Praying for our Children

Mark 10:16 (NIV)

"And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.”

“Have a good day!  I love you!”  These are typically the words I send my children off to school with each morning.  They are words of blessing, and my children, as well as children everywhere, need to hear something like it.  We must take every opportunity to bless our children and to pray for them by asking God to keep their hearts soft to him, to be kept safe from the distractions of the world, to be an influence in their little worlds, and the list goes on.  These prayers don’t have to be long.  They can take just a couple of seconds.  The importance is not the length but the consistency.  It really takes very little effort.  It’s simply a matter of priority.  As people in whom the Spirit of God dwells, we must lift high the priority of being dependent on God in the raising of our children.  As we model coming to God in prayer on their behalf, blessing them, being dependent on His intervention in their daily lives, then they will be impacted by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Then they will see that life comes from trusting in God.  If we are not used to doing it, blessing our children on purpose and praying for them may be awkward.  However, if we are to raise them in the ways of God, we must learn to bless them and pray for them.  They will learn to do it if we show them how.