Praying for Marriages & Families

What a good and beautiful creation the family is! Marriage is a picture of Christ’s love for the Church. A parent’s love for their newborn baby is the closest thing we can imagine to the unconditional love our Father has for us. We see picture after picture in the Word, and the world around us, of how God shows Himself through His design for the family. God lingers on His instruction for families; teaching husbands to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands, telling parents to impress God’s commandments on the hearts of our kids, and exhorting children to respect and honor their parents.

But friends, we have an enemy who striking at the heart of God’s good design. In the last 60 years, there has been an 8-fold increase in children living apart from their fathers. We remain at more than 300,000 kids in the foster care system. Eighty-five percent of adoptions worldwide are for children who have at least one living parent (meaning they are not true orphans). This is a concerted, strategic attack, and we must not be apathetic towards it.

According to Katy Faust in Them Before Us, “Things seem to be getting worse despite the overwhelming resources invested in improving education, serving the homeless, and boosting mental health services. What if there was an “all of the above” option that would significantly reduce everything on the list of societal ills and immediately increase the number of high-achieving students, cut the pipeline into prostitution, and decimate the number of desperate calls to the suicide hotline? There is. All of these devastating and far-reaching societal problems have one commonality: They are rooted in the breakdown of the family.”

It is clear, as we look at the world around us, that we have an enemy who hates what God calls good. And just as clear, in my opinion, is that God calls His people to fight to preserve what He calls good. Not to create our own new thing, or redefine what is good, but to pursue the beauty of His plan. When it comes to families, what does that mean for each one of us?

Our goal in forming the For Family network is to recognize that this will take all of us. We must go beyond defending our families and move into an offensive attack that will regain ground that we have lost to the enemy. Let us use every tool in our tool belt. Let us go to battle arm-in-arm in unity. Let us fight to preserve what God made so good.

The For Family network has, so far, had 30 different organizations or churches come together for the sake of family preservation and flourishing. These organizations range from churches to pregnancy centers to mentorship to fatherhood, and so much more. We are setting aside individual missions to work together for the families in our city. We have a strategy to see families move from failing to flourishing.

And we pray.

We pray that God will defeat the enemy in every single way that he moves against families.

Will you pray with us?

Will you pray that fathers come back home?

Will you pray that single mothers choose community to stand with them as they fight to parent?

Will you pray that children see God’s idea for families and choose it for themselves as they grow?

Will you pray that God protects the unborn?

Will you pray for repentance and a turning back to the sexual ethic that God gave us as good?

Will you pray that we remember that we are image bearers of Christ?

Will you pray for fidelity in marriages?

Will you pray for church leaders and pastors who prioritize marriage and family ministry?

Will you pray for healthy families who offer their homes and families as a safe, restful place for those who are broken and lonely?