The power of praying parents

My wife and two other women spoke of the power of prayer in family life in a video shown at our church this morning.

My wife mentioned how we prayed for our children - and still pray for them.  And now we pray for our grandchildren, too.  We rejoice with what God is doing with them and through them.

Another woman said her mother used to arrange pictures of her family on a table and pray for them daily - for an hour.  Now she does the same with her family.

Still another woman talked about her mother and father's faithful praying for her over the years, even when she was wandering away from the faith for a while.  Now, she is praying for her children in the same way.

Throughout history, we read of the importance of praying for our families.

Augustine, one of the greatest Christians in the early centuries of the church, was prayed into the kingdom of God by his mother, even though he rejected Christ for years.  John Wesley, one of the greatest Christian leaders in more recent times, had a faithful, praying mother.

We are children of God and he loves it when we pray for our children.

Jesus had a special place in his heart for children.  In Matthew 19, the disciples tried to shoo away parents who were bringing children to Jesus.  And he said: "Let the children come to me.  Don't stop them!  For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children."

Young children have a trusting faith that is the envy of many older people.  It is nurtured by faithful praying parents.

Joyce Huggett, author of Listening to God,  says that her introduction to prayer came early on as she watched her father sitting by the fireside, reading his Bible and then closing his eyes to pray.

"Children are great imitators of people they love," she writes.  "Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that I cannot remember a time when prayer did not feature in my life."

I remember reading somewhere that one woman learned the importance of praying from her mother who had a large brood of children.  The mother had hardly a moment to herself.  So she would sit in a chair and throw her apron over her face, a signal to her children that she was praying and was not to be disturbed.

God works with us as we pray.  He wants to meet our deep needs and our children's needs.

Some day, we will learn how important our prayers were when we stand before God and he shows us the fruit of our prayers.