1. Pray that God would teach them how to give Him their worries.
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“… Throw all your worries on him because he takes care of you.” 1 Peter 5: 7
God wants us to bring our worries to him. He wants us to throw them from our hearts into his hands!
I have met many people who have not thrown “all their fear” on the Lord because they felt that He had more pressing matters like wars and famines to attend to. But nothing could be further from the truth! When God knows how much hair is on each of our heads, He is more than capable of juggling the great needs of the world with the less historical matters of our lives. But most of the time the concept that we struggle with most in getting this passage through is how to throw our fears out of our hearts. We pray for her, but as soon as we say “Amen!” have said. they are right there and again demand our attention.
As a single woman and then as a woman, I had a series of exercises that I went through to process my worries and struggles with God. It worked for years and I had many victories over fear. I was so grateful! And I also thought that this was the delightful ending to this chapter in my life.
Then the most precious miracle of our family was added! And then there were challenging health problems and big changes in our family that made some of these great ways I used to process worries unattainable. And the chapter turned back to learning how to cast my fear on God. New lessons were learned.
All in all, the process of learning HOW to entrust your problems to God will change over the course of your life. So the way your child has to learn to deal with stress right now may be different from the way they have to deal with it at the age of twenty. But appreciating and praying for the all too often elusive “how” for your child is vital! Also, it is vitally important to teach them that this is an area where God has victory for them! This can be difficult to do at times, and this short guide can be a lifetime study, but is meant to be part of your story with God.
Pray something like this for your child:
Lord, please teach ______________________ (name of each child) how to pass their fears on to you. Present him / her with the practical “how” of this necessary task. Our worries are so heavy and so sticky that sometimes it’s too hard to pick up and throw at you. Show yourself to them in such a way that they know that you care for them so that they can confide their fears to you.
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