How to Pray in Hope for Your Family

Our prayer emphasis for the month of February is the family. The family is our origin point, it’s where we come from. It’s said that you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family. It is THE group of people that God has sovereignly placed us in, and the ones that we need to pray for the most.

Our goal this month, will be praying intentionally and effectively with HOPE for each and every member of our family, pouring out to the God of HOPE, believing by faith that He is able to love, lead, provide, guide, guard, and even change them.

People often ask me, ‘How do you pray?’, so I thought I’d have you walk with me, as I outline my daily routine. When I pray for my family, I begin with me. I ask the Lord to reveal where I am falling short as a husband, father, brother, uncle and son, and what I need to change in me. I then ask for the Holy Spirit to fill me so that I am an example of Jesus to those I love. If Colossians 3:3 is true, “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”, then I need to do a better job of ‘hiding’ and getting out of the way so that my family sees and experiences Jesus through me. They don’t really need me … they need Him! I simply have the privilege of being His representative, His ambassador.

 After I ask Him how I can ‘hide’ more, and how He can be seen better through me, then I begin with my family member ‘inner circle’, those that He has placed most closely in my life. Beginning with my wife, then my kids, then my grandkids, expanding through the family circle out to our siblings, nieces and nephews, parents, and beyond.

So, then, what do I pray? I believe that the best prayer prompts come through our relationships and conversations. What I mean by that, is that as I live with my wife, and if I’m paying attention, listening, and taking an interest in what’s going on in her heart, mind, and life, and I asking the Holy Spirit to give me insight, I can pray more effectively and fervently for her. The same with my kids. Even though they’re grown, I value every interaction I have with them relationally. In every conversation, I try to ask questions about how they are doing and what’s going on in their lives, so that I can intercede for them.

The same goes for my grandchildren, I treasure every opportunity that I have to talk with them, even if it’s mostly on Zoom because of distance. I listen to what they are saying and ask them questions about what’s happening in their lives. When we lean in, we learn, and when we learn, we see the need and then we can intercede for them with knowledge and passion. When we press into our family relationships, our prayer lives, and our relationships grow stronger and deeper.

Quite frankly, it’s a similar process to the one that God uses with us, and is an important aspect of our own personal prayer lives. Even though He knows what we need, He asks us to bring our prayers and petitions to Him. He wants us to spend time in His presence, He wants to listen to us, He wants us to feel heard and know that we are seen and valued. He wants to pour out all joy and peace into our hearts as He builds relationship with us. There is a refrain from an old song that I believe illustrates it well, it goes, ‘and He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own, and the joy, we share, while we tarry there, none other has ever known.’ That, is relationship. That is prayer.