The Praying for Boys

Companion Guide

Brooke McGlothlin

© 2014 All rights reserved

The Praying for Boys Companion Guide ||  prayingforboys.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

How to Pray for Boys

Going Deeper

Appendix

About the Author

Introduction

Moms ask me all the time how I create the “prayers for the day” they see and pray on the MOB Society Facebook page, or on the monthly prayer calendars we offer to mothers of boys. It’s fairly easy to look through the Bible and pick a verse to pray for your child, but as Christians, we don’t have to be satisfied with the “open and point” method of searching the Bible. We can invite God into the process of praying for our sons, asking Him to lead us to the right things to pray.

This brief guide to creating your own scripture-based prayers for your sons is based on my book Praying for Boys: Asking God for the Things They Need Most. It’s an incredibly practical, easy-to-use tool for the mom who wants to go deeper in prayer for her sons. My prayer is that the Lord would use it draw you closer to Him and create a hunger in your heart to pray His Word for your sons.

I truly believe we can change the world as we join together in prayer.

Serving Together,

Brooke McGlothlin, MA

Co-Founder and Creator of Raising Boys Ministries

The MOB Society

How to Pray for Boys

Praying for our children is one of the most important things we can do for them. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most overlooked aspects of parenting.

Most Christian parents know they should pray for their children. Some, like me, even consistently pray for God to protect their sons, keep them safe, give them wisdom, and cause them to walk in His ways. These are all good prayers, and should be prayed on a regular basis, but there’s more—a deeper well for us to draw from, if you will—that can be found in praying God’s Word over their lives.

Praying God’s Word

When I first began feeling a draw toward praying deeper, more substantial prayers for my boys, I turned to the only place I could think of that could offer me sound advice on the subject—the Bible. I had been a student of the Word for some time, and knew of the promise that says God’s Word will not return to Him empty, but will do what He intended for it to do (Isaiah 55:11). I also knew that God’s Word was described as “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12 ESV). Based on this understanding of its power, I came to the conclusion that there was no better place to find prayers for my boys than in the Word of God itself.

Thus was born Praying for Boys.

As I mentioned in the Introduction, it’s really not hard to open your Bible, find a verse, and turn it into a prayer. With the help of Stormie Omartian, we’ve been powerfully praying the Word for various people and situations for years now, but it can be helpful to have a model for creating our own prayers, especially when it comes to praying for very specific things in the lives of our children.

“Those Boys”

I like to tell people I’m raising two rough and tumble, loud, aggressive, highly physical boys—and I affectionately refer to them as “those boys.” You know, the ones that are 250% boy? Who would rather break things than play with them, run than walk, wrestle than breathe? Maybe you have one of them too, or know someone who does. If so, it should be pretty clear to you why “those boys” of mine keep me on my knees.

Having “those” boys is a blessing, because we always know what’s in their hearts. But knowing that doesn’t change the fact that most of my days are spent crying out for God to move in our home. I beg Him to give me the strength to keep up with them, the patience to endure them, and a vision for the men they can become. I get weary and frustrated a lot, and find that being a mom of “those” boys is a constant battle of wills—not between me and them, but between my flesh and the Spirit of God living in me. I’m constantly battling to control my emotions, and choose grace in my responses to the things they do and say. Indeed, the spirit is willing but the flesh is sooooooo weak (Mark 14:38).

The other day I was at whit’s end over one of them, and even though I’m a praying mama, it occurred to me that I had been lax in this area, and needed to get back on my knees for them in specific ways. As I began to ask the Lord to show me what I needed to be praying, taking notes, and writing out my heart on the page, a sort of model developed for crafting scripture-based prayers. Of course, there are plenty of prayers to choose from in Praying for Boys: Asking God for the Things They Need Most, but when your needs go beyond those listed in the book, or you need to get very specific, very deep about particular areas of the heart, this model can be an easy-to-use tool in your arsenal.

