Stone Soup for Five: Praying for my boys

Praying for my boys


My name is Kari, and I struggle with prayer.

Prayer is hard like math and exercise.  And prayer in the midst of unending, ongoing, and exhausting struggle requires a huge amount of effort on my part, and I don't really know how to do it.

But today, as I'm struggling through things that happened yesterday and last night, I dug out my Warrior Prayers e-book and flipped to a section and started skimming.

Then I stopped and re-read:

"Perhaps the bet place for a weary mom to be is physically and emotionally exhausted...on her knees.

With each day that passes I'm more convinced that I have absolutely no power to change the hearts of my boys.  Oh, I can change their behavior if I try hard enough.  Anyone can do that.  But I know that what's in the heart eventually comes out.  I know that if their knees are ever to bend to Jesus as Savior their hearts must bend first.  And that's God's business.

I'm praying that you'll grasp this concept so clearly that it will bring you strength and peace in the midst of your wildest storms.  You cannot change the hearts of your boys.  You can't.  Period.  It's not your job.  It's so important that you get this, friends, because you're going to want to be able to change their hearts more than anything in the world.  Days, months, maybe even years of endless toil and labor for the sake of your sons will go by with no apparent fruit.  Night after night you will cry out to the Lord for change.  Day after day you will parent intentionally seeking the heart of your son.  But until the King of kings and Lord of lords turns His heart of stone to a heart of flesh, your son's actions will be motivated by what is pleasing to him rather than by what is pleasing to the Lord."

Amen.  I need to read this EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for this honest post that hit very close to home. I'll look forward to more....

    ReplyDelete

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