A Call to Fast for Our Children and Grandchildren

In some ways, this article in our continuing series on fasting is different from the preceding

ones. You will find no lists here—just an expression of a burden. The guidance I offer will not be complicated, but it will not necessarily be easy, either. It will require focus and intentionality, and it most often reflects an ongoing battle between faith and anguish. In this article, I’m talking about fasting on behalf of our children and grandchildren.  

Let me start with a story.  

My friend’s story was not unlike the story of so many other parents I’ve known. One of his children had wandered spiritually, and he and his wife committed themselves to fast and pray every Friday on his behalf. For years, they did so. That exercise not only led to their son’s eventual return to the Lord, but it has also become these parents’ practice since then. For more than a decade, they’ve fasted and prayed one day a week for their children and grandchildren.  

I heard this story from a friend who shared the speaking stage with me during a prayer conference years ago. His grief was obvious as he described where his son had gone in rebellion, but even more obvious was his great joy as he told about his son’s return to faith. It didn’t take me long to realize why my friend and his wife thus began to pray and fast for all their children and grandchildren every week.  

Pam and I don’t have children, but I happened to be traveling with one of my mentees when I heard my friend tell his story about his own children. That day, my devotional text in my reading plan just “happened” to be Moses’ interceding for God’s people in their sin, including his request to be blotted out of God’s book if God did not forgive His people (Exod 32:32). I had a strong sense then that I was to be a regular, sacrificial, fasting intercessor for some of the young men I mentor. 

They may not be my biological offspring, but they are sons in the faith to me—and one of the most loving gifts I can give them is something they may never see. In God’s grace, I can wear out my knees on their behalf, thinking little about my own physical food while I long more for God to feed, lead, and protect these young men spiritually. I’m growing in the practice (and I’ll never do it perfectly), but I want to fight beside, and for, my brothers in the real battles of spiritual warfare.   

I think of that story of my friend today because I’m burdened for so many other friends and colleagues whose hearts are breaking over their own adult children who have wandered from the faith of their childhood. I’ve sat with and prayed with parents and grandparents who did their best to raise their children under the Lord’s guidance, but now those same offspring have rejected those teachings. Their parents and grandparents grieve over their offspring’s sinful choices, and they weep regularly even as they seek the Lord on their behalf. They’re prayerfully longing for God to do something in these wayward lives—and some of these parents and grandparents have prayed for a long, long time.  

Perhaps one step they can take is to follow my friends’ example of fasting one day a week until their offspring come home. Maybe they can push away from the table and stand at the end of the proverbial driveway, watching and waiting for that first glimpse of a returning child or grandchild. Food simply doesn’t matter much when your heart is broken over someone you love—someone you want to come home.    

Perhaps you, too, might prayerfully accept this challenge. Maybe you can fast and pray for one meal once a week, one meal each day, or one full day a week on behalf of your children and grandchildren. If they’re just babies and preschoolers, let them hear you praying on their behalf each week; pray now that the enemy does not win in their lives.  

If they’re older and are walking with God now, pray and fast that they will never be drawn astray—regardless of how old they are. Ask God to guard them continually against the enemy’s arrows of deception and destruction. Pray they will long for God and His Word more than anything else throughout their lives. Pray proactively for them before they lose the battle.  

If your children or grandchildren are wrestling with God—or have already wandered from Him—agonize in faith on their behalf in prayer and fasting. Seek God, and faithfully lay your burdens at His feet. Trust that He loves your children and grandchildren more than you do, and remember that He knows exactly where they are spiritually at this very moment. Ask God to give you just a glimpse of His work in their lives so that you just keep praying and trusting. Don’t let the enemy rob you of your hope.  

Take the challenge my brother in Christ unknowingly gave to me at that conference years ago. Make a commitment. Keep it regularly. Love your children, your grandchildren, and your mentees enough to push away from the table to focus on the Father—and trust your offspring into His care as you lie at His feet.