Trade Panic for Peace as You Pray
Have you ever wondered what God was doing in your children’s lives? Have you ever felt like he wasn’t paying attention to your prayers, or that he wasn’t answering them the way you wanted him to?
I know I have. And I know I’m not the only mother who has ever questioned God’s tactics. Even my “spiritual giant” friend, Susan, found herself wondering what was up when her son, Michael, started suffering from violent stomach pains. Their pediatrician dismissed the problem as nothing more than a flu bug, but when the symptoms persisted and Susan began noticing blood in the little boy’s urine, she and her husband, Randy, decided to consult a specialist. A battery of tests confirmed their worst fears: at just three-and-a-half years old, Michael had something called Berger’s disease — an illness that, according to the doctors, was almost always fatal.
Susan was overcome with sadness and confusion. Why did this have to happen to her precious boy? Could it have been prevented? Had she given him too much milk as a baby or omitted something critical from his diet? Was God trying to punish her for some unconfessed sin?
Hurling accusations at herself and at God, Susan picked up her Bible and turned to John 9, the passage she was scheduled to read for her Bible study. In it, Jesus encountered a man who had been blind from birth. “Rabbi,” his disciples asked, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Susan’s heart leapt into her throat as she read Jesus’ answer: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”
This happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. Reading those words, Susan felt God’s peace welling up inside her, along with the sudden realization that he was in control. For the first time since Michael’s ordeal had begun months earlier, Susan found herself willing and able to set aside her own desires—namely, that her son would be healed—and begin to pray what she called “bigger picture” prayers.
She prayed for the young girl in the hospital bed next to Michael’s and the impact their family’s faith might have on the girl and on her family. She prayed for the doctors and the hospital staff. She prayed for Michael to see God’s providence and blessing, even in the midst of his fear and pain. And most of all, she prayed that God would be glorified.
“The idea that Michael’s illness was an opportunity for God to work really set me free,” Susan later told me. “I was able to take my eyes off of our problems and focus on God and his purposes.” And God’s purposes, as it turned out, included a welcome surprise: Michael’s “illness” ultimately revealed itself as nothing more than a kidney stone—incredibly painful, but easily removed, and not at all life-threatening!
You would be hard-pressed to find a mother who would not understand or sympathize with Susan’s initial fear and confusion. As anyone who has ever momentarily “lost” a child on a crowded beach or in the racks of a department store can tell you, it doesn’t take much to send our maternal instincts into overdrive. And in an age when threats to our kids’ safety seem to lurk around every corner, it can be all too easy to let our worries run wild.
But that’s not what God wants us to do. He wants us to exchange panic for peace as we pray. “Don’t worry about anything;” says Philippians 4:6, “instead, pray about everything. Tell God your needs, and thank him for what he has done.”
God hears our prayers. And when we allow Scripture to shape our desires and impact how we pray, we can be confident that he will answer. “If you remain in me and my words remain in you,” Jesus says in John 15:7-8, “ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
“The true purpose of prayer,” writes R. A. Torrey, “is that God may be glorified in the answer.”
We might not always know what God is up to (and Isaiah 55:8-9 confirms that his thoughts are not our thoughts; they are higher), but when we follow Susan’s lead and pray with an expectation that God will be glorified in and through our children’s lives, we leave room for him to answer however he wants.
We can’t always see his hand, but we can trust God’s heart.
is the bestselling author of Praying the Scriptures for Your Children and the follow-up volumes for Teens and Adult Children. A speaker and Bible teacher, Jodie believes that there is not a need we will face in parenting—or in any part of our lives—that God has not already thought of, and provided for, in his Word.
Jodie’s newest release, Praying the Scriptures for Your Children: 20th Anniversary Edition, includes all the stories, prayer principles, and biblically based prayer verses readers loved in the original book, plus all-new material on topics like praying for your child’s use of technology and their sense of identity, along with a kid-friendly bonus section designed to equip parents to pray not just for their children, but with them.
This beautiful hardcover volume comes with a satin ribbon and a presentation page, making it perfect for gifting. And if you want to use the book as a Bible study or for small group discussion, you’ll find the companion Study Guide and a free, seven-session Video Series (a $24.99 value) at jodieberndt.com.
Photograph © Rachel Coyne, used with permission
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