Put the Work In: The Power of a Praying Family
The power of a praying mom
I loved last week, something that Pastor Thomas shared in his message, and really the tone that was set overall.
He talked about being the product of a praying mom. I kept rewinding to that portion of the message and hearing that. The power, the impact that a praying mom makes in the life of their children. Now, I have a praying mom. She would write it in journals, "Dear God, why did you give me Jeff?" Things like that.
Most of all, it was for blessing, and encouragement, and strength, and wisdom, and all the things that she wanted her boys to have. In fact, there were times that I grew up knowing that we were encouraged to do certain things and to try certain things. Somehow we had the, I don't know, the encouragement, "Hey, you can do this."
I started thinking about that as I was preparing, and part of this whole sermon series, what is so important? What are some of the foundational things that we need to know as families in order to see our families go where we want them to go and also to be an encouragement to the world around us.
I want to just start out with and give you the idea of this, the power of a praying family is not only largely impactful to the future of your children and the direction of your family, but also to the world around you.
He talked about being the product of a praying mom. I kept rewinding to that portion of the message and hearing that. The power, the impact that a praying mom makes in the life of their children. Now, I have a praying mom. She would write it in journals, "Dear God, why did you give me Jeff?" Things like that.
Most of all, it was for blessing, and encouragement, and strength, and wisdom, and all the things that she wanted her boys to have. In fact, there were times that I grew up knowing that we were encouraged to do certain things and to try certain things. Somehow we had the, I don't know, the encouragement, "Hey, you can do this."
I started thinking about that as I was preparing, and part of this whole sermon series, what is so important? What are some of the foundational things that we need to know as families in order to see our families go where we want them to go and also to be an encouragement to the world around us.
I want to just start out with and give you the idea of this, the power of a praying family is not only largely impactful to the future of your children and the direction of your family, but also to the world around you.
There's never a "too late."
I'm going to have us look at this chapter of the Bible that really sets the tone for us to understand what we're talking about today. Before I get into this, I'm just going to say, in this setting, we are trying to do as much as we can to make sure that the ideal becomes real in your life.
I want you to know if you are in a place where you're thinking, "I wish I had known this earlier. I wish we had understood this earlier. Jeff, if you could see our family... I know that what you're talking about is right and good, but you're just heaping guilt upon my head because that's not what we knew, and that's not where we grew up..."
There's never a "too late." If you are here, God wants to do something with you, and God wants to do something through you. Whether or not you got it figured out a whole long time ago, there's some people here that their kids are just, we little ones.
I want you to know if you are in a place where you're thinking, "I wish I had known this earlier. I wish we had understood this earlier. Jeff, if you could see our family... I know that what you're talking about is right and good, but you're just heaping guilt upon my head because that's not what we knew, and that's not where we grew up..."
There's never a "too late." If you are here, God wants to do something with you, and God wants to do something through you. Whether or not you got it figured out a whole long time ago, there's some people here that their kids are just, we little ones.
Prayer is the foundation of family life.
Psalm 127
Unless the Lord builds a house,
the work of the builders is wasted.
Unless the Lord protects a city,
guarding it with sentries will do no good.
It is useless for you to work so hard
from early morning until late at night,
anxiously working for food to eat;
for God gives rest to his loved ones.
Children are a gift from the Lord;
they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man
are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.
How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them!
He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates.
You can do everything within your power. You can do all the right things at all the right times, but unless God is the foundation of everything that you do, unless He is your source, unless He is your strength, unless His gospel message through His son, Jesus Christ has set you free, every effort of your hands is going to come up short.
He goes on to say that children are a gift from the Lord, they are a reward from Him. Why would he give that as the next thing? This toiling, this trying, he points back to the family. He's saying, "Remember all your toil, all your effort, all your stress, look back at your kids and remember, they're a gift."
The vital role of family in our lives is helping the world see the reflection of God at work in us, but also for us to understand that everything begins at home. It may seem that they're not listening, but let me just tell you, just because the world is changing around you doesn't mean that kids and families don't need an anchor. Prayer is the strengthening force behind the anchor that our kids and our families desperately need. In fact, I'm going to go so far as to say that prayer is the foundation of family life.
Unless the Lord builds a house,
the work of the builders is wasted.
