Prayers . . . For Them Or Me?
 When expecting a child, I think that every parent has great dreams and hopes for their child.  Very few (if any) believe their child will be a failure, at least not consciously. So we pray with great desires in mind. We pray for their destiny to be realized even though we may not know what that destiny may be. 
 This prayer for destiny is much easier when the child is still in the womb or a preschooler.  That is when we are actually praying our dreams.  However that prayer becomes a great challenge when our child reaches adulthood and begins living that destiny – by making plans to go to Africa for a year.  Or they take our grandchildren to live in Argentina.  Or that they end up living below the poverty level.  Or driving their drunk friends home from parties. Or feeding AIDS patients. The irony is that at the very moment we begin seeing GOD answer our prayers for our children is the very moment that we ask ourselves, “What in the world have we done?”   
 We then understand that raising our children to follow the heart of Jesus is costly to us parents, perhaps more than it costs them, or it seems so. We watch them walk through the security checkpoints at airports while choking back the tears caused by anxieties of separation. Then the realization hits us that our prayers of destiny were not just prayers for them to follow Jesus.  They were also for us parents being ready for them to follow Jesus to places and situations we would never have chosen. But He did. And they followed out of a deep love for Him. And I am the one who has to let them go and watch them take the risks of following Jesus. 
    How can I release them?  It comes down to the belief that GOD loves my children very much, much more than I do.  And that thought brings me great comfort. As I begin to “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:20) for my children, then I can trust His heart for them and that He will not lead them to the wrong places.  And that their desire to follow Him may not always be accurate and that they may not read His will perfectly, but still GOD will work in the midst of their mistakes and His plans for them will be accomplished.  Yes, as a father, I must trust my Heavenly Father, with the children He has allowed me to father.  Like Hannah, I must pray, “I will give him to You all the days of his life” and then encourage them to be His all the days of their lives.