James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. NIV
I was happy to see the article below on the Desiring God Blog. What a great way to get your children to be more aware of the world around them! As a family we try to always pray for the sick person as well as the Emergency Workers. It has now become instinctive whenever we hear a siren and by God's grace our children usually initiate the call to pray.
So how can our families expand upon this? How can we make prayer more instinctive in other areas of our lives? What about those medical helicopters that we see fly by so often? Or when we see a homeless person? When we hear of someone that has lost their job? When we see a tragic story on the news? What about those kids on the street corner? How about when a famous athlete or celebrity makes a bad decision that effects their entire family? Do our children hear us criticize them and their actions or do we pray with our families for the people involved? There is power in prayer and there are so many ways that we can demonstrate this to our children. There are countless opportunities to demonstrate our love for others that can easily be overlooked.
There is a lost world around us that we need to train ourselves and our children to be aware of. Just because we cannot personally touch everyone that we see we can ask our Father in heaven to step in and make a difference in their lives. Wouldn't it be great to one day get to heaven and meet people that you never knew on this earth who are there because you or your children prayed for them? Do you believe that your prayers can have that kind of impact? They can! If you struggle in this area, ask God to expand your faith and to show Himself to you in this way. This decision can effect multiple generations in your family. It can mean one day, possibly many years from now, you are driving down the road and you hear a siren and it is your grandchild who prays for the people in the ambulance!
http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2429_dont_waste_the_sound_of_sirens/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+DGBlog+(DG+Blog)&utm_content=My+Yahoo
