7 Things to Pray Regularly for Your Child's Faith Journey

  • Seth L. Scott Columbia International University
  • Updated Aug 21, 2023
7 Things to Pray Regularly for Your Child's Faith Journey

Being a parent seems to provoke equal parts joy, terror, frustration, and satisfaction as you seek to model, mold, and disciple your children along their faith journey. Scripture is full of examples of parents’ prayers seeking guidance, hope, encouragement, and specific responses from God for current or future children (Gen. 17:18; 1 Chr. 29:19; 1 Sam. 1:9-28). The Christian faith journey is unique in that one’s parents can be biological or spiritual, expanding both the opportunity and scope of our focused prayers for those following our faith journey’s footsteps. While we all should be praying for opportunities to share the impact of God’s love and grace in our lives toward others, there is a particular fervency in praying specifically for those with whom God has entrusted you. Pew Research (2020) found that most teens still share their parents' religious beliefs, influenced by their parents' words and actions. Prayer is experiential, engaging in a relationship with God and allowing aligning our thoughts, desires, and activities with the plans and purposes of God (Psalm 37:4-5).

Praying for our children reminds us of our dependency on God for all things and how His love for our children is even greater than our own, allowing us to release our grasp on them and see ourselves rightly – as stewards entrusted with introducing them to a relationship with God and then releasing them to His hands and purpose for their journey with Him. It is necessary to establish an intended destination when planning the path and pace of a trip. Praying these seven things regularly will change what we see and how we respond to the parenting process. Praying specific items for your child’s faith journey will align your desires for what matters for your children with God’s desires. Still, it will also sanctify your reticular activating system, the part of your brain that regulates motor control, pain sensation, and sleep, among many functions. However, the reticular activating system also regulates habituation, which is how our brain learns to distinguish meaningless stimuli while attuning to other sensations. This part of the brain begins to notice other cars like the one we just bought or will tune out traffic noises but allow you to hear your baby crying.

Praying these seven things regularly for your children will align you with their intention and direct your attention to the development of these faith practices in your children through your example and expression (2 Tim. 1:5-7). 

Here are seven things to pray regularly for your child’s faith journey:

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  • family sitting together reading bible

    1. A Growing Relationship with the Lord

    As John expressed in his third letter, there is “no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 4). This is the initial prayer for any parent desiring that their children respond to the gospel and become of Christ. Because salvation is an ongoing relationship with the Lord and not just a single decision or act, the prayer that encompasses your child’s faith journey is the prayer for a sustained and growing relationship with the Lord. Our journey with the Lord is a relational journey, growing through the experiential knowledge of God’s love and provision and joining Him in His suffering and death so that we can walk with Him perfectly forever in our resurrection from the dead (Phil. 3:8-12). We pray that our children will experience an overflow of God’s love and then live in the reality of that love, obedient to His commands and walking in His ways (1 John 2:3-6).

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  • Three children coloring

    2. Character in Action

    Because your child’s faith is a journey, forward movement on the walk is expected. We pray that our children will respond actively to their faith. Throughout Scripture, faith, belief, and obedience are concepts that assume action. The English language separates the cognitive from the behavioral, the belief from the action. Scripture does not do this; as we pray for our children, we pray in alignment with Scripture for their development. We pray that the testing of their faith will produce steadfastness and completion, journeying forward in joy, stable, and unwavering (James 1:2-8). True character forms through difficulties, molding us to positive action anchored by hope in God through enduring suffering (Rom. 5:2-5). While we desire safety and protection for our children, our prayer should instead be the formation of faith in action, which requires testing that faith to demonstrate its veracity and capacity without disappointment (Rom. 5:5). 

    3. A Desire and Pursuit for Wisdom 

    While we may want our children to be intelligent and successful in school and career, Scripture suggests that a critical trait for success in life is wisdom. As Proverbs 4:7 explains, “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight” (ESV). Proverbs 3:13-17 describe wisdom as better than riches and gold because the one who has wisdom is blessed, gains understanding, and enjoys pleasant paths of peace. We must pray for wisdom for our children because wisdom only comes from God but is available when we ask, producing traits of purity, peace, gentleness, rationality, mercy, impartiality, sincerity, peace or wholeness, and righteousness (James 1:5; James 3:17-18). Wisdom is the foundation for these critical virtues for our children to develop!

