← Focus on the Family with Jim Daly
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- [00:01]
A
God is at work and he's calling his people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Colson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope. Visit truthrising.com today. That's truthrising.com.
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I just had an overwhelming sense of the Lord telling me, julie, if this struggle is helping conform him to my image, if it's making him into the man that I one day want him to be, do you really want me to remove that struggle? And that gave me a pause.
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C
That's Julie Loess and she's our guest today on FOCUS on the Family with Jim Daly, joined by Hilary Ferrer in studio to share about praying for our children. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller.
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A
John Praying for our children, no matter what their age, is critical at a time when the world is coming against our efforts as Christian parents to do the job we need to do. And we can get anxious about those things. I mean, I don't know how many pillow talks Gene and I had about the boys being out and all that stuff, but in the book of Philippians, the Bible says do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving. That's an added little thing there with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. That is a lot right there. And it's all good to kind of lower that anxiety that we have comfort in knowing that God is looking after our children even when we think he's not. And we're going to discuss that today about how to pray powerfully for your children.
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C
Yeah. And while the conversation is from a mom's perspective, I've got to say, as I went through the book, I thought a lot of good prayers in here for me to be praying for my kids. So lean in, especially moms, maybe grandmas as well. But all of us can benefit from what Hilary and Julie have to share. Hilary is the founder of Mama Bear Apologetics and is the chief author and editor of of the best selling Mama Bear Apologetics series. And Julie is a contributor to the series and is the mother of two married sons and she's got two grandchildren. They've written 147 prayers for you to use, and some are serious, some are lighthearted. They're all very, very timely for you. Somewhere along the way in life. The book is called Honest Prayers for Mama Bears. And we've got details about Julie and Hillary and this great resource at our website. The link is in the show notes.
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A
Hillary and Julie Welco to focus on the family.
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B
Thank you.
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D
Thank you so much for having us.
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A
Yeah, it's good to have you back. Good to have you here for the first time.
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B
It's a pleasure.
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A
Let's cover this. You interact with a lot of moms. I mean, that's the whole thing with mama bears, right? And so what were you hearing that gave you the idea for the book to say, okay, a lot of moms are asking about prayer.
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D
Well, we've purposely made prayer part of every book that we've done. And I've involved Julie with it from the beginning because she's been involved with moms in prayer for so long. And so we're very. Julie and I were very purposeful in everything that we included in the book. Anytime it kind of got too much of a woe is me, we took it back to gratitude, any kind. It got a little too casual. Then we went back a little bit formal with that reverence and awe for God. But I think one of the keys of prayer is being able to get all your yuck out first and then reroute your heart towards the truth. And so we wanted to be able to give moms the language in their language, in their thought language, to where they felt like they can come to God in the same way.
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A
That's really good. Julie, you had a couple of major influences in your prayer life. Tell us about that.
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B
I did. My grandmother, my paternal grandmother was a huge influence in my spiritual life. And she was a praying grandma. I knew I could call on her to pray for me, especially during my college years. So she set that example for me. And then the moms in prayer ministry was key in my life. I have served in that for over 20 years in different roles. And learning to pray specifically and scripturally is very instructive and very helpful to pray. And we've tried to share that with all of our mama bears and give them a way to pray, a voice to pray. And I would say, to add on to what Hillary said earlier, when we were researching, beginning to write this book, we reached out to moms. We wanted to hear from them, what is on your heart? What would you pray? And so we collected those from a select number of moms that we reached out to to get kind of our finger on the pul. Plus, we had our own ideas. And when we started putting those prayers together. The thing that really struck both of us was how desperate the prayers were, how desperate they were. And so as we began going through them and editing and fashioning them, we used that heart of the moms, to be honest, about all the topics that we ended up praying for.
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A
Hillary, you're prayer life started pretty young. I was kind of surprised reading in the book. Just, you know, as a teenager, you really leaned into prayer.
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D
Yeah.
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B
Why?
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D
How so? Well, that's good. Yeah, I did. I knew that I needed to pray, and so a lot of times I would start praying at night before I went to bed and then found myself either with my mind wandering or going to sleep. And so that's probably part of my ADHD right there. And so I thought, well, if I write this down, then I can't, like, fall asleep or have my mind wander. So I have prayer journals going back from the time when I was about 11 years old with, you know, I would maybe have one prayer that was, like, written out on the front, and then I would have a list on the back. And I'll have to say my lists were not very spiritual. I mean, as a junior high girl, a lot of my prayers centered around that, you know, certain boys to like me and to be popular. And so I like to.
