And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7

Dear Lord,

You desire that parents pass along the faith to their children, that one generation tell the next of Your mighty deeds (Psalm 145:4). Yet we acknowledge that all too often parents fail to do this. There are so many other things vying for our attention, so many other activities that can crowd out church attendance and teaching the faith at home. We see in our own churches parents who seem not to take seriously the task of bringing their children up to know You. We know parents who have their children baptized but never bring them to church afterward. We see confirmands take the vow to be faithful to You even unto death, yet rarely return to church after Confirmation. We see played out in our own day the tragedy recorded in the time of the Old Testament judges, how “there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that He had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10). We’ve heard Your dire warning that “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). This is how seriously You take the task of bringing up children to know You. Please give strength to Christian parents to diligently teach their children the truths of the Bible, to talk about their faith openly and to do all they can to pass along that faith to their children. The world will certainly do everything within its power to draw our children away from You, so please give them a firm foundation in their faith from infancy on. Allow parents to raise their children according to Your will, teaching them about You as Lois taught Eunice, who in turn taught Timothy (2 Timothy 1:5), that each generation may continue to pass along the faith to the next.

I pray today for my own children… 
I pray for the following parents…

In Your name I pray. Amen.

For a full explanation of this challenge, see the post 12-Minute Prayer Challenge. If you are just joining us, feel free to continue on with us from the current day, or if you prefer, you can go back and start at Day 1.