A prayer for our children: how to pray at every stage

There comes a moment in the life of every father and mother when you discover the limit. You can feed him, take him to the doctor, pay for his schooling, give him advice. But you cannot go everywhere with him. You cannot enter his heart, or choose for him, or protect him from everything. And then, perhaps in the small hours, standing by his bed or staring at a phone that does not ring, you do the only thing left, which is really the first thing: you pray. The Bible knows that hour:

“Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.”

Lamentations 2:19

This article is for those moments. We will look at why we pray for our children, which fathers and mothers in the Bible did so, which promises we can bring before God and how to pray without trying to control. Then you will find prayers for every stage: before birth, in childhood, in adolescence, when they are adults, when they are ill, when they have wandered away and when they are no longer with us.

Why pray for our children

Because they are God’s before they are ours. “Children are an heritage of the Lord” (Psalm 127:3). We did not manufacture them and we do not own them: they were entrusted to us for a time. To pray for them is to hand them back each day to their true owner.

Because there are places only God can reach. School, the street, the screen, the night, the future; and above all, the heart. Our hand has a reach; God’s does not.

Because Jesus receives them. When the disciples tried to keep the children away, Jesus was much displeased: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not” (Mark 10:14). “And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them” (Mark 10:16). To pray for a child is to carry them into those arms.

Because prayer changes us. It takes away the fear that makes us harsh, shows us where we have failed and gives us patience for the next day. Often God begins to answer a prayer for a child by transforming the one who prays.

Fathers and mothers who prayed in the Bible

Hannah asked for a child with tears, and when she had him she said: “For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition… Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:27-28). She prayed to receive him and prayed to give him back.

Manoah, Samson’s father, prayed the prayer of every parent who does not know what to do: that God would “teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born” (Judges 13:8).

Abraham prayed for the complicated son, the one who was not “the child of promise”: “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” (Genesis 17:18). And God answered: “as for Ishmael, I have heard thee” (Genesis 17:20). No child is left outside a parent’s prayer.

Job had grown-up children with homes of their own, and still he “rose up early in the morning” and offered a sacrifice for each one, for he said: “It may be that my sons have sinned.” “Thus did Job continually” (Job 1:5).

David pleaded for his sick child, fasted and lay all night on the ground (2 Samuel 12:16). And years later he wept for his rebellious son with a cry every parent understands: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Samuel 18:33).

The Canaanite woman cried out for her daughter and at first received silence. She did not leave. She persisted until she heard: “O woman, great is thy faith” (Matthew 15:28).

Jairus fell at Jesus’ feet: “My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come” (Mark 5:23). And the father of a sick boy prayed the most honest prayer in the Gospels: “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24). Jesus did not demand a perfect faith of him; he answered the faith he had.

Lois and Eunice, grandmother and mother, sowed in Timothy an “unfeigned faith” (2 Timothy 1:5). And outside the Bible, Christian history remembers Monica, who prayed and wept for many years for her son Augustine, until she saw him return to God. Read Samuel, prophet and judge.

Promises to bring before God

To pray with Scripture is to remind God of what he himself has said. These are some words a parent can hold on to:

“And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.”

Isaiah 54:13

“I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring” (Isaiah 44:3). “I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children” (Isaiah 49:25). “The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children” (Psalm 103:17). “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:31).

Something should be said honestly. These promises are not a contract obliging God to override our children’s freedom, nor a formula. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6) is a proverb: it teaches how things usually go; it does not pass sentence on parents whose children took another road. The father in the parable of the prodigal son represents God himself, and his son left. If your child is far away, do not conclude that you were a bad parent or that God did not hear you. Keep praying: the story is not over.

