Praying for Our Adult Children

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward." (Psalm 127:3)

I wanted to be a mother when I was still a child myself. I began babysitting very early and expected to have a large family someday.  But life does not go the way we expect it to. So I found myself in my mid-twenties with no husband and no children. Then came physical problems and major surgery.  After the surgery, my doctor told me there was only a slim chance I would ever have even one child. I grieved but left it in God's hands. There was nothing I could do about it. Several more years  went by. I married, and now was the time to see what God would do.  And God was gracious to me. Fourteen months after the wedding, my first little girl was born. Psalm 113:9 says, "He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord."  Yes, I did praise the Lord.  And in the next six and a half years I had three little boys and another little girl.  I had my big family, five children. Those were good years, busy ones.  The year my fifth child was born I began home schooling.  And life became even busier.

Those years passed and now my children are grown, four of them married, three grandchildren. Nothing prepared me for the reality of parenting adults.  Still a mother, but now a different role.  In these years I have discovered that my role as the parent of young adults has narrowed. Two things now take priority:  I must love them and I must pray for them. Jodie Berndt reminded me that "the same God who watched over my children's lives when they were young is still looking out for them today."

I found that I could love these grownups, but I did not know how to pray effectively.  Praying for adult children is hard, the issues are more serious and the consequences more profound.  I don't care who you are, there is no such thing as a perfect family, untouched by challenges and sin. And perhaps I should add here, there is no perfect mother who has done it all right. I found that I wanted to tell God how He should answer my prayers, what He needed to do in their lives.  I am working at releasing that desire to tell God what my children need.

Author Jean Fleming in her book, A Mother's Heart, recommended these steps as we pray.  "Acknowledge God's hand on their lives, even before they were born.  Admit any areas we resent in the way God put our children together. Accept God's design for each child, thanking Him for how he or she is made. Affirm God's purpose in creating our children for His glory. Ally ourselves with God in His plan for their lives." Now allow God to direct your prayers.

Jodie Berndt's book is helping me with my adult children. It is entitled Praying the Scriptures for your Adult Children: Trusting God with the Ones You Love. She wrote that we must "learn to see our kids through God's eyes--and align ourselves with His plan for their lives." The chapters in her book divide into areas our children struggle with: relationships, milestones, health, safety, and well-being, and victory over temptation. She shows how to pray God's words back to Him. Remember that Isaiah 55:8 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord." I do not automatically understand what God is doing in my children's lives.  But I can trust Him.

I want to recommend this book to you. It is Praying the Scriptures for your Adult Children by Jodie Berndt, published by Zondervan Press.  Perhaps your children are not yet adults.  She has also written Praying the Scriptures for Your Teens  and Praying the Scriptures for Your Children.

I want to share this prayer for you.  It is found in Colossians 1:9-12.

We have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power,  according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father.

                                                                ~~Faith Himes Lamb

I Have Called You Friends

 

Jesus said, “I have called you friends”. “…come unto me all ye that are weary and

heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

 

Memorial Day – for all of its rain this year – has passed; school has finished for the summer; church activities, small groups, and meetings have been placed on a hiatus; and life is settling into the pattern of “the lazy, hazy days of summer.” Routine is settling around us. Perhaps, after the rush and busyness of changing seasons, hurried activities, and whirlwind schedules, we may find an empty hollowness, a hole, a feeling that something is missing. We may also feel the weight of being the planner, the executor, the giver in so many ways lifted from our shoulders, but – in its wake – comes dryness of heart, a need for peace and rest.

 

Sometimes, when all the activity ceases, even for a short time, the weight of burdens can come, the stretch of finances overwhelms, the loneliness of empty days pervades, discontent with life’s situation drains energy. Our hearts, then, turn to Jesus – our Savior, our Friend – in, perhaps, a different way. We seek His peace in the stillness. Sarah is recorded in Hebrews as a woman of great faith. She too, however, had to learn peace in the inactivity—in the long days of waiting and wanting. She was unhappy with her state: childless. She manipulated the situation and sought her own solution by giving her maid Hagar to Abram. We know the story well. However, as we look deeply into the situation, we see two disenfranchised women. Hagar conceived. Sarah did not and found she was despised by the very woman who was her slave. Sarah took out her frustration on Hagar in such a way that Hagar ran. We soon realize that taking matters into her own hands did not bring Sarah peace but a dryness of heart.

 Sarah longed for a son, yes, but she also in those days of waiting needed to learn to be still in the wake of all the activity around her. She needed God’s gracious peace and rest to be hers. She needed to trust God’s Word and promises to her. She needed to see her God in a different way—a way that would bring quietness to her heart. Sarah had fourteen years of stillness before her. She had no notion as to how God would work. She had struggled, and continued to struggle, with her own inadequacies. She needed God’s peace. Sarah needed, but did she fully seek God’s way and peace?

