Pray without ceasing.
1 Thessalonians 5:17 NKJV
I came across the titles of Mark Batterson’s Circle series among the one of the lovely groups I belong to on Goodreads. Several of the group were recommending it highly, saying how it had helped their prayer life. So, when Praying Circles around Your Children, became free on Kindle, I decided to download it. Not because I have children of my own (I don’t) but I figured that although the emphasis would be about praying for your children, the basic principles would be there that I could adapt for me personally.
So, on Sunday, I decided to start reading it – and got so caught up in it, I finished it that day too! I also knew what I would blogging about today!
The idea of the circle prayers is the theme of 1 Thessalonians 5:17 – to keep praying until you receive an answer, even if that answer takes years to come. Sometimes I find that persistence in prayer is extremely hard when Heaven remains silent, and yes, there have been times when on certain issues I’ve given up. One sentence from this book did stop me in my tracks: 100% of the prayers I don’t pray won’t get answered. Seems so obvious, doesn’t it? Yet, it brought me up short – if I don’t pray, then I’m not going to see an answer to them – how much have I missed out on, just because I didn’t pray, because I thought God wouldn’t be interested?
I am a big believer in praying Scripture. I have Lee Robert’s Praying God’s Will for My Life to thank for getting me started on that road several years ago. I have since added and expanded my requests, and have found praying Scripture to be a very powerful form of prayer.
Mark Batterson’s books encourage this, and in Praying Circles around Your Children he not only encourages you to pray Scripture for your children, but also to pray it with them. If one of his children has a problem, then they will find a Scripture and pray it with them. His daughter was suffering a confidence problem, so Mark and his wife Lora prayed with Summer a Scripture that would build her
up. I loved how Mark set aside time in the morning before the children rushed off to school to individually sit with them for a few minutes to pray Scripture with them that would help meet their needs. What a wonderful way to help build your children up, to teach them about prayer, how to pray, and to together see the answers unfold.
Finally, I just want to share an account of another father mentioned in the book. He has 3 children, and for each child he has a Bible that he has set aside for them. For each Scripture that he prays for them, he highlights it in “their” Bible. Before his eldest child went to college, the father handed his son the Bible with all the prayers he had prayed for him highlighted, so he could see how his father had been praying for him over the years! Isn’t that a beautiful idea! How wonderful for a child to have a gift of his parent’s prayers for him! I know I’m going to be doing something similar when I have children. If you missed out on doing this with your own children, well, it’s not too late to start! You can also do 
this for your grandchildren.
Let’s surround our children with our prayers for them, and also praying with them, so they can grow into mighty prayer warriors themselves as we battle through life, triumphing gloriously on the victory side!
~ Wendy Sparkes ~