Praying for our families

This article has been published as part of a collaboration between Keswick Ministries and en, which features contributions from the 2026 Convention speakers. Keswick Convention takes place annually each summer, its programme centring on Bible teaching, worship and Christian fellowship.

For more articles from this year's collaboration, visit the Keswick section of en's In Depth page.

I watched in awe as the procession moved slowly to the front of the auditorium, where a large wooden cross towered above the room. Each person held a slip of paper on which they had lovingly written the names of their prodigal children. Some held hands, some wept, others paused for a quiet moment as they laid the names at the foot of the cross.

These were good parents; parents who had prayed their best prayers, who had given the task of parenting their best shot, but whose children, for the time being, had turned their backs on the faith they had been taught, and their hearts were broken.

This was a sacred moment that I witnessed time and again at Care for the Family’s event Bringing Home the Prodigals.

Every parent who is a follower of Christ longs for their children to have a living faith of their own. But however old our children are, and whatever stage they are at on the journey, there are three things we would do well to remember.

First, it’s not all down to us.

In the early years it seems relatively straightforward. We read them Bible stories, take them to church and pray for them, bolstered by the lovely verse in the book of Proverbs (Prov.22v6): “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”

We would love to believe this is a promise of how things turn out if we do the right thing as parents. But that would be a mistake. The thorny problem of free will means there are no cast-iron guarantees. We all know brilliant parents whose children are breaking their hearts, but even more annoyingly, parents who by anyone’s standards have broken every rule in the book and whose children seem to be doing just fine!

There is much we can do to encourage our children on their journey of faith, and if all is going well, it is natural that we will be tempted to believe it is all down to our brilliant parenting. But this way of thinking leads to the uncomfortable truth that if they are not where we would love them to be, we have somehow failed. Taking total responsibility for our children’s relationship with God is too heavy a burden for us to bear. God has no grandchildren.

Second is the danger of confusing spirituality with personality.

When our four children were little, they had different attitudes to church. Our daughter loved going to the children’s groups and doing craft, but for another it was a different story. Church for him was simply to be endured, and because of this I all too easily put him in the “prodigal” category, believing he didn’t love Jesus. The truth was he did love Jesus, he simply didn’t like doing craft and glitter.

Of course we want our children to live lives surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus, but let’s remember this is less about the externals and more about their hearts.

Third, we need to remember that we are in a spiritual battle.

Paul writes to the church in Ephesus that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6v12). We forget this at our peril. The family is close to God’s heart and so perhaps it should come as no surprise to find that this is a contested area.

But Paul also tells us how to stand our ground. Whether we are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles or youth leaders, ultimately the most effective weapon we have is prayer. There are so many wonderful things we can pray for them; promises from Scripture, the fruit of the Spirit, wisdom, and for their relationships; but most of all we can pray that they have soft hearts that respond to the Father’s love.

As parents, times of solitude may be hard to come by, but we can seize moments to pray in the busyness of family life – on the school run, in the Sainsbury’s queue, while tidying their room, loading the dishwasher, … fill in the blank! We can pray with our spouse, or (especially if we are parenting alone) with friends. I have met with the same two friends for over 30 years now to pray for our children and grandchildren. We have prayed through broken nights, broken bones and broken hearts – but most of all we have prayed that each one would come to know and love the Lord Jesus.

Some of those prayers have been answered; others, not yet. But as we pray, we can know that we are praying in accordance with God’s will. His greatest desire is for them to be in relationship with Him. He is the loving father watching the horizon, waiting to run out and welcome His children home. And so we pray with hope.