During particular seasons, our children need our prayers more than usual. And at certain times one child needs our prayers more than the others. When these seasons occur, we need to be especially sensitive to the Holy Spirit.
When my daughter was doing missionary work in Africa, she went through a particularly trying time. She was 8 hours ahead of us and I would get up around 1:00 every night to “talk to her” on Facebook. She had very limited internet access and the internet was not powerful enough for us to Skype and so we would chat via Facebook. I also used that time to pray specifically for her. I would find out what was going on and would pray accordingly. During a two week period, I prayed almost around the clock, taking short naps and doing the bare minimal that needed to get done.
Also during that time, I set up a prayer group with trusted prayer warriors who agreed to pray for Jana daily. I felt that my prayers were not enough, that she was going through “spiritual warfare” and that she needed additional people to come beside her and hold up her hands just as Aaron and Hur held up Moses hands as the children of Israel battled the Amalekites in Exodus 17:11-13.
As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. 12 When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. 13 So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.
Maybe your child hasn’t been to Africa and had to deal with heavy spiritual warfare. But maybe your child is going through another form of spiritual warfare. Maybe he’s having trouble with temptation, or is struggling with school. Maybe he’s lonely or depressed. How about particularly disappointed and disillusioned.
If any of these are the case, I encourage you to pray and to pray diligently until you get a release. And I also encourage you to find a small group of trusted prayer warriors to agree with you in prayer.
Following the Lord’s Supper, Jesus went to pray with Peter, James, and John in the Garden of Gethsemane. Matthew 26:36-39 gives the following account,
36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Jesus was getting ready to face the most difficult time in his life and he asked his friends to pray. We should become prayer partners with our children and help them pray when they are going through particularly hard times.
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