The Greatest Gift You Can Offer Your Children and Grandchildren

Ever since our oldest son was born, I have been inscribing my children’s initials in the margins of my Bible next to verses that I have prayed for them. For a long time, there were four sets of initials, but then the wives and the grandchildren started adding to the family. Today, the count is sixteen Morin kids and grandkids. My margins are getting crowded!

I may have to stop using initials to mark those special verses, but I certainly won’t stop praying God’s Word for my family. The words of God and the wishes of God for his children are much more reliable than my own, and so, in my determination to pray for truly good things, I have paid special attention to biblical prayers.

Paul is especially wise and redemptive in his prayers for the people he served, and this week I was drawn to his final greetings to the church at Colossae. He lists by name the “beloved brothers” and “fellow workers” who encouraged and comforted him. Then he comes to Epaphras, who not only sends his greetings to the Colossians, but also prays for them:

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God” (Colossians 4:12).

What He Prays For

If my children and grandchildren “stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God,” their lives will be fruitful and wonderful! Epaphras has the right idea, and his goal for the Colossian believers aligns perfectly with the Apostle Paul’s:

“[Christ] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.”  (Colossians 1:28-29).

Like Paul and Epaphras, we want the people we love to stand, to be fully convinced and confident in a mature faith. We long for them to be assured of God’s favor and committed to living according to God’s will.

Like Paul and Epaphras, we want the people we love to stand, to be fully convinced and confident in a mature faith. We long for them to be assured of God’s favor and committed to living according to God’s will.

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How He Prays

I’m stopped in my tracks by the words Paul uses to describe Epaphras’s prayer life:
“…always struggling on your behalf” (4:12).
I see the same urgency in Paul’s prayer: “For this I toil…” (1:29)

This sounds like work! It sounds like wrestling and effort and exertion. This does not sound like the kind of prayer that I throw into the air with half of my mind on dinner plans and another quarter of it trying to remember whether I switched the laundry over to the dryer.

Thanks be to God, even Paul didn’t presume to labor in this kind of intercession in his own strength. Yes, he toils, but he does it, “struggling with all [God’s] energy that he powerfully works within me” (Colossians 1:29). That’s how we wrestle in prayer for the people we love.

We live by faith, and we pray by faith. We fight all of our spiritual battles by faith.
That doesn’t mean prayer is effortless. The Spirit of God labors through us, but even so, it’s hard work.
We might have to stay awake when we’d rather sleep.
We must make the decision to set aside time to devote to prayer.
We intercede—even when our list for the day is long and full.
We wrestle in prayer because we know there’s a battle raging.

Prayer is warfare. We offer up our time, our faith, and our energy in a way that is unseen and that no one but God may ever know about. It’s the greatest gift we can offer to our children and grandchildren.

Holding You in the Light,

Prayer is warfare. We offer up our time, our faith, and our energy in a way that is unseen and that no one but God may ever know about. It’s the greatest gift we can offer to our children and grandchildren.

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I’ve Got a New Devotional Plan Ready for You

Grief comes to everyone sooner or later, and whether it’s the death of a loved one or the loss of some cherished aspect of our life or identity, God’s Word is crucial for grieving well. Past hurts have a habit of snagging our hearts in unexpected moments, but God provides abundant grace to help the believer move through grief without getting stuck and without wasting the opportunity to walk more closely with the Lord who lightens our darkness.

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