Attention parents and grandparents: You need to read Praying Circles Around Your Children! To help whet your appetite, here are nine quotes from this outstanding book by Mark Batterson (you can read my full review here) that caught my heart:
“Make sure your 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. …Prayer turns ordinary parents into prophets who shape the destinies of their children, grandchildren, and every generation that follows. …Your prayers for your children are the greatest legacy you can leave.”
“We instinctively attach an ASAP to every prayer and ask God to answer as soon as possible. We need a paradigm shift. We need to start praying ALAT prayers—as long as it takes.”
“Please listen to me, parents: you are prophets to your children. Jewish philosophers did not believe the prophetic gift was reserved for a few select individuals. They believed that becoming a prophetic was the crowning point of mental and spiritual development. It was the natural by-product of spiritual development. It was the natural by-product of spiritual development. The more one grows in grace, the more prophetic one becomes. This doesn’t mean you will start predicting the future. It means you’ll start creating it. How? Through your prayers! Prayer is the way we write the future. It’s the difference between letting things happen and making things happen.”
“One of your chief responsibilities as a parent is to be a student of your child.”
“Pray about what to pray about. …The purpose of prayer is not to outline our agenda for God; the purpose is to get into the presence of God and get God’s agenda for us.”
“One of our primary responsibilities as parents is helping our children identify their life themes. We need to help them find the sweet spot where their God-given gifts and God-ordained passions overlap.”
“Great parenting doesn’t just mean teaching your kids; it also means learning from them. Think of it as reverse mentoring.”
“Your prayers will shape the destiny of your family for generations to come.”
Craig T. Owens 