Craig T. Owens

Launching off his excellent book on prayer—The Circle Maker—Mark Batterson shares with parents and grandparents the incredible blessing of taking the initiative to pray for our children in Praying Circle Around Your Children.

Mark opens the book with these words:

“Make sure the heavenly Father hears about your kids daily! … You’ll never be a perfect parent, but you can be a praying parent. Prayer is your highest privilege as a parent.”

Just as The Circle Maker opened my eyes to new insights on prayer (you can read my review by clicking here), Praying Circles Around Your Children challenged me to step up into my privilege of being a prayerful Dad.

I loved the simple straightforward message in this book: Keep on praying for your kids.

• Do you feel like you don’t know what to pray? Use the Scripture to help you find biblical promises to pray over your kids.
• Do you feel like your prayers for your kids have been unanswered? Recommit to pray for them as long as it takes.
• Do you feel like your prayers lack power? Find ways to pray with your kids where you keep them close, even laying your hands on them.
• Do you feel like it’s too late to pray for your grown children or grandchildren? It’s never too late to talk to God about your (grand)kids.

This is a short book that you can easily read in one sitting, but the concepts you learn can be applied for the rest of your life.

I loved this book so much that I’m going to buy a copy for every family in my church. If you are a parent or grandparent, I cannot urge you strongly enough to pick up a copy of Praying Circles Around Your Children.

I am a Zondervan book reviewer.