How to pray for them

1. Hand them over with open hands. To pray is not to dictate to God the plan we have for them, but to entrust them to the plan he has.
2. Pray for their heart more than for their success. Of the boy Jesus it is said that he “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). It is a good guide: mind, body, relationship with God, relationship with others. “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth” (3 John 4).
3. Pray with the Bible and with their name. Take a psalm and put your child’s name in it: “The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil… The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in” (Psalm 121:7-8).
4. Bless them. Lay your hand on their head before sleep or as they leave the house, and speak a blessing. You do not need to be a pastor: you are their father, you are their mother. And if they are grown or live far away, bless them all the same, even if they cannot hear you.
5. Pray with them, not only for them. “Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (Deuteronomy 6:7). A child who hears their parents pray for them never forgets it.
6. Call on the Holy Spirit for them. He can speak to them inwardly, where our words do not enter.
7. Persevere. Some answers take years. God counts both prayers and tears.
8. Pray for yourself too. To be the father or mother they need; and to have the humility to ask their forgiveness when you get it wrong. “Provoke not your children to wrath” (Ephesians 6:4).

Praying without controlling

Prayer is not a way of managing our children from a distance. “I am praying for you” can be a caress or a reproach, depending on how it is said. When children grow up, love changes shape: fewer orders, more listening; fewer sermons, more prayer in secret. The Father in the parable did not chain his son or follow him into the far country. He let him go, watched the road every day, and when he saw him coming, “ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). That is the model: to respect, to wait, and always to keep the door open and the table laid. Read The parable of the prodigal son.

And praying does not replace acting. If your child is in danger, is a victim of mistreatment or abuse, is using drugs or talks of harming themselves, seek professional help today. God also works through doctors, psychologists, teachers and the community.

Prayers for our children at every stage

For the child we are expecting

Lord, you already know this child. Before I see their face, your eyes see them and your hands are forming them in secret. Thank you for this life I do not deserve. I am full of hope and full of fear, both at once. Watch over this small body, watch over the mother, and prepare our hearts and our home. Come, Holy Spirit, and cover this child from now on, as you filled John with joy in Elisabeth’s womb. May they be born into a home where you are loved. From today this child is yours, Lord, before being ours. Amen.

For a small child

Father, thank you for this laughter, for these endless questions, for these hands that still reach for me. Forgive me the tiredness I sometimes pour out on my child, the shouting, the hurry. Keep them while they sleep and while they play; set your angels around them. May they grow up knowing they are loved, so that it is easy for them to believe that you love them. Come, Holy Spirit, and sow in this heart, so early, the love of Jesus. Teach me to speak of you simply and to show you with my life. Like the Good Shepherd, carry this lamb in your bosom. Amen.

For a teenager

Lord, my child is changing and I no longer know how to reach them. The bedroom door closes, the answers are short, and I am left outside with everything I would like to say. You are not left outside. Come, Holy Spirit, and go in where I cannot: into their doubts, their fears, what they look at when they are alone, what they think of themselves. Give them good friends. Keep them from what could mark them for life. Let them know who they are before others tell them. And give me patience, ears, and the courage neither to let go nor to smother. May their faith become their own, not an inherited one. Amen.

For a grown-up child

Father, it is no longer for me to decide for them. They have their own life, their own home, their own decisions, and some of those decisions hurt me. Teach me my new place: to advise only when asked, to be silent in time, to be there. Like Job, I rise today and set my child before you by name. Bless their work, their marriage, their children. Where they have gone wrong, be their way back. Come, Holy Spirit, and speak in the voice they do listen to. Heal what I did badly when they were small and which they may still carry. And whatever happens, let them know they have a father, a mother, who loves them. Amen.

For a sick child

Lord Jesus, like Jairus, I fall at your feet: my child is ill; come. I would give my health for theirs, and I cannot. You can. Lay your hand on my child. Heal them, Lord; I ask it with all that I am. Guide the doctors, make the treatments effective, take away the pain and the fear. Come, Holy Spirit, Comforter, and stay in this room; hold up those of us who are caring, too, for we are worn out. Say to me what you said to that father: “Fear not: believe only.” I believe, Lord; help my unbelief. My child is in your hands, which are better than mine. Amen.

