Praying Scripture Over Your Child's Life (Part 1 of 2)

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Give today at FocusOnTheFamily.com slash RealFamilies. In the Bible, in the New Testament book of James, it says, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. And that includes the prayers of many faithful parents who are asking God for help on behalf of their children. That's our topic today on Focus on the Family, and your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. John, a lot of moms and dads feel ill-equipped or inadequate in praying for their children.

It just feels odd to some of us when you're praying. I really give Jean a lot of credit. She has taught me how to pray for our kids, and she is a prayer warrior.

That's what Jodi Berndt is as well. She's a prayer warrior, and she's heard from hundreds if not thousands of parents through the years about their fears about praying or their sense of inadequacy, whatever it might be. Every parent seems to have concerns for their children, of course. God is right there in all of it, though, and we've got to realize that. And he's ready to hear your prayers and your concerns about your children. And today, we want to encourage you to grow in that discipline of praying for your kids, and it's going to be really insightful.

And encouraging as well. I mean, I think we all feel alone in this journey of prayer from time to time. And Jodi Berndt, as you said, Jim, is a person who prays a lot. She's an author, a speaker, a Bible teacher, and she's written a number of books on prayer. And she's recently updated a very popular title of hers, Praying the Scriptures for Your Children, Discover How to Pray God's Purpose for Their Lives.

And we have copies of that here. Give us a call, 800-AFAMILY, or check the links in the episode notes. Jodi, welcome to Focus on the Family. Welcome back, really. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, John.

Just a big treat to be back. It's good to have you. You are passionate about prayer. You've written several books about it over the past couple of decades. I think I defined you well as a prayer warrior.

Let me go right to it. How does your husband, Robbie, feel about this? Really, you probably have taught him like Jean. I think that is a very kind label that I'm not sure I deserve. If you mean, do I pray? Do I have to pray a lot?

Yes, I'm very aware of my own failings and inadequacies. And I think any parent will tell you we want God's best for our kids. And so I might say almost any parent has the makings of a prayer warrior just because we want to bring our kids before the Lord. But you asked me about Robbie.

What did you ask? Sometimes men in marriage, we could be intimidated by prayer warrior wives, like maybe I'm not doing enough, you know, as the man of the home. That's a deep question to kind of start off with because it really is.

I think a lot of times men say, okay, well, this is mom's job. You know, she's the more sensitive one, the more in touch emotionally, the spiritual stuff is on her. And while God may have wired us that way, I would just encourage any man who's listening to take up that mantle, jump in and jump on in.

And don't be intimidated. But I'll tell you, one of the reasons that we updated this book was because I heard from parents, both moms and dads, who would tell me that, you know, I didn't grow up in a home where people prayed, you know, at least not outside of church. It seemed like something you leave to the clergy, the varsity Christians feels a little awkward, a little unfamiliar. But folks would say, I don't want it to be that way for my kids. You know, I want to take the mystery out of prayer. I want them to feel free and available to approach God.

What do I do? You know, how do I teach them? So whether it's a husband saying, hey, honey, I want to catch up to you, or whether it's a mom looking at her child and thinking, I don't want it to feel as awkward or unfamiliar as it did for me growing up.

We updated the book and included a lot of material, a lot of bonus material in the back that really takes all the concepts and brings them down to a kid's level. Like, you can pray versus Hebrews 3.13, encourage one another daily. Such an easy one that a little child can learn and just pray, Lord, help me encourage people daily.

That is good. Let me ask you, though, you weren't always in this place where prayer was a good, strong discipline for you. Speak back to the struggles that you had and why this became kind of a light bulb opportunity to say I need to learn how to pray better.

Because there's many, many people listening that don't have a robust prayer life. What are those struggles that people have that you had? Well, I think we all are painfully aware of our shortcomings. We don't like to tell other people about it.

We all have this sort of innate understanding that we need help from outside ourselves. And I did grow up in a home where people prayed. But I will tell you that when our children were young and I was praying for them, my prayers were kind of dull.

I hate to say that. I mean, I'm sure God wasn't saying that I was boring him, but maybe I was because it was a lot of bless them, help them on their spelling tests, help them feel better when they're sick. All legit prayers, good prayers, you know.

But I just felt like I wanted something that felt fresher and more empowered. And when I began looking at the Bible as sort of a launching pad for my prayers, when I would see verses in there and think that's what I want for my kids, let me wrap my prayers in that language. You know, and I tell the story a lot of times that our children used to get in the car and they would just put their feet in each other's face and they'd call, I want to sit in the front seat. I want to sit in the back.