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A
Sounds like a normal junior high.
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D
It's a normal junior high girl. So what I didn't do at that time was pray effectively, but what I did was I cultivated that heart of bringing to God what actually mattered to me and bringing to God in all honesty, that I can ask God for stupid things, even though he's not going to give it to me. He. He's my daddy, and I can share all these things with Him. I would say the most effective prayer I ever prayed was my freshman year in high school. And so one of the things that I realized at that time is it was really easy to compare myself to the girls around me, that I had been a Christian for a long time. I hadn't gone through any kind of big rebellious phase. But what I did hear from other, more mature believers was this yearning and this longing for God that I knew that I didn't have. And so in that prayer, I said, go. I don't really want you, but I want to want you. And it's not like I didn't want God. It's not like I was averse to him, but I didn't have that yearning and that right there. Even though it sounds simple, that was, you know, a decade's worth of Cultivation of being honest with God. I mean, who comes to God and like, you're like, lord, I feel kind of meh, but I want to feel less meh and actually have a yearning for you. And that was the first time that I remember seeing God move. Like when I unveiled that letter the next year, I thought, holy cow, I saw God really moving this way this year. And so for the first time, the honesty and the prayer, it was an honest but effective prayer. Cause I was praying for what God wanted instead of just what I wanted. And after that, yeah, I just have seen the Lord really come through. When I really dig into what is it that's on his heart. How can I partner with him, with what he's already trying to do, but at the same time not censor myself with all the things that I'm feeling at the time? Because he knows it. He knows what we're thinking. And even if they're shallow and stupid, I think sometimes even the shallow, stupid stuff. Your dad loves to hear from you. Cause he loves to hear from you, period.
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A
Yeah, that's good. Julie, you mentioned a moment ago that desperation that you heard in these women, these moms asking for prayer. Let's talk about that for a minute. Cause it's really interesting to me. I don't know, if we men talk about a sense of desperation, we tend to roll a little more. So when I'm, you know, I'm hearing that, I'm going, that's a big clue. When a mom and a wife feels desperate about something, that's not a good place. And it's almost like when that fear level goes up. So often with moms, control tries to compensate, to give her a sense that she's okay. That, you know, if God doesn't show up, at least I'm the backstop. I mean, that sounds horrible, right?
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B
No, we want to be fix.
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A
Yeah. I mean, that's. So that desperation. Just explore that a little bit more. About what. Where that comes from.
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B
Yeah. The culture within which we live has changed so much and at such rapid speed. It's. How do we deal with this? You know, identity issues that, you know, Hillary and Amy have addressed in the other Mama Bear book on sexuality, and it just came through. Even what moms are dealing with within their own personal lives, how do they find a sense of security in the Lord that they need first to even be able to parent their child? Well.
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A
Well, that's it. That's the answer. Find your source in God.
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B
Right?
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A
And then that will come down. The bad things will come down, right.
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B
And one of the things we purposely started with in the book was prayers for moms themselves. We wanted them to know it is not selfish to pray for yourself. You need to be able, drawing from a deep well of your time with the Lord so that you can then, you know, parent your own child well. And that was part of the desperation. How do I pray for myself? And we approached even praying to want to pray, even praying to want to read the Bible and remember it, you know, so we tried to get really down and dirty and honest about it.
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D
The prayers are not just emotive. They're also instructive to remind yourself of what is true. And I think that is such a huge part of prayer, is kind of preaching to yourself of what you know to be true, because you have to keep reminding yourself. We look through all the Old Testament, all the New Testament, we have all these times of. I call them mandatory remembrances, where the Lord knows that we're forgetful. So how do I continually remind myself.
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A
Of the truth with that rest or that honesty that you're talking about? You point to King David in the Psalms as an example of honesty, and that's probably true. That might be why the Lord said he had a heart after him, because he was kind of straightforward and honest even when he was.
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D
There's a lot of emo stuff going on there, like big failures, he's a big warrior. But he. He's super emo, too. And there's something that's freeing about that.
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A
But in that regard, tell me more about his honesty in that way in Psalms.
