Parents, Pray The Answer

Are you praying the problem or the answer?  Often times, we have situations in our lives that challenge our faith and prayer lives.  How we respond to these challenges has the potential for either building our faith stronger than it’s ever been or leading us into a wilderness that’s hard to maneuver.

There was a time in my life where a change in my response made a huge difference in the strength of my faith.  My teenage son had turned his back on God and family and was living a life that would keep any parent from sleeping at night.  People at church would ask “How’s your son doing?”  My response was usually something like “He’s still living in the world.” until one day when I was praying and I kept hearing myself say that over and over.  I felt weaker every time I heard it play in my head.  I remember saying to myself “You’ve been praying the problem.  Start praying the answer.”.  From that day on, my response was “He’s coming home!”  And he did.  A few months later, my son came home.  He was skinnier than I had ever seen him and his skin had a green tint.  His body was not healthy from everything he had put in it.  But my God is bigger than any damage he had done to his body.  My prayer and “answer” was then “Lord, You called my son to Your work at a very early age.  I don’t believe You will let anything he did in the world hinder Your will in his life.  Thank you for delivering him from evil and for restoring his health so that he can serve you all the days of his life.”   I held fast to Isaiah 53:5 which tells us we “are” healed by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  It was done over 2000 years ago.  I believed God had delivered my son from every bad chemical he put in his body but I also believed that God was restoring his body and that no negative impact on his body could exist.

Over the next few months, God had me breathe life back into my son by way of speaking His Word to my son, and edifying his spirit man.  I began to see my little boy come back alive minus the rage that had previously been there.

Twelve years later and my son is an incredible man with a heart for God that melts my heart.  He serves our Lord with zeal and in ways I believe only he, with the experiences he went through, could think of.  He found the wife God had picked out for him and together, they have a beautiful daughter who also has a  heart for God and His love.  God’s favor has certainly found a home in my son’s life and I thank Him every day for loving him through all the “junk” to get him to a grace-filled life.

I share this because I believe there are parents today that are discouraged by what they see their children doing.  Pray the answer!  Not the problem.  God hears your prayers and responds.  Believe it!  I did.