Do your Grandchildren Shock you?

Recently, a friend of mine spent the weekend with her grandchildren. She told me, “It was shocking to see how fast my four grandchildren are growing up and the challenges they are facing.  I am experiencing a lot of heartache over the world they are growing up in and concern over their response to it.  Seeing my sweet grandkids living in such a godless culture is heartbreaking.” I can identify with those thoughts, and I am hearing those thoughts expressed by many grandparents.   

Using media, technology, education, social influences, and political pressures to desensitize and cloud the boundaries of truth that hold our families together is launching an aggressive attack. The enemy’s attacks against our families and our nation’s moral foundations are relentless and growing worse with time

In post-Christian society, children are going to face strong opposition and competing belief systems, and unless they are rooted in the Bible, they will absorb the ideas of our day and assimilate to the beliefs of our culture. 1

Ask your grandchildren about their friends, teachers, activities, what is going on in their world, and how they feel about it. Keep an open mind and open ears, so you know how to pray for them. If you are alarmed, they may not feel open to sharing with you. Appreciate their perspective, listen to their opinions.

However, in the lion’s den for not obeying the king, Daniel stood firm for God in a very complicated ungodly culture. Today, we as grandparents can stand in the gap for our grandchildren, praying they will stand strong for God. Just as Esther stood in the gap for her people, the Israelites, when their lives were threatened physically, we can stand in the gap for the spiritual lives of our grandchildren.  

This is why we are making Grandparents’ Day a Day of Prayer for our grandchildren and their parents on Grandparents Day on September 12. Will you join us?

Suggestions to pray:

• Pray your grandchildren will invite Jesus into their hearts.
• Pray your grandchildren will grow strong in their walk with the Lord. 
• Pray your grandchildren will recognize the difference between truth and deception in their culture so they can flee from it.
• Pray your grandchildren will respect authority and pray for those in authority over them, like their parents, teachers, and others.

Our hope for the future generation can only be in the Lord, not in this complex world. What are you doing to stand in the gap for your grandchildren?Please share in the comments.

1. Biblical Worldview, Josh Mulvihill, page 29, Renewanation.

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By Lillian Penner, Prayer Director, Christian Grandparenting Network, lpenner@christiangrandparenting.net