This post is a continuation of “Praying for Your Kids.”
In the tradition of Judaism, at every Sabbath meal once a week, the father blessed each of his children. Because of this, I believe it was no accident that throughout the millennia, the Jewish people have statistically been the most educated, inventive, and financially successful race the world has ever known, per capita.
Why? Because they never had identity crises. They knew who they were and where they belonged. They were grounded in the knowledge of their purpose in life. They knew who their parents were and Who their God was and that they were loved by both parents and had favor with God. Their lives revolved around their family and their faith was an inseparable part of their daily life. In these, they had a significant foundation for their lives. They understood they were set apart. They knew they were not to accept or participate in the culture and traditions of the pagans who lived around them.
We and our secularized society have no such grounding. On a multitude of fronts, the media have discredited parental authority to a large degree that even people of faith have been influenced by the pagan beliefs of our culture. Our children have been indoctrinated to accept those views by both the public and some private institutions causing them to look for and form their identity in their peers and the media, instead of from their parents.
Television programming show adults, especially men/fathers, as idiots and kids as cleverer and more ‘with it.’ It’s no wonder our youth aren’t embracing adulthood by committing to long-term relationships and marriage or wanting to have children of their own, but living with their parents well into their thirties. They don’t know Whose they are and what He created them to be and accomplish in their lives. By that I mean,
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” ~Genesis 1:26
In other words, the world is their oyster, so to speak. It was created for them to go out boldly and conquer in the strength and power of God. Instead, our children are afraid of their shadows, afraid of making mistakes, committing to or marrying the wrong person just to inevitably get divorced in a few years or even months; or having children and not raising them “right;” or simply not wanting the responsibility of it all. Yet, regardless of our vocation, married or single, God calls us to do it boldly, fearlessly, not uncertain or cowering in the shadows.
It is a responsibility to ‘fill the earth and subdue it.’ To take dominion over the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air and all creatures that crawl upon the earth. It takes strength of character and understanding one’s place in this world and in God’s sight.
By blessing our children, as the Jews did, the person that God created them to become begins to come forth. Especially for Catholics, the use of Holy Water can begin to wash away the filth thrust upon and consumed by them every day. God has placed His holy design and desire for each child in each of their hearts, but the filth of our culture has buried that holy design to the point they don’t even know it’s there. Therefore, they feel they have no purpose and nothing significant for which to live.
As parents, we, as children of God, also have God-given authority. To call forth our children to become the person God ordained them to become from before they were even conceived.
Parents, do not cower. Be strong in your authority as parents. With the leading of the Holy Spirit, boldly, call forth your children in prayer, releasing them from the lies of the enemy that have bound them from knowing and grasping the truth of who they are, who God created them to be.
Here is a prayer that can be used as a starting point, then add specific issues of concern.
“As the parent of (name) and with the parental authority given to me by God, and in the name of Jesus, Holy Spirit, I pray for a happy and fulfilling life of peace and joy and for (name) to know the desires of their heart put there by God and His purpose for (name’s) life. Release all my children from the lies and schemes of the enemy and cleanse them from the ways they have indulged those lies, so that they may know the life of peace and joy You desire for them. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.”