Unless the Lord protects a city,
guarding it with sentries will do no good.
It is useless for you to work so hard
from early morning until late at night,
anxiously working for food to eat;
for God gives rest to his loved ones.
Children are a gift from the Lord;
they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man
are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.
How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them!
He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates.
You can do everything within your power. You can do all the right things at all the right times, but unless God is the foundation of everything that you do, unless He is your source, unless He is your strength, unless His gospel message through His son, Jesus Christ has set you free, every effort of your hands is going to come up short.
He goes on to say that children are a gift from the Lord, they are a reward from Him. Why would he give that as the next thing? This toiling, this trying, he points back to the family. He's saying, "Remember all your toil, all your effort, all your stress, look back at your kids and remember, they're a gift."
The vital role of family in our lives is helping the world see the reflection of God at work in us, but also for us to understand that everything begins at home. It may seem that they're not listening, but let me just tell you, just because the world is changing around you doesn't mean that kids and families don't need an anchor. Prayer is the strengthening force behind the anchor that our kids and our families desperately need. In fact, I'm going to go so far as to say that prayer is the foundation of family life.
Prayer in marriage
Let me just say, it's not just parents though, marriage with a foundation of prayer is built to go the distance.
Not only does it build your marriage to a place where it can go the distance, but it brings together a couple and bonds them together completely differently on all levels. When you pray for one another and pray with one another, it enhances your emotional and spiritual intimacy with your partner. It helps overcome challenges when they arrive and it gives peace. See, the big picture of this is all that we're trying to do is say: God, I surrender this area of my life to you again. I want to move from being emotional and overwhelmed to standing on your truth and being anchored in your holiness.
I don't want to just be all about feelings, I want to be about the fact that you are in charge. Here's the thing in order that we got to put in the work. Here's some practical points for praying in your marriage:
1. Pray specific prayers for your spouse. When you call out the things you know they're insecure about, or the things that you know they're working on, or the places that you know that they need the hand of God extended in their life.
2. Work together to create a prayer strategy for your marriage. How do we strategically enter into relationship with the foundation of prayer in your marriage?
Not only does it build your marriage to a place where it can go the distance, but it brings together a couple and bonds them together completely differently on all levels. When you pray for one another and pray with one another, it enhances your emotional and spiritual intimacy with your partner. It helps overcome challenges when they arrive and it gives peace. See, the big picture of this is all that we're trying to do is say: God, I surrender this area of my life to you again. I want to move from being emotional and overwhelmed to standing on your truth and being anchored in your holiness.
I don't want to just be all about feelings, I want to be about the fact that you are in charge. Here's the thing in order that we got to put in the work. Here's some practical points for praying in your marriage:
1. Pray specific prayers for your spouse. When you call out the things you know they're insecure about, or the things that you know they're working on, or the places that you know that they need the hand of God extended in their life.
2. Work together to create a prayer strategy for your marriage. How do we strategically enter into relationship with the foundation of prayer in your marriage?
Praying parents
Praying parents set the foundation for confident kids. There's a transforming impact of praying over your kids.
Let me just say, it doesn't come without work. Here's a couple practical things for praying over your children:
1. Pray specific prayers for your children. Sometimes it's rushed, sometimes it's hurried, but when you say to your kids, "Hey, I'm praying that God would show up on the field today, and remind you that you're His. I'm praying that God would remind you today while you're at school, while you're in class, that you are His and you are important." Those are some important things to be able to speak over your kids, specific prayers.
2. Pray boldly over your children. Prayer is simply this, letting your heart be expressed to the Lord in a way that's meaningful and real.
3. Include your kids' cares and their friends in prayers over them. It's important. Pray over their cares, their friends, their relationships because it begins to give them practical understanding for what it's supposed to look like this scripture of, "Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain." He cares about what you care about, He cares about your friends, He cares about your world.
4. Let them pray. Sometimes you just need those little hands and those little hearts, and to hear what's on their heart, and to hear the way that they see God because it reminds you that that's what it's supposed to look like.
Families that live for more set prayer as the foundation of their home. I know a lot of the work is about the boat, and the RV, and getting away, and doing all this stuff.
There's families, I think a lot of them here, that want more. They want to live for more. A legacy, a future, a plan, an ideal, a picture that they have in front of them. That's what God has called us to do.