Here it is step-by-step:

1. Make a list of the top 8-10 ways your boys are currently struggling. Our list looked something like this:

Anger

Frustration

Self-centeredness

Indifference

Approval-seeking

Attention-seeking

Stubborn

Whiney

2. Take those 8-10 struggles and turn them into a positive biblical opposite.

I pray with a friend of mine for about two hours on a monthly basis. As she lifted up the son we were struggling with during this time, she prayed that the Lord would fill him with laughter and joy, and I realized that I needed to start praying for the biblical opposite of his problem areas. Here’s how our list translates:

Anger to Joy

Frustration to Hope

Self-centeredness to Service

Indifference to Compassion

Approval-seeking to Servant Leader

Attention-seeking to Wise decisions

Stubborn to Teachable

Whiney to Laughter

Prayerfully choose verses from the Bible that characterize the new biblical opposites.

We chose the following:

Joy – Nehemiah 8:10, and Psalm 16:11

Hope – Romans 15:13, Matthew 12:21, Deuteronomy 6:5, Proverbs 3:5-6

Service/Servant Leader – Romans 12:11, Ephesians 6:7

Compassion – 1 Peter 3:8, Ephesians 4:32

Wise decisions/Wisdom – Matthew 7:24, Ecclesiastes 10:12, Colossians 2:2-3, Romans 12:2

Teachable – 1 Timothy 3:2-3,  2 Timothy 2:24

Laughter – Psalm 126:2, Proverbs 17:22

4. Craft your verses into a written prayer, print it out, and hang it outside of their doors.

This is great for two reasons:

They can see that mama is praying the Word over them, and knows you’re watching, and truly seeing their hearts.

When they’re asleep at night, you can put your hands on the doorframes, and pray God’s Word over the hearts of your sons.

To help you get started, here’s an example of something I might pray for one of my boys on a regular basis, based on the verses and process we went through above.

A Prayer for Boys

“Lord, thank You for my precious son. Hear my prayer for him, Lord, and work in his heart to make him a man after Yours.

May the joy of the Lord be his strength. Make known to him the path of life and lead him to find fullness of joy in Your presence, pleasures at Your right hand. May the God of hope fill him with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit he may abound in hope.

May he hope in Your Name, and love the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might.

May he trust in the Lord with all his heart, and lean not on his own understanding. In all his ways, may he acknowledge You, so his paths will be straight. May he not be slothful in zeal, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man.

May he have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

May he be kind to others, tenderhearted, forgiving others as God in Christ forgave him. May he be like the wise man who built his house on the rock, so that when the rain falls, and the floods come, and the winds blow, and beat on his house, it will not fall, because it has been founded on the rock.

May the wise words of his mouth win him favor, and may he be encouraged, knit together in love, and understand the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is in Christ.

May he not be confirmed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of his mind, that by testing they may discern the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. May he be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

May he be kind to everyone, and may his mouth be filled with laughter, and his tongue with shouts of joy. May his heart know the good medicine of joy.”

Going Deeper

Of course, you can take this model and easily make it your own. Make it a prayerful experience where you really try to hear from the Lord and seek insight into what you need to pray. Set time aside, if possible, that makes it easy for you to think, pray, and be lead by God. Plan for this ahead of time, writing it into your schedule for the day, or take advantage of a spontaneous moment of peace.

Our children’s behaviors tell us what’s going on in their hearts, so make this an opportunity to be a student of your child’s heart, devoting yourself to prayer on his behalf.

Thank you so much for taking the time to invest in your sons by praying the Word of God over their lives. If you’re looking for more information on making prayer a priority in your parenting, I invite you to read my book, Praying for Boys: Asking God for the Things They Need Most, follow the MOB Society blog, or take any of my online prayer challenges.

To help you even more, I’ve created a few sample prayers crafted around different themes or heart needs. You can find them in the appendix of this resource. Feel free to use them as your own or as a model for a prayer personalized just for your boys by using the steps above.

Appendix

I’m thrilled to provide you with the following prayers for your boys. If you choose to print some of these for use in your home, would you snap a quick picture and share it with us on our Facebook wall, or on Instagram (using the #prayingforboys hashtag), or Twitter (same hashtag)? We’d LOVE to see how boy moms are praying the Word over their children!

Prayers

“Lord, may my son walk with the wise, and not be a companion of fools. May he humble himself before the Lord, and walk worthy of the calling to which he has been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with others in love. May he not grow weary in doing good, and reap in due season if he doesn’t give up. May his diligent plans lead to abundance, and may he stand firm in the truth. May he ponder the way that is blameless, walk with integrity of heart, and set his mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. In Jesus’ Name, amen.”

