If God doesn’t hear the unrepentful requests (prayers) of His children and if God doesn’t reward disobedience of His Commands and disrespect of His name and Word, why are Christian parents rewarding their children’s disobedience and disrespect of their instructions and moral standards? Are they more righteous than God?
Proverbs 29:15 instructs us that the rod of reprimand produces wisdom. And Proverbs 13:24 says “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.”
The rod of reprimand is not always a physical instrument but one of unanswered prayers and requests – one of separation and silence.
If we have done our jobs as godly parents and taught as well as lived the life of holiness before our children and they rebel, sometimes in order to save them, we have to ignore their unrepentful pleas and allow life to teach them the lessons we could not.
This doesn’t mean that we stop praying for them. It just means that we are not going to validate or support their disrespect of us and of God with our monies, our cars, our dwellings or any of our resources. We are not going to enable them to continue down the road of self-destruction. We are not going to knowingly contribute to our children’s demise no more than FATHER GOD would contribute to ours.
However, if they stubbornly insist on traveling the wrong way after receiving admonishments and repeated warnings, then they have to be allowed to experience the full weight of their transgressions on their own. After all, it is what they wanted.
We should not help destroy our children by answering their every cry. We should first and foremost require that they repent. Isn’t that God’s way?
I offer the following prayer for all disobedient, rebellious and lost children, including my own:
I pray that all disobedient children are made miserable until such time as they repent and turn to God and embrace His righteousness.
I pray that those who have ignored God’s Commandments may themselves be overlooked and ignored until such time as they repent and the LORD becomes priority in their lives.
I pray that every ungodly task, venture, activity and plan that they put their hands, minds and energies to fails miserably until they repent and return to the giver of every good and perfect gift.
I pray that they aren’t killed, maimed or lose their health while consorting with sin but that the Lord would have mercy upon them for Christ’s sake and draw them out of darkness unto repentance and salvation.
I pray that they never find a comfortable place outside of the will of God.
This is my prayer in the name of Christ Jesus, Amen!
This written prayer and commentary is the sole property of
Othealor Wendell Prince,Jr.
All Rights Reserved
Scripture References:
Isaiah 1:15
Isaiah 59:2
Jeremiah 11:11
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