Irresistible Love

I woke up Saturday morning with a simple idea, and it should have only taken a half hour. I was going to move the linens out of the hall closet, and use the space to store all of our board games and puzzles instead. I was then going to combine all the sheets and towels into the linen closet of our master bedroom. (I've mentioned it before, but a massive number of closets is one reason that I fell in love with this house.) Once I got started, though, I couldn't stop. Ten hours and several closets, drawers, and cabinets later, I'd purged our home of three bags of trash, three bags of donation items, and numerous kitchen appliances that no longer needed to take up useful space. It felt great, and I learned a couple things about myself. One: I really need a way to organize my kids' drawings and school papers. Two: I'm a greeting card hoarder. If you sent us a "congrats on the new baby" card, chances are I still have it. I found lots of treasures along the way though- old love notes, notes between Amy and I in school, old pamphlets about childbirth and breastfeeding, and then most importantly- a prayer of salvation I'd written out four years ago for my children. I adapted it from a book my mom bought me called Praying the Scriptures for Your Children by Jodie Berndt. It's a prayer that I've spoken in some form or another even as a child and teen myself, before I was ever ready to start a family of my own. It's a prayer that's already been fulfilled in my older two children, and yet to be filled in Isaac and Lydia. It's the most important prayer I could ever pray in my lifetime, and so I wanted to share it here. I wrote it out for each one of my three children four years ago, and plan to write it out for Lydia now as well. While I have been praying for Isaac and Lydia's salvation since my pregnancies with them, I think it helps to have the words spelled out using Scripture interwoven throughout the prayer, and to pray His promises word for word.

Here it goes:

Thank you for loving Isaac so much that You gave Your one and only Son, that when Isaac believes in Him, he will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16) We pray that Isaac will trust in You and never be shaken. (Psalm 125:1) We pray that he will repent of his sin and confess with his mouth that Jesus is Lord. We pray that he will believe in his heart that You have raised Christ from the dead. Guide Isaac to call on Your name Lord, and save him. (Romans 10: 9,13.) We pray that Isaac, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how long and how wide and how high and how deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses all understanding, that Isaac may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3: 18-19)

I believe two things that may seem incompatible. I know that each one of us comes to God of our own free will and choice, and we cannot pray another person into Heaven ourselves. I also believe what God has promised in 1 John- that whatever we ask according to His will, we will have what we have asked. My children's salvation is well within the will of God. I pray that God's love will be so overwhelming to my children that He will be found irresistible. I have no idea what it would feel like to have an adult child living outside the will of God, but in Jodie Berndt's book, she states, "God wants our children to be saved. When you pray for your children's salvation, you can be confident that you are praying in accordance with God's will." She references 2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

I John 5:14-15 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of Him.