3 “Do’s and Don’ts” Tips for Praying with Your Family
By Victoria Cobb, Family Foundation President and Proud Mom of Four Kids!
COVID-19 is an excellent opportunity to find time to pray together more as a family. But even with everybody spending more time at home, it can still be challenging to find prayer styles that work for all ages! Here are some timely tips to help.
1) Do prompt selfless prayer. The old adage goes something like this: “If all your prayers were answered, would it change the world, or just yours?” Children have a developmentally appropriate but very myopic view of the world. It’s our job as parents to broaden their horizon. Before launching into prayer, it’s important to prompt them on what to pray for that goes beyond themselves. You can use questions like, “Who do you know who needs healing today?” “How can we pray for others who are serving Jesus around the world?” Prior to school-at-home, our family had each person pray on the way to school. We quickly learned that, without this prompt, every prayer would only be “help me do well on my test today.” As parents, we are modeling for our children how to unite our desires with God’s heart for His people to pray big prayers for His Kingdom.
2) Don’t assume prayer is for grown-ups only. Include everyone of all ages in the process. In our house, the most thoughtful prayer comes from our six-year-old. He seems to be one of the few not in a hurry when he prays. He starts every prayer by saying, “Thank you that today is a [fill in day of the week],” and proceeds to thank God for the things that make that day special, such as Wednesdays when he has a special program in the evenings at church (during non-quarantine). Of course our family has noticed that the longer we are sheltered in our homes per the Governor’s order, the harder time our youngest has knowing which day of the week it is!
3) Do use prayer time to remind the family of past answered prayers. When the Israelites saw God work a miracle, like crossing the Red Sea, they were often commanded to mark the event with a stone memorial. God answers prayer, not only as a fulfillment of our request in that moment, but also to build our faith and trust in His unfailing love when future needs and doubts arise. Give everyone in the family the gift of visiting the memorial of God’s love as expressed to them in the past. It can be as simple as asking, “Remember when we were praying that God would heal Grandpa? Isn’t it great that God answered our prayer and he doing so well?” The natural result of this intentionality is likely to be a unified heart of praise.
I hope these tips help build a meaningful family-prayer experience! In the meantime, I highly encourage you to join Team Timothy—our team of prayer warriors who faithfully lift up our state, Virginia families and the work of the Family Foundation to our Heavenly Father each week. Click to join today!
Until next time,
Victoria
