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Parenting by Design - June 30

The power of prayer

Acts 4:31:  "After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness" (NLT).

In the early days of the church, when the Christians faced problems, they turned to God in prayer and were rewarded with the power of the Holy Spirit.  Imagine this scene, where the room in which the people were praying "shook" with the power of God!  Time after time, the Bible instructs us to pray and promises us the power of the Spirit, yet most often we depend on our own strength to handle the problems of life, including parenting.

How much easier to surrender ourselves and our children to God and rely on the Spirit to empower us to deal with our trials.  It takes faith, however, and a lack of faith sometimes causes us to rely on our own power rather than the Spirit.

Model a belief in the power of prayer and faith in God as you face parenting challenges.