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This week we are focusing on prayers for parents using Psalm 118 as our guide. Today’s prayer is about freedom. Don’t you want your children to live in the freedom Jesus provides?
Psalm 118:5
Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free.
Stress is not foreign to the human condition. From timed multiplication tests to SATs, our children will know the stress of exams. From the betrayal of friends to broken hearts, our kids will know that sometimes people hurt each other. From college applications to job interviews, anxiety does backflips in our stomachs. But the believer is never alone or helpless in distress.
Heavenly Father,
My children experience stressful situations each day as they go about their daily lives. Today’s challenge may seem small tomorrow, but it’s big today. Sometimes the stress in their lives seems overwhelming…at least to me. Help me teach them, by words and example, to call on you, the Great Companion who is always right at their side.
Thank you for hearing their call and answering them. You never turn a deaf ear, even when our troubles are self-inflicted. You never turn them away to fend for themselves. You never tell them to come back when they have their act together. Help them give their hurt to you. Help them hand over any unforgiveness, bitterness, disappointment, or desire to get even. Thank you for taking the heavy load from their heart and carrying it for them. Father, please help them to live as one set free.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
This devotion is particularly poignant for me today with a grown child struggling with a huge change in life ( career change) and so much stress working so hard to do everything necessary and do it right, trying to stay close to God but having nothing left over to give Him.