How to start praying for your family…

Are you a mamma who loves Jesus? You regularly go to church, you love having a good praise and worship time in the kitchen but you still need a little help when it comes to your prayer life? Praying is one of those things that is highly contested by Satan. He does not want you to have a close and loving relationship with your true father so he pushes hard against you when you sit to pray. I want to show you how to start praying for your family and my prayer is that through praying for those you love, you will develop a closer and more intimate relationship with God that spurs you on in your daily walk as a mamma.

You may think that firstly and most importantly, in order to have a good prayer life, you need to have faith that God is real?! But, the truth is deeper then that. Not only do you need to believe that God is real, you also need to truly believe that you are loved and liked by God and that he wants to hear your voice and give you some great things.

Hebrews 11 v 6 tells us “And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.”

Matthew 7 v 11 says “So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.”

In his book Dirty Glory; Go where your best prayers take you, Pete Greig writes “The most important discovery you will ever make is the love the father has for you. Your power in prayer will flow from the certainty that the One who made you likes you, he is not scowling at you, he is on your side… Unless our mission and our acts of mercy, our intercession, petition, confession, and spiritual warfare begin and end in the knowledge of the Fathers love, we will act and pray out of desperation, determination, and duty instead of revelation, expectation, and joy.”

Do you know how deeply loved you are? Ask God to show you a bit more today just how much he adores you. This is the first step in praying for your family because if you truly understand and believe that the God of all heaven and earth loves you so much, you will know that he also deeply loves your family and you will find yourself drawn to your prayer times in a exciting and meaningful way.

Next, my advice would be to pick a consistent, daily time. Whenever works for you works for God so just choose a time that you will remember each day.

For me this is most often first thing in the morning. I love the morning so I get up very early for some time with God each day.

Once you have picked a time, stick with it. Even if you can only manage 5-10 mins to start with. If you are consistent with this time, you will see that deeper prayer times can grow from here.

Lastly, once you have asked God to show you how much he adores you, chosen (and stuck to) a consistent daily time to pray, you need to start writing! I would highly recommend writing down your prayers, fears, hopes and especially any answered prayers as this can not only help you keep focused while you pray but it will also be a huge motivation to keep going when things get stagnant or down right hard work! Looking back through answered prayers has been a powerful discipline for me and I pray you will enjoy looking back and noticing where God is moving in your family.

As always, please know that I am praying for you as you navigate this crazy hard but immensely rewarding journey into parenting as the bible teaches.