Ten Biblical Prayers for a Child

by Erin Bird

We are just over halfway through our 21 Days of Prayer. If you missed last Sunday, I encourage you to at least go listen to Sunday's message. God was clearly at work in a number of lives during the Worship Gathering. If you are using the "21 Dangerous Prayers" booklet, keep at it. Today (Thursday Jan 17) is Day 12. But let me say that if you are behind, or haven't even started, go ahead and jump in. The goal isn't to just get through the book in a certain time frame. The goal is to connect with Jesus, and if that happens in 31 days or 61 days rather than 21, that is a-ok.

Also, be sure to join us this Sunday as we complete the Dangerous Prayers series and head into our last week on this prayer journey. I am super excited for what we have planned for Sunday as we pray "Lord, Send Me" and I really don't want you to miss it!

Praying for Children

Since we are talking so much about prayer on Sundays, I want to continue the blog-series we started last week on Praying for Others. Last week, I gave you ten biblical prayers you can pray for a close friend who follows Jesus. Next week, we'll look at ten biblical prayers you can pray for your spiritually disconnected friends and family. But this week, I want to give you ten biblical prayers you can pray for kids.

If you are a parent who follows Jesus, you will probably find this helpful. But even if you aren't a parent, you can pray these prayers for nieces and nephews, the neighbor kids, and even the children of your Riverwood friends.

For this week's list, I've chosen to center the ten prayers (specifically Prayers #2-10) around the fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:

1. Salvation: "God, help this child find true life through Jesus and follow Him all their days." (Acts 4:12)

2. Love: "Lord, shape this child into a conduit of your love." (1 John 4:7).

3. Joy: "Fill him/her with your joy, Jesus!" (John 15:11).

4. Peace: "Heavenly Father, protect this child with a peace that surpasses understanding." (Philippians 4:7).

5. Patience: "Lord, develop a patient heart within this child." (James 5:7-8).

6. Kindness: "Clothe him/her with kindness." (Colossians 3:12-13).

7. Goodness: "Help this young one to imitate the goodness of Jesus" (3 John 11).

8. Faithfulness: "Empower him/her to be faithful even with the smallest of things" (Luke 16:10).

9. Gentleness: "Help him/her to be gentle and courteous to all." (Titus 3:2).

10. Self-controlled: "Motivate this child through your grace to be self-controlled." (Titus 2:11-12).

Like I said last week, copy and paste this list somewhere you can easily access it, or tuck it into your Bible so you can easily think through what to pray for the kids in your life. And if you so desire, you can pray for these same things for yourself. 😊