Let me just say, it doesn't come without work. Here's a couple practical things for praying over your children:
1. Pray specific prayers for your children. Sometimes it's rushed, sometimes it's hurried, but when you say to your kids, "Hey, I'm praying that God would show up on the field today, and remind you that you're His. I'm praying that God would remind you today while you're at school, while you're in class, that you are His and you are important." Those are some important things to be able to speak over your kids, specific prayers.
2. Pray boldly over your children. Prayer is simply this, letting your heart be expressed to the Lord in a way that's meaningful and real.
3. Include your kids' cares and their friends in prayers over them. It's important. Pray over their cares, their friends, their relationships because it begins to give them practical understanding for what it's supposed to look like this scripture of, "Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain." He cares about what you care about, He cares about your friends, He cares about your world.
4. Let them pray. Sometimes you just need those little hands and those little hearts, and to hear what's on their heart, and to hear the way that they see God because it reminds you that that's what it's supposed to look like.
Families that live for more set prayer as the foundation of their home. I know a lot of the work is about the boat, and the RV, and getting away, and doing all this stuff.
There's families, I think a lot of them here, that want more. They want to live for more. A legacy, a future, a plan, an ideal, a picture that they have in front of them. That's what God has called us to do.
There's something about a family that gathers for prayer.
I would ask you this question, is your home a sanctuary of prayer?
Is your home a sanctuary of prayer because families who want more from their family and from their children and desire more for them, is that prayer is the foundation there.
How? Why? Because it cultivates an atmosphere that brings peace and rest, and puts a focus on God, not on me, not on just the things that I do, not just the places that we'll go. There's something about a family that gathers for prayer.
Is your home a place where you regularly gather to pray and encourage one another to lift up your cares to the one who's much greater than you. Where's your source? Where's your strength? In order to make that home the place that you desire to be, you got to put in the work!
1. We have to model a lifestyle of prayer. Show them what it looks like to pray. Pray over sirens, pray over meals. Just pray in front of them.
2. Share examples of prayer and blessing from the Bible. You might not be able to say, follow me as I follow Christ yet because you have a new relationship with Him, but the more that you read the examples of the word, the more you'll be able to push that into the hearts and lives of your family, and you'll be able to take it on. The more that it becomes part of you, the more that you begin to emulate it. Share those stories as a regular thing.
3. Let each member of your household find their voice in prayer. It is okay for you to sit with your family and for you not to have professional prayers, but have a real heartfelt conversation with God. Find your voice, and as you do, your children will learn to find theirs too.
Y'all, the foundation of a family that makes a difference, that sees God at work begins with prayer and lifting Him up, not only for your marriages and your children, but that the world might understand what it looks like to follow Him with everything that we are. The more that we implement that into the places in our homes that nobody sees, the more it comes out when we're on display where everybody sees.
Is your home a sanctuary of prayer because families who want more from their family and from their children and desire more for them, is that prayer is the foundation there.
How? Why? Because it cultivates an atmosphere that brings peace and rest, and puts a focus on God, not on me, not on just the things that I do, not just the places that we'll go. There's something about a family that gathers for prayer.
Is your home a place where you regularly gather to pray and encourage one another to lift up your cares to the one who's much greater than you. Where's your source? Where's your strength? In order to make that home the place that you desire to be, you got to put in the work!
1. We have to model a lifestyle of prayer. Show them what it looks like to pray. Pray over sirens, pray over meals. Just pray in front of them.
2. Share examples of prayer and blessing from the Bible. You might not be able to say, follow me as I follow Christ yet because you have a new relationship with Him, but the more that you read the examples of the word, the more you'll be able to push that into the hearts and lives of your family, and you'll be able to take it on. The more that it becomes part of you, the more that you begin to emulate it. Share those stories as a regular thing.
3. Let each member of your household find their voice in prayer. It is okay for you to sit with your family and for you not to have professional prayers, but have a real heartfelt conversation with God. Find your voice, and as you do, your children will learn to find theirs too.
Y'all, the foundation of a family that makes a difference, that sees God at work begins with prayer and lifting Him up, not only for your marriages and your children, but that the world might understand what it looks like to follow Him with everything that we are. The more that we implement that into the places in our homes that nobody sees, the more it comes out when we're on display where everybody sees.
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