The Significance of praying parents Part Deux
At different times in my life I have experienced joy. Times I can think of have been both big events like the moment I watched my wife walk down the aisle on our wedding day… after a 25 minute delay. That’s a true story for another day… times like the birth of my children, watching my sons graduate high school. The day our new littles moved into our homes, taking my first pastorate, etc. And many times I have experienced joy in the smaller, simpler times in my life like, the time the new littles simply called us “mom and dad” instead of Carl and Liela, or new mom and new dad, or even just today when one of my older sons made a sacrifice to serve his brother in a moment of crisis and despair, just hearing this made me joyful.
The definition of joy, as defined by dictionary.com is “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” The word joyfulness is synonymous with this definition according to dictionary.com. I liken the difference between the two in this way: Joy is a feeling in a moment in time, joyfulness is lifestyle of experiencing joy over a period of time. Moments in time or an extended period of time. In an article in the University of California, Berkeley magazine “Greater Good Magazine” back in 2015 was an article titled “Six Ways Happiness is Good for Your Health” where they correlated scientific data to how living in a state of happiness, joyfulness, impacts your health. In that article they make a pretty significant case for why we want to live joyfully. Here are a couple of the takeaways in summary:
Happiness protects your heart. Living a joyful lifestyle has a direct impact on your heart rate and blood pressure. Happiness strengthens your immune system. In a study of 350 people they exposed them all to the common cold virus. Before hand they surveyed the participants on several key emotional questions to determine their level of joyfulness. The result, those who live a joyful life were found to not develop the cold virus after exposure. Happiness combats stress. In the same study as above the researchers also measured levels of the stress hormone cortisol and found the joyful people had 23% lower levels of cortisol in their system.
So here is where you ask the question: so what does this have to do with the significance of a praying parent. I am glad you asked that question before you just closed the page and continued on with your day. In Isaiah 56 we find the famous words God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, the same words Jesus spoke twice during His earthly ministry: “My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations”. We hear that verse, it is a clarion call to churches everywhere to prioritize prayer over all other activities. It has numerous implications; implications for the church, for the family as an institution of God 
and for the individual as the temple of the Holy Spirit. If we read the first part of the same verse where this comes from we find this: “make them joyful in My house of prayer.” God has a provision for joyfulness in your life, it is found in entering into His house of prayer. Are you burdened for your children, let that burden be replaced with a joyfulness that can only be found in prayer.
I have found such significance in my prayer life for my children and the atmosphere in my life around them because of this very principle. Prayer releases Joy into your life, individual prayers = momentary joy, a lifestyle of prayer = a life of joyfulness. Prayer lifts the burden from a crushing weight at times in our children’s lives to a joy that only comes from trusting in Him and transferring that burden to Him in exchange for His joy. Does it mean you see the immediate results of your prayers in the natural? No, it means you see a Father who is at work in that moment, in that life as a result of your prayer. This life of joyfulness directly impacts your children’s lives. They see it, they feel it, it’s a tangible out-flowing of the work God is doing in your life and it affects them. The significance of a praying parent is so much more than the outcome, it is more than a matter of turning our hearts towards our children, it is so much more than the act of praying for our children, it is recognizing that in my lifestyle of prayer God changes me before their very eyes. Our change is powerful in the spiritual growth and development of our children. Mom and dad, join me in the House of prayer, praying for our children and our families. Join with me in letting God change my life, He will change yours too.