Pray for our Children

Guest Devotional by Gayla M. Baughman

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

When we deliver our children, we have the idealistic dream that they will be this, well-behaved, lovable, perfect child. It doesn’t take but a few days to realize this precious little bundle we brought home has a mind of his own!

We take our children to Sunday School, junior camp, youth camp, and youth convention. We try to raise them the way God wants us to, with an equal balance of love and discipline. Then after they reach the teenage years, we try to loosen the apron strings a little and give them some independence. Some children handle this well, and some do not. Once they reach eighteen, they have the legal right to be on their own. So we try to let go. They either go off to college somewhere, or if they live at home, we rarely see them because they are so busy with friends, work, school etc. We just have to trust that we have prepared them for the road of life!

A backslidden child is devastating to a parent. When we raise our children to love God, honor his Word, and seek for the Holy Ghost it is a hard trip to watch them turn away from all the most important things we have tried to teach them.

It is at this time we have to trust that years of training them in the way of the Lord will not be wasted. If you have been careful to point your child in the right direction, there comes a time you must trust that he will never get too far from those teachings.

Restoring a relationship with a wayward child takes a large amount of unconditional love on your part. There are a few suggestions that others have shared with me when facing this discouraging dilemma:

1) Believe he still loves God even though it doesn’t show. Use that base for your communication with him.

2) Pray daily for your child. Intercession will keep the communication open between your child and God. God will never give up on him, no more than you give up hope. Remember the old saying, “Where there is breath, there is hope.” I have gone in my child’s room and used the things there to lead me to prayer. I pray for God to preserve him morally when I touch his bed. I pray God helps him resist internet traps of pornography and ungodly chat rooms when I run my hand over his computer. I pray God opens the window of his soul to spiritual hunger when I walk to his window. I lay hands on his CD’s and pray against any thirst for ungodly music, and that he uses his musical talents only for God. I pray against materialism and popular fashion traps when I touch his clothes and magazines. I use his material things to help me focus on spiritual things in prayer.

3) Pray that God brings his word to your child’s mind. All the scriptures he learned in Sunday School, or the Bible reading at youth camp and church service is submerged in the subconscious mind somewhere. Pray God lifts the fog off his memory and he dreams the Word, or just finds it running through his mind at random moments. Pray when he comes to a crossroads that the Word will be refreshed helping him make the right decision.

4) Keep the door open. If your child has left, let him know that he is welcome to come home anytime. That child will equate the front door of his home with the front door of your heart. If you close the door, you will be symbolically shutting the door on your communication with your child. An open door lets your child know that he is still part of the family; right or wrong, good or bad, he still belongs. Unless it is a last resort, or the safety of the family is at risk try to keep your child living under your roof. Kicking your child out because he won’t go to church will only alienate him or her from you. Set the house rules, and then let him know that he is still part of the family and you want him to live with you, but everyone in the family comes under the house rules.

5) Say, “I love you” often. Never stop telling your child you love him. You may not agree with his lifestyle or his appearance, but the child down inside is still the child that belongs to you.

6) Trust God. When you feel you have done all you know to do, trust the everlasting mercy and amazing grace of a loving Heavenly Father. He loves your child even more than you do. Never, never give up!

Psalms 100:3-5 (NKJV) Know that the LORD, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. {4} Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. {5} For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.