Praying for Teen Boys: Partnering With God for the Heart of Your SonSample

Lord, Make the Hidden Things Known

One of the hardest parts of being a parent of a young adult is balancing their freedom you’re your continued parenting responsibilities. My husband and I felt that keenly when our oldest son left our home for the first time right after graduating from high school and then again when he left for college. He was only a little over an hour from us. We could get to him easily if we were needed or even just because we wanted to see him. But the big, gaping hole we had to learn to deal with—which just might be the hardest part of releasing a young adult into the wild—was that we had no control over how he spent his time.

This season was the beginning of learning to trust God for our son in an entirely new way. Many times I asked myself if we had done enough, tried hard enough. I’ve come to understand that the answer for all families to this question is likely no. Even those who do their very best will leave some things out. The reality was that, while he was at college, we had to trust that he could and would make good decisions.

The feelings of helplessness this caused led me to pray frequently that God would show us things we couldn’t see with our own eyes. I prayed for our son to be held accountable by God Himself in the times when it was impossible for me to do it. I prayed for God to reveal areas of sin and prayed that He would do it in a way and at a time that provided the most benefit to our son. Our God is in heaven and does as He pleases (Psalm 115:3), but we can ask Him to reveal to us what we need to know.

A prayer based on Luke 8:17:

Lord, make the hidden things that need to be known about _____________known, at just the right time, in a way that brings You glory. In Jesus’s name, amen.

A prayer based on Psalm 139:7-12:

Father, I take comfort in the fact that even when I can’t see _______________, You can. There’s nowhere he can go, nothing he can do, and no place he can hide that he is outside the boundary of Your love and Your presence. Find him when he’s in the dark and bring him into Your light. In Jesus’s Name, amen.

If you've enjoyed this plan and want to learn more about how to effectively pray for your son, this plan has been adapted from the book Praying for Teen Boys: Partnering with God for the Heart of Your Son. Order today!