Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Praying For Your Kids

I got this in my e-mail today and thought I would share:


Praying for Your Kids

Col. 4:12: Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondslave of Christ Jesus, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God (NIV).

As we tackle the details of life, we may neglect the most important thing-praying for our kids. Do you find yourself too distracted or exhausted to pray? Perhaps your prayers have become a bit routine? Paul gives us an example of a great prayer warrior in Epaphras. What does it mean to "labor fervently" in prayer? The Greek word used here is agoonizomenos (the English word is agonize) and describes the struggle of an athlete as he competes. It implores us to throw ourselves into prayer with persistence, discipline, and zeal.

Imagine if we invested as much time and effort praying for our kids as we spend on their sports activities--buying uniforms and equipment, going to their practices, and cheering them on at games!

Follow the example of Epaphras in praying fervently for your kids.


Wow! As a parent who spends a lot of time at her kids' sporting events this one totally hit home and I wanted to share it here. Prayer is the only defense we have against the wordly influence on our kids' lives. If we are not fighting for them in prayer then who is?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You made a very good point! We should not only pray for our own, but everyone else's as well. It's a tough world out there these days...

He & Me + 3 said...

That totally hit home for me too. Imagine praying for them as much as I have done soccer just in this past week. Wow. I need to cover them more.
Thanks for sharing.

Michelle said...

I don't know if you listen to Family Life Radio or even if you get it, but Dr. Randy Carlson says that if you don't have a plan in place, someone else does.

That is so scary to know that the world will influence our children and take them down the wrong path if we don't pray for them, shape them, and influence them ourselves while they're still young.

Thanks for the reminder.