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D
Yeah, I mean, you see some of the prayers that he has in the Psalms, I wouldn't dare to pray. And he's like, basically, you know, lord, bring down the boom on this person and on that person. Destroy them. But not my will, but yours be done. And I know I'm a sinner. And so you see him kind of just that. It's like, I would say that maybe for him, for men, it might be more anger, as opposed to women who. It might be more anxiety. But it's like those imprecatory psalms. It's like there's a lot of honesty there that I don't even know if I would dare pray in my own prayer life. But at the same time, it gives us permission, which I think it's interesting to say. And this is something I do think is more of a woman thing than a man thing, that a lot of times women need to feel that they have permission to do certain things. And I think that honesty is one of the things they need to have permission. I'm walking with a girl through a really horrific divorce right now, and she keeps talking about how she, you know, just is just feeling empty and numb. And so I told her about some of my prayers that I prayed before. Like this one time where I had my. If you were to look at me from the outside, it looked like my hands were up and my eyes were closed and I was praying. And I told her, you know, what I was saying to God that whole time? Lord, I feel nothing. Lord, I feel nothing. I don't feel you. I don't want you, but I'm going to choose to praise you anyway. And everybody looking at me thinks I'm having this great spiritual experience, but I feel numb. And she said, you say that to God? I said, yes, I do. And she came back to me a couple weeks later and said, that was the most freeing thing. I've started praying those prayers to God. And I felt my anxiety just go away. Being able to express that to God. She didn't know she had the permission to express it like that to God.
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A
I mean, that's great right there. That's a great insight. Just that permission itself. Julie, what are some of the building blocks of prayer in the home, and what are some simple things parents can do?
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B
That's a good question. I think it's something that we all need to explore and find out what works best for our family. But the thing that has really helped me over the years is learning some of the different aspects of prayer. And we approach that in a lot of the prayers. In the other Mama Bear books, this one, we. We kind of went on a different format. But learning how to praise God in prayer has been one of the biggest blessings in my life. Because as I praise him for his attributes, his characteristics, for who he is, it gives my eyes off of my circumstances and puts them on the God over the circumstances. And then I can draw on those characteristics of God as I pray. I can ask him to be my helper, be my provider as I pray. Different requests.
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A
Julie, when you're praying, that is that when you feel like you are rising above those bad situations.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
I'm just. I'm thinking of the mom that's going, yeah, I've tried that. It didn't work. The mechanism of it. Just describe that a little bit. I can remember praising the Lord in a position. This is years ago, before I came to focus on the family. I was just not, you know, I wasn't at peace with something I just started praising the Lord and it just like, was a. Well, I mean, of confidence, of a sense of well being that this will be okay. But I'm not sure everybody has had that experience to know that when you just begin to praise the Lord, thank him for where you're at, what you're going through, and then ask him for help in these certain areas, there typically will be a sense of peace.
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B
Yes. And, you know, it says, the Bible says God inhabits the praise of his people. As we're praising him, he's there with us. And I think that's so key because when the times come where you don't feel like you're seeing the answers to prayer, you have to rely on the character of God to know, okay, I might not be seeing what you're doing, you might not be answering the way that I want you to answer, but I know you're good, I know you're faithful.
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C
And what we're talking about seems to have even greater import when teenagers come onto the scene. I loved having teens, but they kind of elevate your prayer life, don't they?
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A
That's a good way to put it.
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D
Everybody gets desperate.
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C
I think, Julie, you were noticing the importance of grace and how that affects our prayers when our teens start to. To present some challenges.
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B
Yes. And, you know, I think one of the things that we, as mom, I mentioned this before, we tend to maybe want to be fixers and we want to come to our kids rescue. And Hillary can talk a little bit more about the prayer, about raging hormones. She was involved with that one. But one of the things, like during my teenage boy's years, I remember praying desperately for God to remove this particular struggle that they were facing or one of them was facing. And I just had an overwhelming sense of the Lord telling me, julie, if this struggle is helping conform him to my image, if it's making him into the man that I one day want him to be, do you really want me to remove that struggle? And that gave me a pause. And so I think that also approaches a lot of how we worked on the book. There are symptoms and things you want to pray for on the outside, but what is at the base of that? What's the spiritual struggle that we really want to pray about? What's the thing that the Lord would have in their character that we want to pray and then let him take care of the external things and the circumstances.