(Inspired by Provers 13:20, James 4:10, Ephesians 4:1-2, Galatians 6:0, Proverbs 21:5, Ephesians 6:14, Psalm 101:2, and Colossians 3:2)

“Lord, bless and keep my son. Make Your face to shine upon him, and be gracious to him, and give him peace. Help him understand that every good and perfect gift is from You, and that You don’t change. May he pursue love, and use his gifts to serve others, not neglecting them. May he believe that by grace he has been saved through faith. Not of his own doing, but as a gift from You. May he understand that You establish his steps. When he’s persecuted, bless him. When he acts as a peacemaker or has a pure heart, give him more of You. When he’s merciful, grant him mercy. When he hungers for righteousness, satisfy him. When he mourns, comfort him. When he’s poor in spirit, remind him that the kingdom of heaven is his. In Jesus’ Name, amen.”

(Inspired by Numbers 6:24-26, James 1:17, 1 Corinthians 14:1, 1 Peter 4:10, 1 Timothy 4:14, Ephesians 2:7-9, Proverbs 16:9, Matthew 5:3-10)

A Prayer from the Psalms

“Lord, may my son never walk in the counsel of the wicked, not stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. But may his delight be in Your law as he meditates on it day and night. May he walk blamelessly and do what is right and speak truth in his heart. May he say of the Lord, ‘I love You, O Lord, my strength. You are my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in Whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.’ May he know You as his light and his salvation, and so have nothing to fear. May his heart’s desire be to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life, and to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord...May he never lose heart, because he believes he’ll see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. In Jesus’ Name, amen.”

(Inspired by Psalm 1:1-2, Psalm 15:2, Psalm 18:1-2, Psalm 27:1, Psalm 27:4, Psalm 27:13)

A Prayer from the Proverbs for a Wise Son

“Lord, please let my son know wisdom and instruction, and understand words of insight. May he know the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and never despise wisdom. May he receive words of wisdom, make his ear attentive to it, incline his heart to understanding, call out for insight, and raise his voice for understanding. May he understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path. May wisdom come into his heart and knowledge be pleasant to his soul. May he find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. May he trust in the You with all his heart, and not lean on his own understanding. In all his ways, may he acknowledge You, so his paths will be straight. In Jesus’ Name, amen.”

(Inspired by Proverbs 1:2, Proverbs 2:7, Proverbs 2:2-4, Proverbs 2:9, Proverbs 2:10, Proverbs 3:4, Proverbs 3:5-6)

A Prayer for Purity

“Lord, may my son’s heart rejoice in Your righteous precepts. May he have clean hands and a pure heart, and not lift up his soul to what is false. May he aim to have love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. May he flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart. Let him draw near to You with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with his heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and his body washed with pure water. May he purify his soul by his obedience to the truth, and love others earnestly from a pure heart. In Jesus’ Name, amen.”

(Inspired by Psalm 19:8, Psalm 24:4, 1 Timothy 1:5, 2 Timothy 2:22, Hebrews 10:22, 1 Peter 1:22)

About the Author

Brooke McGlothlin is Co-founder of Raising Boys Ministries, where moms and dads come to discover delight in the chaos of raising boys. You can find her writing about fighting for the hearts of her sons at the MOB Society blog, or finding grace in the mess at her personal blog www.brookemcglothlin.com.

A normal day finds Brooke homeschooling her two boys, wrangling two large Labs, Toby and Siri, writing to bring hope to the messes of life (in the midst of her own messy life), and falling more and more in love with the man she’s had a crush on since the third grade (who just happens to be her husband).

Follow her on Twitter as @BrookeWrites, or on Facebook and Pinterest.

Other Books and Resources by Brooke McGlothlin

Praying for Boys: Asking God for the Things They Need Most

Hope for the Weary Mom: Where God Meets You in Your Mess

How to Control Your Emotions So They Don’t Control You (a mom’s guide to overcoming)

Table of Contents

Introduction

How to Pray for Boys

Going Deeper

Appendix

About the Author