A Concern I Have about Parents Praying for Their Children—and a Suggestion

First, a caveat. Because Pam and I don’t have children, I’m always hesitant to write about parenting. When I do, it’s because I have a genuine burden as a pastor/shepherd for the people of God. If I’m off-base with these thoughts, please forgive me—but I trust these words will make you think.

Here’s my concern: too many parents pray regularly with their children while they’re young, but they then halt that pattern as their kids get older. In fact, I fear they stop their praying unless their growing children face particular issues—and their parental prayer becomes only reactive rather than proactive.

Here’s my thinking about why we need to pray more regularly and consistently with all our children (including adult children, actually).  

  1. Their needs likely become even more intense—not less—as they get older. We only have to think about what teens and young adults face to make this point. They need to hear our ongoing prayers.
  2. They need to hear their parents voices praying over them as the world lures them in other directions. The enemy and the world will bombard them with other voices; so, we need to make sure they hear godly voices that drown out the evil ones.
  3. I’m convinced even our teen and adult children will appreciate our prayers. Sure, a teen may squirm, and he or she may give us only a few minutes to pray – but an arm around a teen accompanied by prayers of support can bring unrecognized comfort and peace. That’s the same for adult children, I think. . . .
  4. We model for our kids what we’d want them to do with our grandkids. Some grandparents, in fact, tell me they pray more regularly for their grandkids than they did for their kids. I trust we want to train our own kids to keep praying for their own children in the years to come.
  5. Ongoing prayer with them is a continual reminder to our kids that we’re concerned about their spiritual walk. When we stop praying for them as they age, we’re unintentionally teaching just the opposite. I don’t think that’s our goal.
  6. The prayers of a righteous parent interceding for a child are effective. Many times over the years, I’ve talked with adults who spent some time in a spiritual desert at some point in their lives—but who returned on the wings of a mom and dad’s prayers. And, in many cases, those adults speak of hearing their parents pray for them as they were growing up.

Just my thoughts . . . what are yours about this topic? I’d love to hear from parents and grandparents who make it a practice to pray with their kids and grandkids—no matter how old they are!    

4 Comments

  • Joe Pastor says:

    Without question, you’re right. Parents very much need to continue to pray for their kids as they get older. Mine are now 29 and 25 and I’m still intensely praying for them! One more reason why they still need prayer as they get beyond the young child stage: The stakes are much higher. In many cases, if a 2 year old makes a poor decision, the consequences are not as significant as if a 12 year old or a 22 year old makes a poor decision. Never stop praying.

  • Sarah says:

    Thank you, Dr. Lawless. I agree with you 100%! We continued to pray out loud with our children through the years they lived at home with us. And even now that they’re in college, we often pray with them over the phone.

  • Robin G Jordan says:

    Bishop J. C. Ryle, a 19th century Anglican evangelical leader and the first bishop of Liverpool. wrote that you cannot have a relationship with someone if you don’t talk to them. Prayer, he wrote, was talking to God and listening to God and was essential to a relationship with God. When children and teens witness you praying for them, they not only witness your expression of love and concern for them, they also witness an essential part of your relationship with God. Among the things that you are conveying to them is that there is a God, God is a personal God with whom we can communicate and have a relationship, communicating with God is an essential part of our relationship with God, and communicating with God is important and has value.

  • Kevin Minchey says:

    What a great exhortation Dr. Lawless! “pray without ceasing”
    1 Thessalonians 5:17!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.