Yeah, this is the best seat. And it got to where, in fact, our in-laws came to babysit one time. Ravi and I were, I was going to go with him on a business trip and my in-laws came and the kids were getting in the car and they broke out in this normal daily morning fight of who got to sit where and whose feet were in whose face. And Pop Pop says, you know, if grandma and I were staying longer than a week, we would solve this.

You wouldn't be talking like this every morning when we say get in the car. And our daughter, I forget how old she was at the time, elementary school, she said, well, Pop Pop, it's a good thing you aren't staying any longer. That's not what you want your in-law to hear. Now I think I know the answer to why you started praying. Thank you.

Thank you. Every parent out there, you know, it's a struggle. But I remember around that time going through my Bible and I saw Ephesians 4, verse 29, and it says, let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it would benefit to those who listen. And I'll tell you, I read that verse and I thought, number one, God's been spying on my family.

And number two, that's exactly what I want. So instead of praying God help my kids talk nice, I could pray, Lord, you know, let no unwholesome talk come out of that. Let no unwholesome talk come out of my mouth. I mean, I wasn't much better as a mom and a driver.

Don't make me pull over, you know, that whole line. But let it be beneficial that it would build others up. What a great prayer.

That is, it's so true. Now, in those early days, you also had what looks like a really good experience with a group called Moms in Prayer that taught you some things. What did they do? Are they still around? Yeah, there's MomsInPrayer.org.

And what did you glean from it? I'll tell you, I love Moms in Prayer. They meet once a week for an hour to pray and their groups are based around school communities.

So you don't have to know the other women in your group. You just have to be at the same school and there's your prayer group. They meet for an hour and the thing that I love about their strategy is that they really do ground their prayers in Scripture. So one of my favorite stories in the book is about our prayer group, our Moms in Prayer group. And we had prayed just kind of as a routine prayer that week out of Ephesians 5 verses 15 and 16 that our kids would be wise in the way they act toward outsiders. That they would make the most of every opportunity. We didn't know what that looked like.

We didn't know how God would answer. But that very week, one of the children in the group, their teacher gave them an assignment to write a persuasive essay. And you know, most of the kids in the class are writing a persuasive little second grade essay about why my mom should get me a new bike or something. But this one child wrote a letter to a classmate saying, here's why you should believe in Jesus.

Here's why you need to give your life to Christ. Second grader? Yes, second grader. And this was a kid that nobody was friends with. He was a real troublemaker. He got left out on the playground.

All that. And to have this child write this. And then he asked the teacher. The child couldn't read the letter very well.

He was struggling in school. And the teacher said, yeah, you know, you can read it to your friend. And so out on the playground that day, he reads this persuasive letter with 10 reasons. And again, you can read, you know, number one, I will be waiting for you in heaven. Number two, you can have anything you want in heaven. Number three, God loves you.

These different reasons this little second grader laid out. And he led this child into the kingdom of heaven. And that was, I believe, God's answer to our prayer that our children could make the most of every opportunity. Well, I wonder where that young man is today. Well, I don't know where the new believer is, but I do know the young man has grown up and he's gone off and served in the Naval Academy. And he's just still loving the Lord.

And that's fantastic. Jody, let me ask you, though, that intimidation factor. Speak to that hurdle. Not everybody has that as the obstacle, but, you know, just the intimidation. You know, does God really hear me?

Should I really do it? Am I saying it correctly? Right. We all think we need to sound good. We feel like we have to convince God. And like I said earlier, maybe we didn't grow up in a home where it was done or modeled for us. But, you know, at the end of the day, God commands us to pray.

Right. And he does it because he wants relationship with us. He wants us in the same way like I look at things like being in a marriage, for example. Imagine you're married to somebody and you say, I love you, but you never talk about your day. You never tell your spouse what you need. You never thank them for what they might provide or a parent child relationship. You know, say a child is a parent can just give you your food, buy your schoolbooks, get your clothes. But if the child has never asked for anything or ever thanked you for anything, there's not that connection in that relationship. So I think God wants us to pray because he's saying not only is that the way I invented to dispense blessing in your life, but it's also the way I invented for our lives to connect.

Sure. So that you can acknowledge me as the source of all these blessings and that we can have that that relationship. You're dependent on me. And that's great because I want to provide for you.

