8 Ways to Start Praying for Your Kids Today

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It takes about 4 seconds of scrolling through Pinterest or Facebook before you are confronted with post after post on what you should be praying for your kid, when, and how often. And then that you should be praying for their future spouse and friend group. It can quickly feel overwhelming. Especially if this is an area you’re working on growing in.

Often, I think we look around and see areas where we feel like we are lacking or certainly ways we can improve. And while generally, there’s always room for improvement, sometimes what we need is a little grace-filled growth; to know that we aren’t going to get it right all the time, and that’s OK.

And sometimes we need to look around and give ourselves credit for what we are getting right, even if it’s completely by accident. Like when I was accidentally praying something really specific for my kids for 4 years and I didn’t even realize it.

So if praying for your children is something you’d like to work on growing, here are 8 Ways to Start Praying for Your Kids Today.

1. Pray the meaning of their name. 

For some people the meaning of their kids’ name isn’t really thought about and for others, the meaning of the name is the reason for the name. If you gave your child their name for its meaning, or if you’ve learned that you really like what it means, start praying that you see the meaning in them.

For example, the name Sarah means “princess” and you could pray that she would see herself as God’s princess, that she would treat people like a kind princess would.

2. Pray a Bible verse for them.

Choose a Bible verse and use that as a prayer.

Psalm 199:105 says “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” You could simply pray: “Dear Lord, I pray that your word would be a lamp to his feet and light to his path.”

3. Pray for their character.

We have no idea exactly what kind of person our child will grow into, but we definitely hope that he or she will be a child of godly character. Pray those character traits for them.

4. Pray for traits you already see in them.

If you have a natural nurturer, helper, or leader, pray that those qualities would grow and be refined throughout their lives. If you choose to pray this one when your children can hear you, they will get a chance to hear what you see in them that you think is an honorable trait that you want to see grow.

5. Pray for their relationships.

In the short-term, you can pray for relationships with their siblings at home or friends and teacher at school.

In the long-term, you can pray for their future spouse and long-term friend groups.

6. Pray for their interests.

I haven’t personally hit the MineCraft phase (thank you Jesus) but my kids are interested in and talking about things that I don’t understand (mostly because it gets jumbled in their excited fast-talking). Pray that through your children’s interests they would learn more about God. And pray that you would be genuinely interested in things that interest them.

7. Pray for their faith in and relationship with Jesus.

It’s never too early to pray for your child to have faith. You can pray that their faith would grow, and that would see their sin and need for a Savior.

8. Write your prayers down. 

Last year, I printed book marks of my kids’ pictures to put in my Bible and wrote specific prayers on the back for each child. When I start my journaling Bible, I want to give them a page where their verse is and add additional prayers.

(You can use canva.com to create the bookmarks. It’s free. Just set the size manually to 3in x 7in)

 

What are some of your favorite ways to be praying for your kids? Feel free to share in the comments.

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