongholds.  Help my family to turn to you in prayer before we turn against each other.  In the powerful name of Jesus, 
Amen. 

The chart below is my favorite/most used way to pray specifically for my family.  I posted this on Instagram several months ago, and since then, I have really seen a huge difference in my family life when I stick with this plan as opposed to days/weeks I neglect specific prayer.  This has SERIOUSLY impacted my prayer life for my family as well as others.  Once you write this down once or twice and stick it in a high traffic place in your home or office, it becomes so easy to memorize and pray specifically even on your most tired and forgetful days!
* I think it would be appropriate to replace the title I have on the diagram below with "This Week - Wage War on the Enemy by Praying for My Family"

(Direct quote from my instagram post: I got this idea from @elizabethbricknell on Instagram back in December, and I modified it a little to fit my family. By the grace of God, it has blown the roof off my prayer life for my husband and kids. I felt redundant saying things like "God please keep my kids healthy, let them know you at an early age, keep them safe from evil, help me love them better. Help my husband with his health and his job...." Not that those are bad, I just felt like I needed to be more purposeful and specific. I have this on my fridge and my phone and I really do focus on these things several times a day. While they apply both to my husband and kids, it may sound very different.  I'm not saying this is perfect, or all encompassing.  I am saying that this has helped me immensely in the last few months to pray for my family, and I can't keep it to myself anymore!)

Each day this week I will be exploring and giving an example for the above listed days/prayers.  I hope you continue to join us and pray for your family!  If having two key words for each day feels overwhelming - pick one! You could pick one key word per day (Monday - Mates, Tuesday - Truth, etc) to post at home and the other to post at work or in your car if that helps.  Today, wrap your mind around whether you'd like to pray for one or two items per day, and then MAKE A CHART like the above one.  Mine is written on construction paper and taped to the side of the fridge.  It does not need to be fancy!  The practice of writing it down will help to commit it to memory, and then having it visible to see often will make you read/remember to pray more. 


This is the third post in a series on Praying for Your Family: a 31 Day Challenge.  You can go to the main 'landing page' for a list of all the days by clicking here:

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Praying for Your Family - 2. By Yourself

Praying is amazing because you can reach out and speak to the Creator of the Universe - any time or place!

The prayers I will be submitting to you here can be done on-the-go or during a quiet time, or as you watch your child in any situation, or as you glance at a family picture on your desk while at work, or when you are tucking your kids in to bed at night, or while you are making dinner.  I hope you are getting the point - that you can pray anytime or anywhere.  I am not the best at always strictly adhering to a quiet time for myself when we are in transition modes (moving, vacations, weekends...etc), so I am not going to tell you that the only or even best time to pray is during a specific, set aside 'quiet time.'

IF you have one of those regular times, and you are so faithful to meet with the Lord there - I am SUPER proud of you.  Not even kidding.  I am also a little jealous, but mostly happy for you.  Feel free to plug these prayers in to that time if you like.  I seem to go a few months on with a regular quiet time then struggle for a week or two to get in the groove, and then back on for a few months.  Declaring a time and place like a true appointment seems to help!

However, I am going to specifically tell you that any time you are ALONE - I highly suggest you pray Aloud.  As in, talk the words out loud to God, not just think them in your head.  There is something so powerful about choosing to speak to God with the voice He gave you.  It also helps to keep your focus on the prayer - the conversation with the Lord that you are having.  Just try it!  It does take a small measure of boldness though, because you are effectively claiming in faith that you believe God hears you and you are not talking to the walls or yourself, and so just by praying out loud, you are standing more firmly on your faith.

That leads us into your first prayer. I am trying to make these alliterative to help with memory.  It helps me, anyways.  If you find it unhelpful and corny, well then, that's just too bad for you.

When you are By Yourself pray for Boldness.

As you pray for your family, it is good to remember that you are part of that family. You count, too!

You may be constantly surrounded people, whether your family, kids because they are little or you are one of those amazing home school parents, or because you work in an environment surrounded by people, it's OK! At some point, even if just once every few days, you are sure to be alone in the car maybe, or out for a walk.  Side note: If you are a mama who does not get to be alone at least once every few days, you need to try to make that happen for your own mental/emotional health.  If my kids didn't take naps, I wouldn't get much.  Nap-time totally counts as alone time, as long they are in another room.  Actually leaving the house and being in the car and going somewhere in public alone feels like a dream, and happens less than once a week for me in this season of little kids.  That alone time in the car is great for private prayer and praise!

Here is an example of praying for Boldness when you are By Yourself (remember to attempt this/something like this out loud):

Lord,
Please help my family to be bold for you when the time is right.  Help me to boldly proclaim the gospel to my kids as often as possible.  Help my kids to boldly share the gospel at school, with their friends and peers.  Help my spouse to be bold for you in his/her workplace.  Help us to be bold as a family that stands up for your holiness, your Word, in a world that is more often seeking to degrade and dehumanize Christians and what our faith means.  Give us the wisdom to know the difference of how to be bold for you without sounding arrogant, cocky, or unloving.  Help us to be bold in the face of persecution.  God, if ever a time should come when we must boldly choose you or choose losing our careers, our home, even our lives, give me, give my spouse, give my children the boldness to always choose you, in a loving way that spreads the gospel more than it mocks your name.  Give us boldness in order to bring glory to your great name.  Help my husband and children turn to you boldly in prayer, before freaking out about anything in our lives.  Hep us to remember that you tell us to boldly come to you.  We can approach your throne and ask for our needs and petition for others with confidence.  Help us to be bold for you and be bold in prayer to you.  In Jesus Name I pray, 
Amen. 

This is the second post in the series on Praying for Your Family: 31 Day Challenge. You can go to the main 'landing page' for a list of all the days by clicking here:

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Praying for Your Family - 1. Why?