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A
Let me ask in that same space, though, is some of that when the teenagers are acting out or not doing what you want them to do. I think some of that is that we take that as a reflection of us, and that heightens our sense of, well, I'm not that good of a mom. I'm not that good of a dad. And that kind of compounds it. Right, because we start seeing it as our failure. Our teens failures are our failures. And then going to the Lord with that, too, because usually there's going to be some of that in those teen years, because this is the first time we've been tested as Christian parents in that way. And we start going, wow, we can't control these kids. And the Lord's going, yep, even more.
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B
The reason to pray.
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A
Yeah, I mean, it's a reason to pray.
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D
I think that's kind of a natural thing that I think the Lord does. There is kind of a process of being able to release, and there's some natural things that the Lord has put into that process to allow us. Allow us to release. And I think in. In a lot of ways, that alleviates a lot of the pain and the grief that we might have felt were we to have the same relationship when they're 18 as we had when they were 6. And we just never want them out of the house.
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A
This kind of is in line with that. The prodigal child. I mean, some parents are dealing with some real severe issues. Could be drug abuse or other abuses or addictions, and maybe runaway. I mean, children 16, 15 that have left the home out of frustration. You do cover that in the book about how to pray for prodigals specifically, and of course, young adults in their twenties that are estranged from their parents. How do you go about praying for those circumstances?
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D
This is one of the ones where we actually reached out to someone who. There was a mom that I knew who had had, I mean, years and years and years of a prodigal child. And she had let me know that she had notebooks full of prayers for him. And so I asked her, would you mind sharing some of those with me? And probably one of the hardest prayers that a mom can pray is that her child would hit rock bottom. And knowing that. That sometimes the only way to get someone's attention is for them to hit rock bottom. Like there's even a story I've heard before of some man who had the gift of giving. And there was some guy that came to him, was telling him a big sob story. He gave him some money for something, and he didn't pray about it first. And right after he gave him the money and the kid walked away, he Heard the Lord in his head go, I almost had him. Like saying, you just basically prevented him from hitting rock bottom. I almost had him. So even our good intentions sometimes can step in the way if we're not praying, asking the Lord, what are you doing here first? And so those were some of the most honest prayers that we got. And I don't even mention her in the book because she has to really remain anonymous. Her child has since finally come around and is walking again. But this is after years of drug abuse and alternate sexualities, all the different things. And he did come back and report to her, basically, I don't remember having peace since, you know, X time when I was in your house. And that's what she prayed. Lord, rob him of any peace. Take away any feeling of peace that this sin might give him or this sin. Do not let any of these things satisfy him. And just kind of just praying almost that this sounds weird to say that godly destruction in the sense of getting his attention, and that totally worked. But, man, is that completely against a mama's heart?
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A
Of course, you know, let me ask you this. And in that context, do you feel one of the byproducts of that kind of prayer life with the Lord about your prodigal allows you to interact with that adult child or teen in a way that you're not as hyper vigilant because the Lord has kind of eased that in you. Is that a byproduct of that? So actually that begins to ease the relationship a little bit, rather than the harping, the crimination of that. What are you doing now? Where are you? What are you smoking? You know, all of that stuff.
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B
All that stuff, right.
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A
So when you're praying, I would think that one of the byproducts would be that you're more at peace. I hope you have a good day. You know, I'm praying for you.
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B
And I think you even quoted at the beginning the Philippians passage, right, which is one of my very favorite verses on prayer. Don't be anxious about anything, but in everything, make your requests known to God. So that's the first step. Go to him, your source for strength and power. And then to remember that while you don't have to thank God for everything, you can thank him in everything. What can you thank him about? You know, Lord, you are still working in this situation. And then the end of that verse, the peace of Christ rules in your heart. And that has been. If I could encourage a mom or a grandma for anything, use your prayer time as a way to Gain peace from God. That is gonna be one of peace.
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A
In your own heart.
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B
In your own heart. And you'll be a better mom for it.
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A
Yeah, exactly. I think that's a great point. Hilary. What are some hindrances to our prayers being answered? You know, we often think, you know, A plus B gets me to C, you know, so the Lord says pray. So we pray with that expectation that he's gonna answer that prayer very specifically to the way we would like it answered.