You know, I would imagine because it's true in Jean and I's life. We pray for our kids salvation. Obviously, we did that when they were younger, that they would come to embrace the faith. That's probably the most common prayer for parents. What are some of the other things that parents that you've learned coaching parents?

That's a good question. And in fact, before I wrote the book, I knew what I was praying again, that my kids would be nice to each other. But I wondered what other parents were praying. And I did these surveys. And this was before Facebook, before Survey Monkey, before really even email. So I did them the old fashioned way where I wrote them on pieces of paper and they had one question. And it was, if you could ask God to do anything for your family, what would it be? And so I would carry around my purse and give them to you if I saw you in the carpool line or at the grocery store. We tucked him into our Christmas cards that year.

And I got more than 100 of these things back. And you can imagine to your question what parents wanted. You know, parents wanted that faith. They wanted kids who loved God and his word, but they also wanted character traits, wisdom, compassion, kindness. They wanted kids to be kept safe. That's a big one for parents.

I want my child to be protected and be safe. And even there were people, relationships, friendships, sibling relationships, relationships with teachers, coaches. And there were a lot of parents who were taking kind of a long view and saying, you know, I actually am praying for my three year old's marriage partner.

Or for their management of money or time. So all these things, I kind of took the top 20 needs or requests that I saw come in and shaped them into the table of contents. And then I started digging around in the Bible and be like, okay, does God say anything about this? Does he say anything? And you know, you know it as well as I do, and I know your listeners know it. There's not a need we're going to face, a concern we'll have that God hasn't already provided for and addressed in Scripture. Yeah, it's so true. And I think, you know, when you mentioned wisdom, that one resonated with me because I think that's probably outside of, you know, knowing the Lord, walking with the Lord. That's probably the next most often prayer that I've offered for my boys that they would have wisdom. Copying from Solomon, right? Yeah, everything falls from that, right? Everything follows from that.

Yeah, it equips us to receive all God's other good gifts. It's a good one. You have a cute story about your daughter, Virginia, waving leaves while telling a Bible story.

What happened? Yeah, well, you know, they weren't – it was around the Easter time, and we knew the Hosanna story, and they weren't palm branch leaves. I think they were Akuba leaves or something in our garden. But she picked them up, and they were out there, she – Virginia and our younger son, Robbie – and we were all just messing around in the yard. And I overheard her telling the biblical narrative of Jesus riding on the donkey and coming in, and she went through the whole thing, even to the point she said, Robbie, you know – and they put nails in his hands, nails. And she had so much passion, just as about a four-year-old telling this story.

And she finished, and she handed Robbie the leaves, and she said, now you tell the story, Robbie. And I thought to myself, that's what we want. We want our kids to know God's word, to know God's stories, to know God's history, because they're not getting it. You know, our culture is not teaching them scripture, and even today's churches a lot of times are not teaching the Bible. And so I pray that my kids will know and love scripture, because back to your point about wisdom, choices are going to be all abounding. And to know which way to go, Philippians 1, we pray that you may have wisdom and depth of insight so you can discern what is best.

Our kids are going to be coming up against these choices, whether they're four years old, 14 years old, or 40 years old, and they're going to need to know what to do. And scripture is what will equip them to do that. Jody, this next question really comes out of the heart from being a believer. I came to know the Lord at 15 years old, and my football buddy on the high school football team's parents gave me my first softcover Bible.

Wow, that's wonderful. And they wrote in there John 10-10. And I always joke because there's a lot of John in the Bible.

I wasn't raised in a Christian home, so I'm looking through 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, finally got to John 10-10. But the scripture is straightforward. And the reason I'm mentioning this is it's, to me, one of the most applicable scriptures in the world we live in today. And it says, the thief, Satan, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I've come that you might have life and life more abundantly. So when you're looking at that context for our children, how do we as parents resist the devil as a good model?

And then how do we pray something positive for our children that they too may have that kind of wisdom? Yeah, I love that verse, John 10-10. You know, different translations, some say I've come to give you a rich and satisfying life. Yeah, I love that.

Some say an abundant life. It's a good one for our family. Our daughter, Virginia, lives big and she loves that verse. One time she was traveling abroad and my husband had given her, you know, read her the riot act about being safe and what to do and what not to do. And she was with a bunch of friends. And we got a picture she sent us of herself strapped to a guy whose name was Ollie.

We didn't know any more than that. Jumping out of an airplane and on her palm, she'd written John 10-10. Sorry, Dad.