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  • Child sharing flower to someone

    4. Holiness and Sexual Purity

    A common prayer of parents is that their children know and do the will of God. This fourth point aligns with that prayer but adds a level of specificity that Scripture also provides. God’s will for us is not mysterious and unknown but specific and straightforward, though not easy. God wants us and our children to be holy. We are called to be distinct from the world around us, demonstrating a different loyalty than the world –loyalty to God and His desires and plans and not self-gratification (1 Thess. 4:1-7). We are to be holy because we are made in the image of God and redeemed by Christ to walk in the reality of our identity as new creatures, robed in righteousness and holiness, temples of God to reflect His glory and welcome others to relationship with Him through His Son (John 17:17-19). We pray that our children allow their relationship with God to permeate their thoughts and actions, responding in obedience and through grace to be holy (1 Peter 1:13-16).

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  • silhouette of mother with children sitting in grass outside happy, prayers for peace in the family

    5. Abiding Peace and Joy

    Along with Jesus, we should pray that our children are not removed from the world but kept from the snares of the evil one (John 17:15-16). Instead of praying against today's prevailing anxieties and stressors, the focus should be on instilling the solution of dependence on God, trusting in His provision, which produces peace and joy (Phil. 4:4-9). The expression and experience of peace and joy in our lives are evidence of the presence of the Spirit (2 John 1:3). Our experience as Christians is more like a corded power tool than a battery-operated tool. We do not come to the Bible or church to be recharged and then go out to live out that charge. Instead, we must be continuously connected, continually abiding, with Christ through His power to produce the fruit of the Spirit (John 15:5). Our prayer for their experience of shalom (holistic and restorative peace) and joy is not the absence of difficulty or struggle but the presence of a connection to Christ (John 15:4, John 15:8-11; Neh. 8:10). 

    6. Humility

    Which trait best exemplifies the presence of the Spirit at work in your child’s life in the Twenty-first century? In a world of self-focus and individual promotion, humility stands in stark contrast with our culture while also exemplifying both the person of Christ and the power of His presence in your life. Christ’s humility demonstrates both an extreme example and a means for replication. Humility is an accurate estimation and alignment of your inner self to the outer world, aware of your value and purpose, and able to operate from that estimation without needing lateral comparison or competition. Praying for humility for our children means that we are praying that they understand their identity as loved by God and their purpose to live out the overflow of that love to those around them (Mark 12:30-31). Jesus demonstrated this example on the cross, leaving behind His glory, taking on “the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men… he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:7-8). Christ has modeled true humility, but through His death, He has also empowered us to follow His example (Phil. 2:12-13). 

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  • diverse kids eating ice cream

    7. Unity within a Diverse Community

    The hallmark feature of the church from its formation has been unity within a diverse community (Acts 4:31-32). We are created for connection in relationship (Gen. 1:27), a relationship that modeled the perfect unity across the diversity of the Trinity until the Fall (Gen. 3:8), and now, only through the power of the Holy Spirit within us, can we model the hope of redemption through our unique relationships within our diverse community (John 17:11). This unified community is special because it is unified on the person and work of Christ and not an ordinary human trait or interest. This final prayer for your children is critical because while you will influence and model a relationship with the Lord, character, wisdom, holiness, abiding peace and joy, and humility, the practice of these traits should bloom and grow within the body of Christ “for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7). Our prayer is that our children can experience a living relationship with God through a loving and diverse community of believers that shape, sharpen, and sustain their faith journey as you train them to walk from child of yours to child of God and brother or sister in Christ.

    While every passage and promise of Scripture provides context and content to pray regularly for our children on their faith journey, these seven points encompass the traits and practices of children who are “walking in the truth” (3 John 4). Our prayers demonstrate our beliefs and drive our attention and training, so the regularly focused practice of praying these points should also drive your faith journey to provide a model for your children of the pace, passion, and direction of pursuing Christ on this lifelong journey of faith (1 Cor. 11:1).  

    References:
    Diamant, J., & Sciupac, E. P. (2020). “10 key findings about the religious lives of U. S. teens and their parents.” In Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/09/10/10-key-findings-about-the-religious-lives-of-u-s-teens-and-their-parents/

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    Seth L. Scott, PhD, NCC, LPC-S is an associate professor of clinical mental health counseling at Columbia International University in Columbia, South Carolina and provides clinical counseling and supervision in the community through his counseling practice, Sunrise Counseling. Seth, his wife, Jen, and their two middle school children enjoy outdoor activities, reading together as a family, board games, and meeting people through Jen’s pottery business at galleries and festivals.