Does Your Grandchild’s World Shock You?
By Lillian Penner
Recently, a friend of mine spent the weekend with her grandchildren. She told me, “It was shocking to see how fast my four grandchildren are growing up and the challenges they are facing. I am experiencing a lot of heartache over the world they are growing up in and concern over their response to it. Seeing my sweet grandkids living in such a godless culture is heart breaking.” I can identify with those thoughts and I am hearing those thoughts expressed by many grandparents. Using media, technology, education, social influences, and political pressures to desensitize and cloud the boundaries of truth that holds our families together is launching an aggressive attack. The enemy’s attacks against our families and our nation’s moral foundations are relentless and growing worse with time.
Ask your grandchildren about their friends, their teachers, their activities, what is going on in their world and how they feel about it. Keep an open mind and open ears so you know how to pray for them. If you are alarmed, they may not feel open to share with you. Appreciate their perspective, listen to their opinions.
However, Daniel, the one in the lion’s den for not obeying the king, stood strong for God in a very complicated ungodly culture. Today, we as grandparents can stand in the gap for our grandchildren, praying they will stand strong for God. Just as Esther stood in the gap for her people, the Israelites when their lives were threatened physically, we can stand in the gap for the spiritual lives of our grandchildren.
Suggestions to pray:
- Pray your grandchildren will invite Jesus into their hearts.
- Pray your grandchildren will grow strong in their walk with the Lord.
- Pray your grandchildren will recognize the difference of truth and deception in their culture so they can flee from it.
- Pray your grandchildren will respect authority and pray for those in authority over them, like their parents, teachers, and others.
Our hope for the future generation can only be in the Lord, not in this complex world.
What are you doing to stand in the gap for your grandchildren? Please share in the comments.
Lillian Penner is the author of Grandparenting with a Purpose: Effective Ways to Pray for Your Grandchildren in English and Spanish. She has been on staff with the Christian Grandparenting Network prayer ministry for fourteen years, developing prayer cards, grandparents@Prayer groups, and the Grandparenting Day of Prayer. She has a passion for praying intentionally for her grandchildren and desires to share that passion with other grandparents.
An avid blogger, Lillian breaks into smiles if you ask about her thirteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. She and her husband, John, live in Portland, Oregon, where they are active in church ministries. They were both raised in Christian homes and desire to pass their godly heritage to their future generations. She and her husband enjoy traveling, Southern Gospel music but most of all, enjoy spending time with their family.
Feature Photo by Naassom Azevedo
Well said. Thank you. Since I don’t have any grandchildren yet, I pray for others’ grandchildren and send prayers on ahead for my future grandchildren. I appreciate the topics of your prayers.
So thankful for you pointing out how importance even praying for our grandchildren before they arrive. Once they come, they will spoil you, so watch out, hahaha! God Bless!