Prayer at the Pole & Beyond: Resources for the Praying Dad

Don’t let praying for your children or the children of others be a one-day or one-time event.

Men, I hope you’ll cultivate a habit of praying with and for your kids (or someone else’s). We’ve searched for some blog posts and resources that may help or encourage you to this end. Check them out below.

Also, in the SYATP post we mentioned using schools as a prayer trigger, a reminder to pray for students and teachers. You may want to develop some other specific prayer triggers or strategies that are unique to you or your family. Here are a few that I know of…

Prayer Triggers

I use my hand to pray for my family. This may be a bit weird but it works for me. I hold my left thumb and pray for Stacy. Then I hold my index finger and pray for Tim. Followed by Zach and Ben. It’s pretty cool that Hannah is our youngest and only girl so when I get to my stub pinky (I’m a member of the nub club.) I’m reminded to pray for my precious daughter.

I also know a family who uses the days of the week to pray for specific things…

Sunday – Salvation for someone we know.
Monday – My Heart (Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Ps. 51:10)
Tuesday – Teachers
Wednesday – Wild card – pray for God to do something Crazy!
Thursday – Thoughts – (We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. 2 Cor. 10:5)
Friday – Friends
Saturday – Sunday Worship

You can make a prayer strategy out of anything. When Stacy and I were newly married, an older gentleman in our church told us about our ‘mailbox’. It wasn’t the mailbox in front of our house. It was a random mailbox that he passed on the way to work each day. We knew where the box was so explained that that was ‘our box’. He had established triggers along the route and prayed for us each day when he passed that particular box, ‘The Mike and Stacy box’.

Dad, lead your family to develop some creative prayer strategies that you can share as a family. But, don’t forget to develop some of your own to pray specifically for your wife, children and others.