Stop, Drop, and Pray

Stop, Drop, and Pray - Parenting Like Hannah
Photo by Irina Patrascu

Schools all over the country teach fire safety to even the youngest children. If you say, “Stop, drop and roll.” to almost any child, he knows it is what he is supposed to do if he is on fire. As a Mom, I feel like I am a “Stop, drop and pray” Christian. My life is often so chaotic, I may be praying without ceasing, but often they are prayers because my life is on fire at the moment. My prayer life is often a reaction to the events and problems surrounding me currently or that I see approaching in the near future. My goal is to develop a more proactive rather than reactive prayer life, especially in my prayers for my child.

When my daughter started kindergarten, several of the moms approached me about joining their Moms In Touch group. MIT consists of small groups of Christian moms all over the world. They meet regularly to pray for the students and teachers in the public and private schools their children attend. Being in that group introduced me to the idea of planned, proactive prayer. The group shared with members several handouts of scriptures to pray for your child. Many of them focused on godly characteristics you hoped your child would develop.

Although the MIT approach was very methodical, if you are a little more right brained like I tend to be, you can accomplish the same thing with a little less structure. Take a pad and write down your hopes and dreams for your child and make a point to pray for them daily.

The list might consist of your hope that he dedicates his life to Christ or that she follows God all the days of her life. You may want to use the MIT list of scripture prayers to pray your children continue to develop specific godly characteristics as they grow and mature.

I love the idea of praying for your child’s future spouse. Not just that your child finds a godly person to marry, but that right now the future spouse’s parents are raising their child to love God and be a godly spouse to your child. Pray the family raising your future in-law is providing a loving, warm Christian home and setting an example of a godly marriage for their child.

Maybe our proactive prayers for our children should include their present and future ministries for God. Are we praying they find the gifts God gave them to use for Him and are learning to use them in the ways He would want? Are we praying our children follow the path God has laid for them wherever it takes them? Even if it is thousands of miles away from us?

If we cover the future and not just the present of our children with prayer, what kind of difference might it make for them? We have no way of knowing for sure, but I hope you will join me in trying to have a more proactive prayer life for our children. What other requests are you bringing to God about your child?

Published by

Thereasa Winnett

Thereasa Winnett is the founder of Teach One Reach One and blogger at Parenting Like Hannah. She holds a BA in education from the College of William and Mary. She has served in all areas of ministry to children and teens for more than thirty years and regularly leads workshops for ministries and churches. She has conducted numerous workshops, including sessions at Points of Light’s National Conference on Volunteering and Service, the National Urban Ministry Conference, Pepperdine Bible Lectures, and Lipscomb’s Summer Celebration. Thereasa lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband Greg, where she enjoys reading, knitting, traveling and cooking.

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