She's just like, I'm living big. But I love that one. And I love I feel like for our kids, they need to know that Jesus is fun. That when they put their trust in him, that they are going to have a rich and satisfying life. Not saying a life without problems.

He obviously never promises us that. In fact, those of us who followed him a long time sometimes know you hit more hard knocks and following him than it feels like. But I'm all about making scripture, making a faith doable and fun for our kids.

At the back of the book, I share a lot of strategies for that. One of my favorites is we call it and you growing up in a home where you didn't know the Lord would love this. We call it the Happy Hope Game. And it's just after dinner and it's really a spin on sharing a praise report or a prayer request. But, you know, for kids, they hear what's your praise report or what's your prayer request? You know, that can be a little intimidating and a little like, oh, great, there goes Mom on her church platform again. Or if you have a friend at the dinner table, like say your football buddy had invited you to his home, you might have been a little intimidated if his mom had said, well, what's your prayer request?

Oh, yeah. And so we play the Happy Hope Game. And it's just simply, hey, tell me one thing that happened this week you're happy about.

That's a praise report, you know, and tell me something that you hope is going to happen. Well, that's a prayer request. And whether the kids know it or not, as the parent, I can take those things back to my prayer journal later and remember to pray for them. And I love there's an author, Pete Greg. He wrote a book called How to Pray, and he made the point that God sometimes listens to our casual conversations and receives them as prayers. And he takes that out of Malachi 3.16 where Scripture says that those who feared the Lord talked among themselves and God listened and heard. And I love the idea that God is listening to our dinner table conversations. And so when we're playing the Happy Hope Game, he knows that as a mom, I'm listening to you say, I'm really happy that we won the football game.

And he knows that I'm saying thank you, Lord, for giving him that time of fellowship and that win. I also want to ask Jodie, though, that parent who's listening right now, who is struggling with their teenager that's moving in a really bad direction. I mean, it may be, you know, drugs are in the home or something like that. And that to me is evidence of John 10 10 as well.

The steal, kill and destroy part. This is the destructive path a child can choose. And it's going to occur sometime in those teen years. How do they pray with any confidence? Because right now, in the moment, it looks hopeless.

It does look hopeless. And I was that parent. We had four kids. And I think probably anybody who has more than one kid, even if you have one kid, you know, they may say things are always it happens. You know, it doesn't just because you have a Christian home doesn't mean that you're going to have these guaranteed straight, narrow kids. And I would say to that parent, first of all, you're not alone. God knows exactly how you feel.

He's watched us make the dumbest decisions, walk the wildest paths. And he loves your child more than you do. You might think they're out of your reach either physically because they're not home or even just emotionally. They're sitting across the table, but they don't want to listen to you, you know, but they're never out of God's reach. And so I would just encourage that parent to just keep lifting their child before the Lord, bringing in his name, her name, their needs, and trusting that your Heavenly Father who loves them more than you do and has more power than you do. You know, our prayers, they lay down the tracks for God's power to come through.

We don't do the fixing, the providing we wish we could. But I love, my favorite parenting prayer when I had teenagers was out of Philippians 2, 13. That's where Paul says, it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. And as a mom, I so felt like it was on me, like I need to work in my kids so that they would will and act, they would desire and do good things. But you know, we can't, right? You know, none of us can. God can.

And so I would just say, God, work in Virginia's heart to will and to act, to line up with your good purpose. Let me ask you in that context as a mom, and I think moms, this is close to their heart. And I'm sure some dads too, but I'm just saying the moms I've talked to my own observation of Jean, the same thing. And, you know, so often that fear and control can take a hold of you. And it's very hard to say, Lord, okay, I'm going to give my child over to you right now. And that then is followed up by certain behavior changes, right? You reduce your controlling nature. You trust God in certain ways. You become more faithful toward your parenting of that child. And that is a process, isn't it? Speak to that mom who is struggling in that battle between fear and control and trusting God for the outcome. Yeah, that's such a good question and one that I wish I could say I had learned once and for all.

Wouldn't it be great if we could say, God, I trust you? And then, you know, we've screwed that courage to the sticking place and it's never left. Well, it's probably all different degrees too, right? Different degrees.

New degrees, new problems crop up. God's faithful in one situation and then another child or another event happens and you've got to take it right back to the drawing board. But I'll tell you, God really did a gentle but hard work in me as I said to him, Lord, things were not going like I thought they would in my kids' lives for a season.

