Plead with God for your child…the history of covenant prayer
When my younger son, rebelled against God, and against his dad and me, I prayed and prayed for him to return to God. In fact, it felt like I had prayed all that I knew to pray. My anxiety and worry seemed to dwarf my faith for God to answer my prayers for Him to save, heal our son, and bring him to his senses. Our son’s choices were consuming my life and my thoughts.
Finally, one day as I sat on our screen porch, I told God that I did not know if I could survive the situation with this son. I pleaded with God to tell me what to do.
It’s interesting that when we come to the end of ourselves; we find that God really is powerfully with us and that He means everything we go through for our good—even our struggles…especially, our struggles. (1 Peter 1:7 These trials have come so that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.)
God’s still small voice seemed noticeably clear to me that day as I plead to God for direction. “Pray like Daniel.”
I love God’s Word and I was fairly familiar with the Book of Daniel, but I really did not know what God meant except that He was calling me to pray fervently.
“What does that mean?” I asked the Lord. I opened my Bible that was with me there on the porch to the Book of Daniel and began to read. One of the things I noticed was that God always gave Daniel strategy and wisdom. Clearly the Lord was Daniel’s Shepherd, and I knew that He wants to shepherd each of us. There is peace and truth in that reality. (The Lord is my Shepherd…He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake. Psalm 23: 1a, 3b).
God also made clear to me in Daniel chapter 2 that Daniel asked his friends to pray with him to God. Daniel conveyed to his friends the urgency of the situation. I could hear the still small voice again. “You are going to invite people to pray with you via text for your child and their children.”
There were so many questions. How were we going to pray?
The prayers of Daniel that we have access to were based on and filled with scripture. Again, the voice: “you will pray scripture over them.” I was reminded that the Word of the Lord never returns void. (Isaiah 55:11) In fact, He watches over His Word to perform it. (Jeremiah 1:12)
I am convinced that Daniel prayed without ceasing but he also prayed intentionally on his knees three times a day and asked God for help.
The vision that God was giving me was beginning to take shape in my mind. I was to ask mothers of other prodigals to join me in praying scripture three times a day over our children. I would ask God to help me write the scripture prayers and I would then send them out to the moms each day morning, noon, and late afternoon.
My next question to the Lord was who should I ask? He put specific names into my mind. The Lord impressed upon me that each mom would covenant to pray for her child and every other child in the group by first name 3 times a day: morning, noon, and afternoon or evening. The group was to be composed of 11 moms bringing our children to Jesus, who would be the 12th member of our group. We would pray in Jesus Name to Our Father in heaven. I emailed or texted each of the people whom the Lord had impressed upon my heart, and they each responded affirmatively that they wanted to enter a covenant of prodigal prayer.
In the last 5 ½ years, covenant prayer has grown to 9 groups of mothers and grandmothers praying fervently for our children. We have seen God do marvelous things. He has changed us. He has made us thankful. He has given us hearts of praise and taught us more about how to worship Him. He has given us peace. And some of our these children, He has already brought back to Himself. For most of them, we continue to pray.
If you would like more information on covenant prayer, please contact me at lisamccoyreid@hotmail.com. Here is a link to some of the prayers that we have prayed in our covenant groups the last few years https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MRzp-2-LNoO8AZdPaGAifq39-iGmrc3H5eHpUBDKpzQ/edit?usp=sharing
Also, there is a page with suggested links for getting started included on this site.
Lamentations 2:19b…pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children…