GrandGrams #7, Written by Beth Sheldon
What an awesome privilege it is to have the compass 🧭 of God’s living words to guide our intercessions for our grandchildren! How indescribably rich are God’s glorious inheritances in our grands! We get to pray and agree with the wealth of all God sees in their lives. We can grab His living words off the pages of scripture and craft these words into prayers as the Holy Spirit leads us!
Here is an example of how to pray through scripture for our grandchildren. I will be using the Apostle Paul’s prayer from Ephesians 3:20:
“Father God, I pray that You will illuminate the eyes of (name and pray this over each one of your grandchildren) imagination, flooding them with light, until they experience the full revelation of the hope of their calling —that is, the wealth of Your glorious inheritances that You find in them as their heavenly Father. They are Your holy ones!”
As we pray through this and many other scriptures, Holy Spirit breathes on our intercession and begins to expand our revelation of what God sees as He beholds the glorious inheritances He has deposited uniquely into each one of their lives! As our prayers continue flowing under Holy Spirit’s inspiration, He can breathe on the words flowing from our hearts.
We might go on to pray something similar to this as we expand further from the revelation the scriptures open up to our hearts as Holy Spirit breathes on them:
“Abba, You created our grandchildren in Your very image and likeness and deposited such rich treasures inside them. Let their eyes be opened to see Your treasure in them, crafted by Your creative design. Let them experience the infinite ways you treasure them and also marvel at the ways Your inheritance is being released through their lives!”
When Paul penned this prayer under the inspiration of Holy Spirit, he conveyed the heart of an apostolic father. He was expressing the very heart our Heavenly Father has for each one of us. God’s deep desire is to create the culture of heaven here on earth as His children rise up and shine in the hope of our callings into His living expressions here!
Papa Paul tapped into the heart of “Our Father, who is in Heaven!” He prayed God’s heart be known here on earth. His prayers opened up an invitation for heaven to come here now, manifesting through every generation. These scripturally inspired prayers lead us to intercede in ways that are higher than ours and under the inspiration of thoughts that are higher than ours. (Isaiah 55:10)
Our grandchildren’s created purpose was recorded about them before even one of their days came to be! Just ponder with me these wondrous realities as I pray through some of the verses of Psalm 139:
“Abba Father, You are so intimately aware of each one of our grandchildren (name each one). You read “their” hearts like an open book and you know all the words “they are” about to speak before “our grandchildren” even start a sentence! You know every step “they” will take before “their” journey even begins. You saw who you created “every one of our grandchildren” to be before “they” became “themselves”! Before they’d ever seen the light of day, the number of days you planned for “them” were already recorded in your book. Every single moment you are thinking of “them”! How precious and wonderful to consider that you cherish our grandchildren constantly in your every thought! O God, your desires toward “them” are more than the grains of sand on every shore! When “they” awake each morning, you’re still with “them”.” Psalms 139:3-4, 16-18 TPT
Wow! Intercession is an invitation into the thoughts God has been thinking about our grandchildren from before time began! We will never run out of ways to pray His heart over their lives! He says His thoughts about each one of them outnumber the grains of sand on every seashore! That is extreme access to an immeasurable abundance of revelation flowing from His heart and mind to us as we pray!
His word decrees in 1 Corinthians 2:16 AMP, “For who has known the mind and purposes of the Lord, so as to instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ [to be guided by His thoughts and purposes].” Since His Holy Spirit now indwells us, we have the mind of Christ, His own perceptions and wisdom and revelation, yes, His very thoughts teaching us how to pray. O the depths of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of our God! He invites us to access these deep places as we pray. We model the way of Jesus, praying in complete agreement with whatever the Father is saying and doing and preparing to do in our grandchildren’s lives.
Embracing the practice of praying the scriptures over each of our grandchildren has radically impacted my heart. It is as if Holy Spirit has opened up a gracious gift of revelation at every answered invitation to intercession. As I step into the fresh and living waters flowing from His presence, presents are opened up before my spiritual eyes! I see with wonder the wonderful love our Father in Heaven feels for them. I access His strategies for how to pray as Holy Spirit unwraps the thoughts of Christ Jesus about my grandchildren. How He loves me and each one of us as grandparents to come intimately close and pray the thoughts of His heart about our grandchildren back to Him! I believe the greatest gift we can give to them is to present them before Him and access the treasures and gifts available in His thoughts toward them. They are uniquely gifted to rise and shine for just such a time as this! Our greatest bliss as grandparents is to bless the gifts, calling, and anointing they received from their Creator and see them released into the places of influence they are designed to shine in.
Let’s encourage one another and other grandparents we may know to pray the scriptures over our grandchildren and watch them flourish into the fullness of their God-breathed purposes here. May His Kingdom come and His will be done in their lives here on earth, just as He sees it accomplished already in Heaven!
Call to Action: Ask Holy Spirit to highlight to you a specific scripture you can pray from daily for your grandchildren. He knows every intimate detail of their lives! Ask Him to show you how to access His thoughts for your grandchildren as you pray and personalize your prayers to their specific design and situation. As you begin to receive fresh revelation and see breakthroughs happening in answer to your prayers for your grandchildren, write them down briefly in a journal as a memorial stone to God’s faithfulness. Then, take the overcoming power of that testimony of answered prayer and share it as an encouragement with another grandparent. Who knows what wondrous breakthrough will be released and reproduced through the overcoming power of your testimony being released to strengthen and encourage other grandparents in their prayer journeys with Jesus!