Praying for the right thing

 

Having two kids, and watching them grow up and make all the same mistakes that all kids make it made me realize something.

With my oldest, I really wanted him to be happy.  Of course I want my youngest to be happy too.  It’s just that I realized that maybe it isn’t always happiness that they need to grow.

I realized that sometimes I prayed for the wrong things for them. 

That sounds crazy doesn’t it?  But I realize now that the things that I may have thought they needed, they didn’t need at all.

One example, when my son was in middle school, he was pretty good at baseball.   As he got older he didn’t want to be involved in sports.  I prayed that he would be good at everything that he did.  I wanted him to get the feeling of self gratification that he got when he played baseball.

I was thinking about his self confidence.  I wanted him to know his worth, by someone other than his family.

I was wrong.  I had the best of intentions of course, but I was going about it all wrong. 

I wish I would have prayed for his relationship with Jesus.  That he would grow in his faith and then he would have naturally seen that he is worth so much that God would have sent Jesus to earth even if he were the only one on earth. 

I was focusing on trying to get him to fit into the what the world sees as self worth, when I knew that it is what God says we are worth that really matters.

So, I have changed what I pray for. 

I pray that they will grow in their relationship with the Lord, then everything else just seems to come together.