Leave a Spiritual Legacy of Prayer

God has given grandparents a sacred trust, an opportunity to imprint the lives of another generation with God’s faithfulness. Grandparents can stand in the gap with prayer in our spiritually deprived world, as the enemy is seeking to engulf the minds and hearts of our grandchildren. 

Even though the world we live in today may be crumbling, as grandparents, we can leave our grandchildren a legacy that will never pass away. The Lord told Ezekiel, “I looked for someone to build up the wall and stand before me in the gap . . .” (Ezekiel 22:30). Today, God is asking grandparents to guard the land, to stand in the gap and defend against the enemy’s attacks on their grandchildren. God sent His Son to stand in the gap for us so we can have a personal relationship with Him. Just as God stood in the gap for us, let us stand in the gap for our grandchildren. Paul writes, “Those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” (I Corinthians 4:2). May all the generations who come behind us find us faithful!

Satan doesn’t want us to take the time to make an effort to deliberately pray for our grandchildren because he wants to distract them from the faith. However, let’s take the time to defeat the enemy by standing in the gap as Esther did with our prayers. 

In Isaiah 44:3, God told the Israelites, “I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants.” We can confidently pray for godly seed to be sown in the lives of our children and grandchildren. The seeds of prayer we plant today will yield a harvest of blessings in the future. God has given us a powerful resource in the avenue of prayer to bring benefit to their lives.

A few years ago, I found a letter in my family archives written by my great-grandfather in Poland to his son, my grandfather, who had immigrated to America in the early 1900s. In the letter, he wrote that he was praying for my grandfather, his children, and his future grandchildren. What a blessing to see in writing that my great-grandfather had prayed for me before I was born, and his prayers are answered in my life, my children, grandchildren, and hopefully my future generations.

My book, Grandparenting with a Purpose, Effective Ways to Pray for your Grandchildren, will challenge you to stand in the gap by investing in your grandchildren’s lives by reflecting your love for God with a godly example and intentionally praying. 

May God bless you richly as you invest in the lives of your children and grandchildren.

Lillian Penner is the author of Grandparenting with a Purpose: Effective Ways to Pray for Your Grandchildren in English and Spanish. It will challenge you and give you more creative ideas to pray intentionally for your grandchildren. She is on staff with the Christian Grandparenting Network prayer ministry, developing prayer cards, grandparents@Prayer groups, and the Grandparenting Day of Prayer. She has a passion for praying intentionally for her grandchildren and desires to share that passion with other grandparents. An avid blogger, Lillian breaks into smiles if you ask about her thirteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. She and her husband, John, live in Portland, Oregon, where they are active in church ministries. They were both raised in Christian homes and desire to pass their godly heritage to their future generations. She and her husband enjoy traveling, Southern Gospel music but most of all, enjoy spending time with their family.