Friday, June 14, 2013

Seven Prayers of Spiritually Effective Fathers

The Bible teaches that fathers are accountable for the spiritual environment in which their children are raised (Deut.6:4-9; Eph. 6:1-4; Col. 3:18-21).  Believing fathers know that they cannot do this alone.  They understand that they must be dependent on God for wisdom, strength, and courage.  Our Father invites all fathers to pray with confidence, drawing near to the throne of grace, so that we might receive mercy and find grace to help (Heb. 4:16; Phil. 4:6; Matt. 6:9-13). With this in mind, let me suggest seven prayers that fathers can pray:

1.  Lord, I submit myself to you.  I realize that parenting a child in the way that you would have me is beyond my human abilities.  I know you to help help me. I need your wisdom, discernment, and guidance.  I also need your patience and strength.  I need your love to flow through me to my children.  Teach me how to love the way you love.  Cause me to walk in righteousness and integrity before you. Enable me to obey your Word and do what is pleasing in your sight.

2. Thank you Lord for the precious gift of this child because your Word says every good and perfect gift comes from you. I know that you have given him/her to me as a stewardship to you.  Help me to raise him/her to fear you and walk in your ways.  Help me to release him/her to your protection, guidance, and counsel.  Help me not to live in fear of people, circumstances, ideas, and values that my child will experience and be exposed to.  Help me to rest in your sovereign control.  I'm grateful that I do not have to rely on the world's unreliable and everchanging methods for parenting, but I can get clear direction from your Word.

3.  Lord, I pray that you will fill my child with your spirit of truth.  Give him/her a heart that loves truth and follows after it, rejecting all lies of the enemy. Guide him/her into all truth.  Guard him/her from ideas, entertainment, philosophies that are lies from the world. May he/she never give place to lies and lying, but be a person of truth and integrity.

4.  Lord, I pray that my child will have a deep reverence for your ways.  May he/she hide your Word in his/her heart like a treasure, and seek after understanding like silver and gold.  Give him/her a teachable spirit and a desire to learn.  Instill in him/her wisdom to study and apply your Word.

5.  Lord, place in my child a desire for holiness that comes from a pure heart.  May this desire be reflected in what he/she wears, where he/she goes, and who he/she has as friends.  Where he/she strays from the path of holiness, quickly bring him/her to a place of confession and repentance.  Give him/her an understanding that to live in purity brings wholeness and blessing into his/her life.

6.  Lord, I pray that you would keep my child free from any ungodly, unhealthy addictions.  Make him/her strong in you.  Cause him/her to look for the way of escape from temptation. Put a fear of disobedience to you in his/her heart.  Guard him/her from those who would offer and pressure him/her to the possibility of any addictions.

7.  Lord, unless your plan is for my child to remain single, send the right mate for him/her in your time.  Give him/her clear understanding of your leading.  May the future mate be a person of godliness who walks in all your ways.  May they come together in purity and remain that way until married.

Fathers, also remember 1 Peter 3:7: "Likewise husband, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered."