Do you homeschool?
Educating your children at home is a worthwhile undertaking. Your family can structure your child’s education to fit their abilities, personality, and–most importantly–to disciple them in Scripture. Home education is a wonderful way to point your kids to Christ on a daily basis.
Praying for Your Homeschool
Homeschooling is also serious business. After all, it involves the education, discipleship, and well being of our children. It affects both their present and their future.
As Christians, we should desire to ask God to bless our work at home. Proverbs 16:3, ESV, says:
Commit your work to the Lord,
and your plans will be established.
How do we commit our work to the Lord? We pray!
Thankfully, there are wonderful templates for our prayer outlined in the Bible. Psalm 118, for example is a community prayer of thanksgiving over a special event or dedication. You can dedicate your homeschooling efforts to the Lord each day. Psalm 118 is a great place to start.
5 Ways to Pray for Your Homeschool
I love praying Scripture. The psalms are a wonderful place to begin this practice of praying the Bible, since they were written as hymns to be used in communicating with the Lord.
You’ll want to read Psalm 118, since it will be the basis of your prayer for your homeschool.
Again, Psalm 118 is a communal thanksgiving song. It was probably originally sung by the people of Israel during a special ceremony, perhaps after the people rebuilt God’s temple in the book of Ezra.
The psalm then appears in Scripture during important events, such as during Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Scholars believe that the hymn was sung during the Feast of Tabernacles and Passover. Jesus even quoted Psalm 118 in reference to his Second Coming, saying in Matthew 23:39, “For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
Let’s use this wonderful psalm as the basis of the first four ways you can pray for your homeschool, committing it to the Lord.
1) Give Thanks to our Good God (Psalm 118:1-4)
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever! – Psalm 118:1, ESV
Verses 1-4 of Psalm 118 offer praise to our God who is good. Four times the psalmist repeats, “His steadfast love endures forever!”
Hebrews 13:15 tells us that through Christ we should “continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.” In good times and in hard times, we thank God for his goodness.
And truly, thank God for the many blessings your homeschool represents: in addition to God’s wonderful character, he has blessed you with children, with the ability and desire to educate your children, and with the time and resources to lead your children to God’s Word every day!
2) Call on the Lord in Your Distress (Psalm 118:5-7)
Out of my distress I called on the Lord;
the Lord answered me and set me free. – Psalm 118:5
In verses 5-7 of Psalm 118, we call on God in our distress and he answers us. Not only that, he is on our side as our helper. He sets us free and we need not fear.
Spending all day every day with your children, instructing them in the way they should go, is not an easy task. Children are not always compliant, and (let’s be honest!) we parents are not always loving, patient, and kind.
There are other challenges, too. Extended family, neighbors, and even limited finances can present homeschooling hurdles.
When you struggle with your homeschool, call on the Lord in your distress. He hears you, he is all-powerful, and is able to answer your call. Jude 24 tells us that God is “able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.” What a joy that is to us!
3) Praise God Because He is Your Strength, Your Song, and Your Salvation (Psalm 118:14-16, 24)
This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it. – Psalm 118:24
Sometimes, we remember to ask God to meet our needs, to save us from our troubles, and to care for our children. We thank God when he spontaneously answers our prayers.
It can be easy, though, to overlook praising God for who he is and how he equips us in our daily lives.
Psalm 118:14-16 and verse 24 praise God because he is our strength, our song, and our salvation. Everything we are comes from God. Consider what it means that God is your song–he is the very joy in your heart, because he has saved your soul. Verse 16 tells us that God saves us valiantly, and he exalts us. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:8-9:
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
When we praise God for the day he has made, when we rejoice and are glad because he has saved our souls, that praise cannot help but overflow to our households. I want my children to praise God for his salvation, as–I’m certain–do you.
4) Ask God for Salvation and Success in Your Homeschool (Psalm 118:25)
Save us, we pray, O Lord!
O Lord, we pray, give us success! – Psalm 118:25
Verse 25 of Psalm 118 prompts us to ask God for salvation–for you and for your children. This is a wonderful prayer you can pray with your kids!
We pray, too, that the Lord will give us success in the endeavor we have committed to for the glory of God. May he bless our homeschools, not with the success of the world, but with spiritual success. Jesus described this spiritual success using the metaphor of a tree bearing fruit. In John 15:5, he says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
We ask God to help us abide in Jesus so we can bear fruit–in our lives, in our families, and in our homeschools. We ask God to bring our children to salvation in Christ so they, too, can abide in Jesus and bear fruit.
5) Pray Like the Heroes of Scripture
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. – Hebrews 12:1-2
I love Hebrews 12:1-2. What a comfort it is to know that we do not run the race of our faith alone. Rather, the kingdom of God is full of believers, past and present, who love Jesus and who kept the faith (or who are presently keeping it).
Scripture is full of the prayers of believers. You can pray for your homeschool, your family, your children, and yourself alongside the heroes of your faith!
My book, 60 Scriptures You Can Pray, features the biblical stories of prayers from the people of God’s Word, including:
- Jesus
- Mary
- Paul
- Hannah
- Peter
- Rebekah
- David
- Anna
- Moses
- Hagar
- Solomon
- Esther
- Jonah
- Deborah
- Job
- Miriam
- Hezekiah
- Jairus
- Elisha
- Abraham
- Joel
- …and many more!
Over the course of two months, you can pray the prayers the biblical heroes of our faith prayed, adapting them to your homeschool. You’ll study eight different types of prayer, too!
There are many ways you can pray for your homeschool. 60 Scriptures You Can Pray will help you expand your practice of praying to our great, loving, kind God.
Bible Resources for Your Kids
Learn More HereLearn More HereLearn More HereLearn More HereLearn More HereLearn More Here
60 Scriptures You Can Pray
The Bible is full of prayer that you can pray too!
How do you pray when you don’t know what to say? The Bible holds the answer.
God doesn’t expect us to pray without guidance. In fact, Scripture is full of examples of ordinary people approaching our extraordinary God in prayer.
Award-winning author Danika Cooley believes that praying God’s Word teaches us how to best communicate with our Lord:
“There are so many lessons we can learn from Scripture about how to approach God and what to expect when we do.”
Danika’s devotional 60 Scriptures You Can Pray covers eight types of prayer from the Bible, the expectations we should have when we pray, and the right heart attitude for prayer.
- Praise | We adore God for who he is.
- Thanksgiving | We thank God for all he has done.
- Confession | We admit our sin to the God who saves us.
- Supplication | We humbly ask God to provide for our needs.
- Intercession | We ask God to meet the needs of others.
- Deliverance | We cry out to God for help in times of trouble.
- Lament | We bring our sorrow to God, our comforter.
- Guidance | We ask for God’s help in determining his will for our lives.
When you read 60 Scriptures You Can Pray, you will:
- Develop a habit of praying daily over a two-month period
- Learn more about prayer in Scripture
- Understand eight different types of prayer
- Expand your understanding of how to pray biblically
- Become better acquainted with God, His Word, and why we pray
Packed with thoughtful explanations of biblical prayer and practical application in each devotion, 60 Scriptures You Can Pray is the tool you need to learn more about prayer–straight from God’s Word.
Want to equip the women in your church to pray biblically?
Thinking Kids Posts You’ll Love
