Praying Circles around your Children review

Praying Circles around Your Children Description:

Mark Batterson shares a perfect blend of biblical yet practical advice that will revolutionize your prayer life by giving you a new vocabulary and a new methodology. You’ll see how prayer is your secret weapon. Through stories of parents just like you, Batterson shares five prayer circles that will not only help you pray for your kids, but also pray through your kids.
Batterson teaches about how to create prayer lists unique to your family, claim God-inspired promises for your children, turn your family circle into a prayer circle, and discover your child’s life themes. And he not only tells you how, he illustrates why.

As Batterson says, “I realize that not everyone inherited a prayer legacy like I did, but you can leave a legacy for generations to come. Your prayers have the power to shape the destiny of your children and your children’s children. It’s time to start circling.”

Description from Zondervan's website.  Read more here

My Review:

Do you have about 2 hours?  Do you have children?  Then you need to read this booklet.  More a guide than a step by step how to, Batterson details the importance of praying for your children and suggests areas and ways to do so.  

Batterson begins with honesty, "you'll never be a perfect parent, but you can be a praying parent.  Prayer is your highest privilege as a parent."  We are reminded that, "you don't become a praying parent by default.  You do it by design, by desire, by discipline."  While this may be a quick read, the implementation requires time, effort, and work.  This isn't a name it and claim it idea.  This is a pray it for as long as it takes program.

We are reminded that throughout the Bible are promises that God has made to us.  Promises like Psalm 37:5 "Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act" or James 1:12 which tells us that "blessed is the man who perseveres under trials...he will receive the crown of life".  As a parent, with God's guidance and instructions, we should be using these promises to pray for our children, to guide us in training them in the way they should go.

Included in this booklet are what Batterson calls 5 prayer circles.  These are Circling the Promises of God (literally circling them in the Bible), Making Prayer Lists (individualized lists for each of your children), Creating Prayer Mantras (short sayings or verses that help you to focus on God's truths), Forming Prayer Circles (inviting others to pray with you) and Praying through the Bible (allowing God to lead your prayer as you read His word).

While there may not be a lot of meat to this booklet, the bones really do give you something to chew on.  My only complaint is that at times it feels like an advertisement for the book this spun off from, The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears.  I haven't read it and therefore can't comment on the content.

Sound like something you might want to read?  Zondervan, in addition to providing me a copy of this book for review purposes, has graciously given me a copy to give to one of you lucky readers.

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