Five Tips to Help You Pray For Your Children

No praying man or woman accomplishes so much with so little expenditure of time as when he or she is praying. –A.E. McAdam

Go to a room where you can be alone and pray out loud. This does wonders for helping to stay focused! Our thoughts wander, but if we are voicing our prayers, we are basically ignoring the thoughts and listening to what we are saying. Which is another bonus, actually…because the more you listen to yourself praying, the more fired up you get about what you are asking the Lord to do in the lives of your children! It can be a very exciting time once you get going.

Be active. Walk while you pray. If you are a disciplined person and walk outside, run, or work out on a treadmill or something similar, you can combine prayer and exercise seamlessly! I have tried this and failed. But that is because I despise exercising with every bone, muscle and tendon in my body. This is bad, I know. You can pray for me. Praying is hard to “start”, and exercising is even harder, so I’m less likely to pray if I have to do both. But that’s me. You might be a die hard walker, in which case, all you need to do is add the prayer to the walking and you’ve got it made. One of my pastor’s wives did that for years…and loved it. What works for me is just walking in circles. Strange…yes. But it gets the job done. No more nodding off to sleep while sitting with my head in my hands. And when I’m on my knees, my legs fall asleep because of my rotten circulation. Walking in circles like a dog works for me! Maybe it will work for you too.

Be as consistent and regular as your season in life allows. If you are a single gal, you can get this down with no problem. But a mom with 4 kids and a newborn? Not so much. Be flexible when you need to be and grab moments when you can. (I know it is difficult to just dive into meaningful prayer in between changing a diaper and dealing with a meltdown. There is a way you can actually do that, and it is easy and painless. I’ll be sharing more about that in my last post on this topic.) But in those seasons where life is clipping along at a regular pace and things are under control (some of you are rolling your eyes right now…I can feel it…), you can work at keeping a set time when you can pray alone. It can be in the morning before the kids wake up…or it can be scheduled during naps…or whenever. God doesn’t care when we do it. Just do it.

Start small. Whenever you start a new routine, always start small and work your way up in increments. I would not recommend committing to an hour of prayer each day to begin with. I’d try 10 minutes. Set a timer and go for it. I guarantee the time will fly, and you may be tempted to keep going! If so…DO! But otherwise, feel free to move on…and do it again the next day. Another great way to start small is to…

Use a prayer guide. I’ve collected a whole arsenal of these…and love every single one! You could commit to praying through one prayer per day, or whatever you feel appropriate. I’ve done it all kinds of crazy ways.

I must secure more time for private devotions. I have been living far too public for me. The shortening of devotions starves the soul, it grows lean and faint. I have been keeping too late hours. –William Wilberforce

Can you relate to that? I know I can. Let’s get together one more time this week and talk about praying for our children! At the risk of looking like the total dork that I am, I’m going to do a video post, share my list of fabulous prayer guides, and do some sample prayers for you to watch…so you can see how easy and powerful it is! I hope you’ll join me next time!

In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you! What are some tips that have worked for you as you’ve worked at growing in your prayer life?