Prayer for Daniel

Graphic from The Children's Activity Center

Seems like I'll be spending quite a bit of time on the chapter entitled "Your family: fortifying the lives of those you love" in Shirer's book Fervent.

Yesterday I prayed and spent time looking up Scriptures for my prayer for my youngest son Daniel. I've been praying about what I'm to specifically, strategically, pray for Daniel.  Then, as I began to write out the prayer words, something happened that sometimes happens for me.  I found myself writing words that weren't the ones I planned. It's as if God's directed my words to place where I hadn't planned on going.  If I were in a Pentecostal church, they'd probably say I was prophesying.  I don't know about all that, but I do know that sometimes God give me words for people.

Here's my prayer for Daniel:                                                                                                                 

Father God, I praise You that You are the all knowing all powerful God!  I praise You that You have good plans for me and my children.  Thank You that You knew who I would be, the good and the bad, and that You chose to bless me with Daniel as a son.  I praise You because I know that You love Daniel more than I do.  Thank that You still chose me to be his mother; that amidst all my failings, I am the one you wanted to impact my son.  I praise You that You who began a good work in Daniel will be faithful to complete it.

I ask forgiveness for the ways I’ve failed Daniel.  For all the pain his father and I’s failed marriage inflicted upon him – I’m so sorry God.  Please restore and heal his broken heart. I ask forgiveness for the fact that I wasn’t always present for Daniel; that sometimes I failed to deal with the pain of life and chose to slip into food, daydreams, relationships and other things to numb out pain.   I’m sorry God, I was wrong.  I thank You for Your forgiveness.  Please dear God heal the parts of Daniel that are broken because of mine and his father’s failures.

Father I pray that Your Holy Spirit within Daniel would raise up in him the desire to delight himself in You.  Draw him to Yourself dear God. Holy Spirit teach my son how to delight in you. I thank You that You will make Daniel’s steps firm as he delights in You.

Father, please heal the holes in Daniel that are resulting in fractured relationships.  Oh Lord, make Daniel a lover of the people around him.  Teach him how to love.  Father teach Daniel to love in a way that never gives up.  Help him to grow to love others more than himself.  May Daniel not have a swelled head or seek himself first. Help him not keep score of the sins of others.  Help him trust You and trust people to You. Dear God please help Daniel’s love to grow and increase beyond measure, bringing him into the rich revelation of spiritual insight in all things. Dear God pour love on Daniel so that if fills his life and splashes over on everyone around him.  May his life be infused with strength and purity, filled with confidence in the presence of You. 

Father I pray for Daniel’s future wife.  Please keep her close to You.  Develop in her a tender humility and quiet patience.  Father may she be a person who demonstrates gentleness and a generous love toward others.  May she be a woman who speaks when she has something worthwhile to say.  May she be a person of kind words.  May she be a woman who seeks to cultivate inner beauty; make her a loyal, wise woman. Show her the work you have for her dear Lord and grant her confidence in Your calling on her life.  Please grant her the opportunities to develop her gifts and skills for the work to which You’ve called her.  Develop in her a heart of diligence.  Make her a person who can enjoy the good material things of life, but who doesn’t have to have the material stuff.  Raise within her a spirit of giving and a heart of simplicity.

Oh Father, bring Daniel and his future wife together in Your perfect timing.  Help them both wait on the other.  Please bless them with the kind of attraction and affinity where they’re totally taken with one another.  Help them both see, and build up the good in one another.  Enable and empower them to be responsive to one another.  Teach Daniel how to honor , delight in and be good to his wife.  Give him a heart that will seek to truly hear and know what is important to her and to value those things.  Empower him to be good to his wife.

May it be said of Daniel that he is a lover of You, his wife, his children and everyone around him.  May his life be marked by excellence in everything he does.  May he always have time, room, and hospitality for the people you’ve placed in his life.