For a child who has wandered away

Father, you know what it is to watch the road waiting for a child. Mine has gone: far from home, far from you, or far from both. I do not know where their heart is sleeping tonight. I have gone over what I did wrong a thousand times; I hand it to you. Forgive me, and free me from this guilt that will not let me pray with hope. Come, Holy Spirit, and reach my child where they are. Let them come to themselves, like the young man in the parable. Put someone in their path who will speak to them of you. Keep them alive. And prepare me, so that on the day they return they find no reproaches, only open arms. You said: “thy children shall come again.” I hold on to that. Amen.

For a child trapped in addiction

Lord, I am watching my child destroy themselves and I cannot stop it. I have begged, threatened, paid, wept. I am tired, and sometimes angry, and sometimes without faith. You came to set the captives free: my child is one of them. Break what binds them. Heal the wound they are trying to numb. Come, Holy Spirit, and give them a moment of clarity, and someone to help them in that moment. Give me wisdom to know when to hold on and when to set a limit, for I do not want to help them sink. Keep them alive until the day they come back. Do not let go of them, Lord. Neither will I. Amen.

For a child who is no longer here

Lord, there is no word for what I have been since my child died. I do not ask you for explanations; I could not bear them. I ask you to hold me up, because there are days when I cannot breathe. You also saw your Son die. Receive my weeping; do not ask me to be strong. Thank you for every day I had my child. I leave them in your hands, which loved them before I did and love them better. Come, Holy Spirit, Comforter, into this emptiness that nothing fills. Give me David’s hope: “I shall go to him.” Until that day, teach me to live. Amen.

For grandchildren

Lord, you have let me see my children’s children, and I thank you. I no longer have the strength I had, but I have time and I have memory: use them. Let me tell them what you have done with me, without wearying them and without keeping silent. Cover them in this world that is so different from mine. Come, Holy Spirit, upon this new generation; pour out your blessing on these young shoots. May the faith I received not stop with me. And when I am gone, let them remember that their grandmother, their grandfather, prayed for them every day. Amen.

A blessing to speak over them

This is the blessing God himself taught. You can say it every night, with your hand on your child’s head, or in silence, thinking of the one who is far away:

“The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.”

Numbers 6:24-26

When the answer is slow in coming

There are parents who have prayed for twenty years without seeing a change. To them the prophet speaks, in words addressed to a mother weeping for her children:

“Thus saith the Lord; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.”

Jeremiah 31:16-17

“Thy work shall be rewarded.” No prayer for a child is lost. Some answers we shall see here; others, perhaps, only from eternity. But the God who heard Hannah, Jairus and the Canaanite woman is still listening.

Frequently asked questions

Can I pray for my children if I myself have been far from God? Yes, and it is a beautiful way to come back. God does not reject the prayer of a repentant parent. Read Coming back to Christ.

My child wants nothing to do with faith. Is there any point in praying? There is. Your prayer does not force their freedom, but it opens paths you cannot see. Pray, love them unconditionally, and do not turn every meeting into a sermon.

I am not the biological parent. Does my prayer count? Adoptive parents, step-parents, grandparents, godparents, teachers: anyone who loves a child can set them before God. Mordecai brought up Esther; Eli brought up Samuel.

How do I pray if I do not know what to ask? Say their name before God and stay in silence. The Spirit intercedes with groanings that do not fit into words (Romans 8:26). Read How to learn to pray.

You will find more help in Raising children according to the Bible, How to raise our children in uncertain times, The Bible and children, The Bible and young people and A prayer for our parents.

Closing prayer

Father in heaven, from whom every family takes its name, today I place my children in your hands, one by one, with their name and their story. (Say them here.) You loved them before I knew them, and you will love them when I am no longer here. Forgive my mistakes as a father, as a mother, and do not let them pay for my wounds. Come, Holy Spirit, and rest upon my home: on the one who sleeps peacefully and on the one who keeps me awake. Keep them from evil. Draw them to Jesus with cords of love. And teach me to love them as you love me: without letting go and without gripping too tightly, always waiting. They are yours, Lord. I give them back to you every day. Amen.