How to Pray Effectively for Your Discouraged Child

Mothers have a sixth sense, a superpower for detecting discouragement in our children. Sometimes we pick up on a prolonged silence, a tone of voice, or even a topic they don’t talk about. This all causes me to wonder what tipped off the Apostle Paul when he wrote to encourage his spiritual children in Ephesus.

Ephesians was written from prison, and Paul was doing time for the simple reason that he had been faithful in declaring the gospel. Somehow he knew that the church at Ephesus was suffering over his suffering, likely even feeling guilty that Paul had been imprisoned for ministering to them! In Ephesians 3:13, he wrote, “I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.”

When we sense discouragement in our children, it’s natural to want to distract them, to solve the problem, or to do something really good to help them feel better. What if, instead of focusing on external circumstances, we modeled our parenting on the Apostle Paul and went straight to the heart of the problem? What if our first response to our child’s discouragement was prayer?

What if our first response to our child’s discouragement was prayer?

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Strength Instead of Discouragement

For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named…” (3:14-15a)

Since Paul begins his prayer for spiritual strength with the words “for this reason,” we have permission to draw a direct line to the previous verse about the Ephesians losing heart. He holds them and their discouragement before the Lord, the one who has made them a family.

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…that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…” (3:15b-17a)

Knowing that God’s help is limitless and available to every believer, Paul asks God to grant spiritual power to his downhearted children. He wants Christ to be “at home” in their hearts based on their continuing trust and submission to his lordship.

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that you, being rooted and grounded in love…” (3:17b)

Discouragement uproots us. We don’t feel safe, and we won’t take risks.

When our children are discouraged, they might be tempted to draw inward, to play things safe, to become selfishly introspective. Paul prayed for a strong foundation of love that would enable self-giving service to others—the surest path to encouragement.

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You…may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…” (3:18-19a)

When discouragement is the biggest thing in the room, we need outside help to envision anything bigger. God is willing to help our discouraged children at every stage in life to understand the fullness of his love. In her books for children, Sally Lloyd Jones describes it as God’s “never-stopping, never-giving-up, unstopping, always-and-forever love.” Paul seems to be faltering for words to encompass its vastness and resorts to the paradox of knowing the unknowable.

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…that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (3:19b)

This Ephesians 3 prayer invites believing parents to join Paul in asking God to fill up our child’s emptiness. As much as we love our kids, that’s an assignment way outside our pay grade. And yet God hasn’t promised merely to save us. He promises satisfaction. Sometimes this means waiting for change to occur in God’s timing. Sometimes it means accepting circumstances that are not what we envisioned but are, nonetheless, God’s will for a season.

Our prayers for our children are our greatest gift to them. There’s nothing we can do that is more effective in supporting their spiritual formation, and we can offer them no greater help when they are discouraged.

When discouragement is the biggest thing in the room, we need outside help to envision anything bigger. God is willing to help our discouraged children at every stage in life to understand the fullness of his love.

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