 Our sister in the Lord teaches us that God’s peace comes in the stillness. God works in our situations to supply what we need when we need it. She exemplifies for us a woman overcome by her burdens who had to give them back to the God who promised. She had to learn that the dry seasons of life should drive us to closer dependence upon God. Sarah learned that in God’s time, in His way, and in His merciful love, He would act on her behalf. God rewarded her not only with the promised son but by recording her as a woman of faith in the face of obstacles.

 And we, too, need to cling to the promises of God. The old hymns teach us “Jesus what a friend for sinners, Jesus lover of my soul . . . He my Savior makes me whole.” “I’ve got peace like a river, peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river to my soul,” claims the African-American spiritual. The Isaiah 26:3 hymn speaks to “peace, perfect peace”and Spafford’s “When peace like a river, attendeth my way/ When sorrows like sea billows roll/ Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say/ It is well, it is well, with my soul.”  These speak to those who have gone before us who also needed God’s peace and rest. They are part of “the great cloud of witnesses” who encourage us.

So, before the activities of summer take over our lives, allow God to step into our period of drought. Activity will not bring satisfaction. Simple trust, sometimes hard-fought, supplies the peace we need in an over-stimulated world. To God be all glory.

 

--Janet Hicks

Disappointing Fruit

 

What disappointing verses! Check it out!

 Isaiah 18:4-5 (ESV), For thus the Lord said to me:

“I will quietly look from my dwelling

like clear heat in sunshine,

like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

For before the harvest, when the blossom is over,

and the flower becomes a ripening grape,

he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks,

and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away.

 In context these verses are about God’s judgement upon Moab. The Moabites were going to be working hard planting, watering, tending their grape vines (literally or figuratively), but in the end, God just lops off the fruit of their labor. Snip!

 How discouraging that they would put forth all of that effort only to have the Lord thwart their plans. (But this was judgment, and God had His reasons of course.)

 I began to reflect on the fruit of my own labors after reading these verses. (If you read my previous post, you know I struggle with feeling inadequate for the work God has given me to do. Thankfully, He’s working with me on that. This is a sort of part 2.) I am learning that we do our part, He does His, but it’s also our responsibility to acknowledge our need for Him in everything we do if we want our efforts to produce good fruit instead of being lopped off or just withering away.

 Take a fresh look at these familiar verses:

 Proverbs 3:5-6, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." (emphasis mine)

 One more, and then I’ll tie it together.

 Psalm 90:17 (ESV), "Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!"

 Every day we go along the way with our to-do lists clutched in our hands. thinking of all that needs to be done, likely without acknowledging God’s role in assigning us our good works or of our desperate need for Him to bless our work. If He chose, He could lop the fruit right off of our endeavors because of our failure to acknowledge His will or to seek His direction.

 It’s better to ask for the Lord’s favor to be upon us as He establishes the work of our hands. Maybe that’s why some of us feel so fruitless? Maybe we are pursuing tasks not assigned to us? Sometimes He impresses upon on us creative ways to serve Him that might be unusual – ways that might be unique to us or our situation or personalities. It’s best that we acknowledge and submit to His direction in this. The good fruit might be surprising.

Maybe we are not asking for God’s favor upon our works? Maybe we’re leaning on our own understanding and not realizing that without Him we really can do nothing!

For example, recently I had an eye surgery. My doctor is supposed to be the best in the country. Guess what? He can do his expert thing of replacing part of my cornea, but only God can make it heal and be successful.

 Another, I can faithfully attend my body pump classes and give it my all, but only God can cause my body to develop muscle and protect my bones.

 I can plan, shop for, and prepare healthy meals, but only God can use those nutrients to help me thrive.

 I can pour out my heart telling others about Jesus, but only His Spirit can draw and save people.

 I can invest countless hours serving the residents at the TN Baptist Children’s Homes, but only God can do a special work in their lives for healing. hope, and happiness.

 These are some of the things I spend my time doing. Think about your typical day. Are you allowing God to establish the work of your hands? Are you acknowledging your dependence on Him to hold it all together, to cause it to flourish? I know I need to do more of that. What’s not going well? Have you asked Him if you need to be doing something different? Have you asked him to bless it or to give you wisdom in doing it better?

 I’m depending on Him right now as I type this Cup of Grace to make it fruitful. I have no impact or influence in my own power – and truthfully, that’s probably for the best.

 joyce hague