Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The Family that Prays Together....

Today I am going to intermingle basic blogging with a book review because the subject matter is too good to just write a book review!

I can remember my mom saying, "the family that prays together, stays together..." so many times in my life that I laugh about it now because I think she was on to something!   Now that I am married with children I can see the tangible benefits of praying together with my children, my husband and even friends.  I pray with my children at times to bring a sense of calming.  Andrew is particularly encouraging to pray with because I can see on his little face that he gets what I'm saying.  He is my child that asks me to pray when something is not feeling quite right or when he is upset about something.  A cute example of his faith came last weekend when we were on a little vacation.  We were at a resort over in Orlando and it just happened that there was a Dental Convention in town.  Irony would have it that we forgot our toothpaste.  We were laughing and talking about it in the elevator and a Dentist overheard us and handed us a tube of toothpaste. Braden piped up right away and said, "he blessed us." Andrew quickly followed, "yeah, he blessed us AND he blessed our teeth!"  That was one of those moments a mom wants to remember forever as it was so innocent and so full of the truth of how simple life can be.  It is one of those moments when you sense that God is doing a good work within your family even when you feel so inadequate to do the job well. 

If you've been in church for any amount of time you have heard time and time again how important it is for husband and wife to pray together.  I read a book recently entitled, Couples Who Pray.  The couple who wrote the book had not always been actively involved in prayer but had discovered after many hours of counseling and hardship that prayer was the one thing that seemed to bridge the gap of their heartaches.  After going around the mountain of bad relationship after bad relationship  both of these people found that it was the lack of their own faith and believing - not approaching the throne in prayer - that caused the troubles they experienced. 

We all need to take a step back and evaluate our prayer life. I have personally had a huge conviction of this in my own life.  Sometimes I find myself waiting for Mark to take the lead and ask me to pray with him and then realize that if the Holy Spirit has convicted my heart to pray as a couple then I need to be the one to speak up and tell Mark.  I've yet to have him shut me down when I ask him to pray with me.  Maybe you are in a relationship where your spouse is not a believer, just start praying for them - it is the Spirit who draws all men unto repentance and makes people seek God.  I've seen this testimony in action with several people I love. It is through our believing prayers (Matthew 21:21 - if you have faith and do not doubt...) that we see our prayer life come alive!  


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