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D
Yes. And so Julie and I talked a lot about this of, like, what is God's responsibility and what is our responsibility? And I was actually just reading a book on the plane flight over here yesterday where the guy was quoting someone else, and I can't remember who he was quoting, but he says, without God we cannot, and without us, God will not. And I thought that's a really interesting way to look at it. It's like you. You act as if everything depends on you, and you pray as if everything depends on God. And so sometimes our prayers, if we want to treat it like a lucky rabbit's foot, to bypass have, you know, I could pray all I wanted to. Lord, let me run in this marathon. But if I have a hard time making it up the stairs, you know, that's not a very realistic prayer to pray. God enjoys for us to participate in what he's doing. And he asks us to be faithful with if he's putting something on our heart to be obedient there. So I think if we're trying to bypass the sanctification process, then the prayer may not be as effective because it's really not according to God's will, which is to shape for himself a people who are purposely and intentionally obedient to him, even when it's difficult.
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A
Yeah, it sounds almost like the non believer who says, lord, I'll believe in you if you do this. And then he's got to do it right. And then he's going, well, if you just take three steps, you'll get to the same place. And you're still going to have to have faith in me. Right.
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B
I think there's still some, you know, there's some practical logistical hindrances to prayer as well as spiritual. And some of the practical are, do we really believe that God hears our prayers? Are we too busy? Are we not disciplined enough to take the time to do it? Those are things we personally need to work on. And then the Bible speaks to unconfessed sin. We need to make sure that our prayer time includes confession, praying with Wrong motives. I mean, that's something that God's been working on me. Are my prayers self or are they kingdom focused? And we tried to get to that in some of the prayers, but those are hindrances that the Bible even speaks.
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D
To or praying where you don't have the intention of following through. Like, if the Lord does show you, you're like, I'm probably not going to do that. I think sometimes the Lord just. Yeah.
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A
What's good about that? It's rooted in humility. I mean, that's what that moves you toward as you pray in that way. So everybody's getting closer to God's spirit and God's character.
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B
Right. And do we even want to be confronted? Because in prayer, God will confront us about our own stuff, you know, and sometimes that might not be so pretty.
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A
Yeah. Julie, you mentioned, I think in the book about your grandmother and her prayer legacy and how that began to speak to your own heart about what will be mine. And I'm sure other women you've talked to. How do you create a prayer legacy? What does that look like?
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B
Well, I would say first of all, you gotta start praying.
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A
That's a good point.
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B
So you're gonna create a legacy if you don't start.
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A
Right. What stuck out?
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B
She was faithful. I mean, I would see when sometimes I would visit her, she would be reading her Bible, she'd be reading her devotional, she would be praying. So she was modeling, she was mentoring me even in her modeling that. So that's one way to start. And I say you need to be purposeful in your prayer life. Two of the things that I think really help you start a prayer legacy is teaching your children how to pray. Let them see you doing it yourself. So you have modeled that before them and then persevere. One of the things that I did speak to in the afterword about a legacy is that there are going to be seasons when you are dry and you do not feel like praying. And I would just encourage women pray anyway.
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D
And we have a prayer for that.
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B
We do. And there's times when you're going to feel like, oh, you know, things are going pretty good. I don't think I need to pray. You still need to be praying. And there are times when prayer might seem like a duty, but my encouragement is to do it anyway, because as you develop that discipline, it's going to turn to delight and you're going to want that time with the Lord and so start doing that and hand it down to your kids and train them.
- [26:33]
A
I think that's great. I think we've whet the appetite for moms who are fast paced. A lot going on. But the reminder about building a prayer life, a legacy of prayer. And you've done it here in this great book Honest Prayers for Mama Bear. And it's been great having you both with us. Thanks so much.
- [26:51]
D
Thank you.
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B
It's been a pleasure. Thank you for letting us share about.
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A
This and to the listeners, if this is something that's caught your attention like you're not able to get there, you're not praying the way you want to or as frequently or you're not seeing the context of the need for prayer and not hearing from God as Hillary talked about. This is it. Get a copy here. If you can make a gift of any amount either monthly or a one time gift, we'll send you the book as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry. If you can't afford it, let us know. We'll get it in your hands and trust others. We'll cover the cost of that. But why not start a long term prayer life?
- [27:29]
C
Yeah. And it begins by clicking the link in the show notes or give us a call. 800 the letter A in the word family. And thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
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A
God is at work and he's calling his people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Colson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope. Hope. Visit truthrising. Com today. That's truthrising. Com.