Heavenly Father I praise You for the opportunity to be the parent of a teenager. I praise You for giving me wisdom, patience, grace, and humility to lead and advise my son or daughter. I praise You for the person they are becoming and how You are teaching me to teach them to become an adult.
Holy Spirit Your word says: Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. [Proverbs 22:6] This is often a very hard verse to see develop into maturity. I know that I can only do my best with the leading of the Holy Spirit to lead my child until they reach being a teenager. At this point in life, I can advise, and hold onto the values of our family but I can not stop them from the decisions they make. Now I must turn them over to You every night. Help me to be humble enough, adult enough, and honest enough to talk to my teenager and let them know that as an adult we do not always have the right answer and that I am more dependent on You than when I was in their shoes. Help me to show them that every decision has consequences whether good or bad. Help me to help them work on how they make decisions so that they can get the most out of the life You want them to live.
Help me to pray for a double blessing for them and to pray for the wisdom of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Ruth, Esther, Joseph, and David so that they can be wise as they step into adolescence. Help me to pray for them to be bold, different, and confident in their faith like Caleb, Elisha, Paul, and Peter. Help me to pray for them to be receptive to Your Holy Spirit like Stephen and Timothy. Help me to surround them daily with a hedge of prayer and help me to pray with them whenever they will allow me to.
Help me to trust in You, Your timing for their life. Let me let them grow and make mistakes but do my best to protect them from evil and harm. Let me stand in the gap for them daily and be faithful to pray with all that I have to see them move forward in life.
And this is my prayer: that son or daughter’s love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that they may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. Amen [Philippians 1:9-11]