Welcome!

Why should you pray for your family?

If you believe in the power of prayer, that God truly does act and intervene in our lives based upon our prayers, then why would you not want to pray for those you love the most?  If the God who created your spouse and your kids could possibly improve their lives more based upon the way you call out and ask Him to, then why would you not ask? I will be writing from the perspective of a wife and mom, but single people - you can be praying for your family, too! Parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, grandparents, and future spouses are all your family, in need of your prayers! This does not have to be limited to the people in your house.

Could it be all the millions of distractions in our world make it hard to remember to pray?

The "world wide web" complete with social media and google, and e-mail, on our laptops, desktops, and phones, permeates a good deal of our time.  All the people on your devices though, cannot compare with all the people living under your roof.  Stop letting them compete.  Allow your family to win.

The concept of this 31 Day series is based on making mental connections with common, everyday events/things/occurrences in your life that will naturally remind you to pray.  Please hear this: The goal is not to make you feel overwhelmed by possible prayers, but to give you plenty of day-to-day life events that will remind you to lift your heart, your eyes, your mind, and your voice toward God on behalf of your loved ones. If this overwhelms you, stop reading.  I don't want to be one more thing on your to-do list that stresses you out.  These posts will be rather short and include some scripture images to support the prayer as well as an example of the prayer in my own words.  I highly suggest you try to pray in your own words, just using the basic word connections I provide (i.e.  Mondays - Mates).

Are you still on the fence about joining me in praying for your family?

Could it be that maybe, sometimes, just possibly, you don't really like them all that much?

I know you love them.  I also know sometimes we choose to love even when we don't really like. I mean, none of us married Prince Charming, because he's just as much a fairy tale as the rodents and other talking creatures who can help you clean your house, cook, and sew amazing dresses.  No one has perfect children who are well behaved 100 percent of the time in public and at home, unless they're the imaginary kind.  So, I do understand if you are stuck here on a day when you feel like, "I just don't want to pray for these people today!" I feel ya.  I get that.  I have a lot of those days, too, if I'm being totally honest.  Then we feel guilty about it because we know there are millions of widows who would love to have one more conversation with their husband and parents who have lost their children who would be thankful to hear their whining.  We can't guilt ourselves into love, though.  We can surrender to God and let Him change us. It's those days, that our prayers can soften our hearts and open our eyes the most, and reignite love for the irrational spouse, the embarrassing child.

The Bible is very clear on the amount we should attempt to pray:

These prayers will be a tool to help you remember to pray specifically for your family in a wider variety of ways than you may have previously attempted. I do not claim to be an expert an anything.  However, I know without a doubt that the only way to improve at anything is to practice.  If we want to get better at praying - we must practice! This series is a way for me to practice more intentional prayer and I hope it may also help someone else.

This will be the 'landing page' for this series.  On the side bar to the right is the 'button' you can feel free to grab and share, and will bring everyone back to this page, because it will also contain links below to every day as it is posted. This is a blogger challenge to write for every day of October, so there should naturally be 31 days of this at the completion. If you'd like to see the wide variety of other Write 31 Days, I encourage you to check it out! I have several that I am following along reading daily, or catching up on weekly.

I pray this helps you to remember to pray for your family more often, and more specifically! Start today by simply asking God to help you to remember to pray for your family more.

This Oswald Chamber's "The Purpose of Prayer" piece puts this into perspective as well:

Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person’s life will suffer if he doesn’t pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.

“Ask, and you will receive…” (John 16:24). We complain before God, and sometimes we are apologetic or indifferent to Him, but we actually ask Him for very few things. Yet a child exhibits a magnificent boldness to ask! Our Lord said, “…unless you…become as little children…” (Matthew 18:3). Ask and God will do. Give Jesus Christ the opportunity and the room to work. The problem is that no one will ever do this until he is at his wits’ end. When a person is at his wits’ end, it no longer seems to be a cowardly thing to pray; in fact, it is the only way he can get in touch with the truth and the reality of God Himself. Be yourself before God and present Him with your problems— the very things that have brought you to your wits’ end. But as long as you think you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.

To say that “prayer changes things” is not as close to the truth as saying, “Prayer changes me and then I change things.” God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person’s inner nature.

Links for Every Day of this Challenge:

October 2 - Praying for Your Family: By Yourself

October 3 - Praying for Your Family: Week at a Glance

October 4 -Praying for Your Family: Sunday

October 5 - Praying for Your Family: Monday

October 6 - Praying for Your Family: Tuesday

October 7 - Praying for Your Family: Wednesday

October 8 - Praying for Your Family: Thursday

October 9 - Praying for Your Family: Friday

October 10 -Praying for Your Family: Saturday

October 11 - Praying for Your Family: Dishes

October 12 - Praying for Your Family: Laundry

October 13 - Praying for Your Family: Trash/Garbage

October 14 - Praying for Your Family: Floors

October 15 - Praying for Your Family: Bathrooms

October 16 - Praying for Your Family: Pick-Up Time

October 17 - Praying for Your Family: Tired

October 18 - Praying for Your Family: Breakfast

October 19 - Praying for Your Family: Lunch

October 20 - Praying for Your Family: Dinner/Supper

October 21 - Praying for Your Family: Gorgeous Days

October 22 - Praying for Your Family: Cold Days

October 23 - Praying for Your Family: Warm Days 

October 24 - Praying for Your Family: Rainy Days

October 25 - Praying for Your Family: Snow Days

October 26 - Praying for Your Family: Seat-Belts

October 27 - Praying for Your Family: Television

October 28 - Praying for Your Family: Road Rage

October 29 - Praying for Your Family: Waiting

October 30 - Praying for Your Family: Cooking