Q:   If I sometimes forget to pray over my children and their lives, does that mean that God will leave them unprotected?

A.  The answer to your question is, very firmly, “No.”

Friend, if you are a parent who is trying to carry this burden, then I want you to just look at the lives of other people. There are so many people serving God right now who never had parents who prayed for them. In some cases, not only did the parents not pray for their children, but they didn’t even love or care about them, they weren’t saved, or they didn’t know how to be a good parent. I know people whose parents didn’t even want them.

But in the midst of all these weaknesses on the parents’ part, God’s call and His mercy and grace were on the lives of the children. Thanks to His plan working in their lives, God is doing amazing things with those people today.

Right now, I’m thinking of one man in particular who’s a powerful evangelist, but he didn’t grow up with good parents. When he was young, his mother left him out on the street! Then the people who found him were alcoholics, and as he grew up, he became rebellious and he did wrong things. This was not a happy story, friend, but then God showed up in his life.

This boy had not experienced love or security. No parents were praying for his salvation or his protection — but God’s power, God’s love, and God’s plan came upon that child. It didn’t matter what his parents had or had not done, because God was moving in his life.

Friend, our prayers are powerful, and it’s a privilege to pray for our children, but their success can’t just depend on our prayers — many times, we don’t even know what we need to be praying for our children! But we can have hope in the fact that God’s hand is on our children.

Psalm 112:1-2 says, “I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread. He is ever merciful, and lends; And his descendants are blessed.” 

If you’re a believer, then this promise is for you: your children, your seed, are blessed. That’s what God does for those who put their trust in Him.

I hope that this truth sinks deep into your heart, friend: your faith for the success of your child has to be laid on God’s shoulders, not your own. If their success depended on us being perfect parents, I don’t know that any of our children would serve God. I’m not a perfect parent, my husband’s not a perfect parent, and neither are you, but we trust in a perfect God, and He is moving in our children’s lives no matter what our weaknesses may be.