They were making some bad choices and there were just some bad things happening that maybe weren't a result of a choice. And I remember saying, Lord, I trusted you. You know, you're a good God.

I know you love my kids. What's going on? And he looked at me and he just said, you know, Jody, you didn't trust me. You trusted in an outcome.

You trusted in your agenda, how you thought things should work and in your timing. And he said, yeah, this is painful but trust me because I see the big picture and I'm shepherding and leading. And as Romans 8, 28 reminds us, working in all things for the good of those who love me. And Jody, in that regard, right at the end here, and I think a good takeaway for the parents listening right now would be suffering plays a role in God's economy. It accomplishes something deep in people. And it's not that we run from it. We shouldn't run from it.

But how to equip our children to abide in it. Yeah. Wow, that's a big one. It is such a big one and I think, you know, we can trick ourselves into thinking God doesn't want us to suffer. But like I was just reading this morning in Philippians 1 and Paul says to all the believers, he's like, you've been counted worthy to share in his glory and in his suffering. And I'm like, what do you mean I should be thankful that I get to count, you know, be happy to be in his suffering.

But he does use it to refine us, to shape us. And it's no fun. And for a parent, I think it's really hard to watch your child suffer. There's nothing harder. But we just can be confident that God will use all of that, the good and the bad, to work as good purposes. And I think in doing that, when you can get to that place, then the scripture that says my burden is light, my yoke is easy. That's evidence of that when you can really abide in that difficult circumstance, trusting God, praying for your child, believing in the future of that child, even if they're in the valley in that moment.

And it's not easy. I don't, you know, a listener might listen and go, oh, she says, just trust me. And I would encourage someone, too, if they're in that valley, in that dark place, to reach out to a friend. I really believe in the power of multiplied prayer.

You know, Jesus says where two or more come together, I'm in the midst. And there were times in our kids growing up years when I tell the story in the book when our son was in kindergarten and he struggled so much with self-control that I just wanted to buy him a pack of cigarettes and put him out on the street corner because I'm like, he's going to wind up there anyway, so why bother trying to parent him or raise him to be godly because I give up. And I had some girlfriends who came alongside me, people in my mom's and prayer group and others, who said, you know, you don't have the faith right now to believe for this.

You can't even see the needle moving. But we'll pray for you. We'll lift up your son. We'll carry that burden for you and with you.

And I'll tell you, they did that for me for over a year. And God moved. He moved. And I will say, if you met my son now, he's 25, you would never know that he'd struggled with self-control, self-discipline, with anger issues, with all of that. And it wasn't this instant answer.

You know, he was a high school athlete, a college athlete. And I think sometimes that's the other thing, you know, the passion that's in there that can come out as anger can also be a passion that in the hands of God can allow for victory on a sports field. You know, it's the two different sides of the coin. So I would just say, hang in there, but get yourself some friends who'll carry that with you. Well, that's a beautiful approach. And we need to be that friend. If we're not the one in the valley with our kids, we need to be the one that's helping. Yeah, we rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.

Exactly right. Jody, this has been terrific. I think you've caught the theme of what we're talking about here. We're going to come back again tomorrow and continue this discussion and talk about maybe technology and how that interferes, the busyness of life, how that interferes with praying to God. I mean, when we think about it, I can't believe, and I'm as guilty as anybody else, how we get distracted in our prayer time and whatever that might be. We're going to hit some of that, the busy mom.

And the only time you have to pray is when you're loading laundry maybe or doing some other thing, working and coming home and trying to take care of the kids. We get it. We're going to cover that next time. And I want to encourage you to contact us here at Focus on the Family on, you know, multiple levels. If you're in need of our counseling department, it's free. We will call you back.

They usually have to do that. And we'll talk with you about some ideas and things and provide you with resources even to get to the better next step. Also, ma'am, we'll send you a copy of Jody's book, Praying the Scriptures for Your Children, if you can help us in the ministry. Send us a gift of any amount, seriously, any amount, and we'll send you the book as our way of saying thank you on behalf of those families that you're going to touch through Focus on the Family. It's a great way to do the partnership and doing ministry here. So if you could do that, that'd be very helpful. And again, join us next time when we continue this discussion with Jody.

We're a phone call away, 800, the letter A and the word family, or click the link in the episode notes and let us know how we can help you. Jody, again, it's been great to have you with us. We'll be back next time, right? Sounds great. Thanks so much. Good. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. And do plan to be with us next time as we continue the conversation and once again, help you and your family thrive in Christ. We'll see you next time.