Prayers for Your Strong-Willed TeenНамуна

Prayer for Purpose

We hope our teens will grow into not just their adult years, but also their purpose. As believers, we don't have to hope--we can pray!

God has a purpose for our teens, just as he has a purpose for us. As we know, finding our purpose is not always easy. It takes grit, guts, and determination--all things we want our teens to have in spades.

James 1:4 says Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Doesn't that sound great? We want our teens--especially the ones who seem to rail against us and are more strong-willed than others--to be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

We also get to rely on God's promise in Philippians 1:6, that God will continue his good work in all of us until it is complete--isn't that a relief?

As parents and grandparents, we are works in progress right alongside our teens. God will keep moving, working, and teaching us to be more like Jesus until we fully get it. He won't quit on us. He won't stop just because we make a mistake.

This is terrific news!

If you have ever wondered if you were the right parent to raise this particularly prickly teen, rest assured--you were chosen for this! You were made to be the parent of this strong-willed teenager. They might be challenging to parent through this season, but with the Lord's help, they will come out on the other side of those teenage years as adults living and working in their purpose.

This is a process. We can't rush it, we can't make it go the way we want it to. But in the hands of the most capable Father ever, we can trust that his process is making us the parents we need to be to guide this teen into young adulthood. We can trust that he works in and through our teens, even if we can't see it now.

Prayer: Creator God, thank you for choosing me to be the parent or grandparent of this teenager! I trust you. I believe your promises that you won't stop doing your good work in either of us until the day of completion in Jesus Christ. I recognize that I may want to try and speed this process up, but help me trust your timing, your will, and your way. Thank you for my teenager, and thank you for the purpose you created just for them. I believe you are preparing them every day for walking that out. In Jesus' name, amen.

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