The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - How to Pray for Your Sons

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

Following up on his show from last week about praying for daughters, Jeff shares the prayer he wrote for parents to pray for their sons. He breaks down the unique ways we can intercede for them so they may pursue virtue and walk in the ways of Our Lord. Snippet from the Show “Lord, I am blessed that you have given me a son. I see my son as a gift from you and pray that I will be a faithful provider, protector, and model of your faithfulness to him.” Get the shownotes! Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 or email us at [e-mail]

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, episode 146, How to Pray for Your Sons. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show. And welcome to the show and a Merry Christmas to you. It's just around the corner.

If you're listening to Show 146, and it happens to be in the middle of the summer, well, still, Merry Christmas to you. But right now, we're getting ready to celebrate Christmas, and it's all about gifts, right? It's all about family and getting together. And my wife and I were talking yesterday about why so many people have difficulties at Christmas time. And we were shopping, and we walked into one of the stores, and there was this pillow. and it's set on that pillow something to the effect of all your dreams, all your expectations, all your family, joy, and everything, all wrapped up in this most favorite time of the year.

And I said, you know, so many people put so much into this, and if they're disappointed, then Christmas can be a difficult time. Well, it's certainly about gifts, and my gift to you this year is really two shows. Last week, I had a show on how to pray for your dog. and I provided a prayer. It's available to you in the show notes, absolutely free, but I'll tell you, I received more feedback from that show than I think any other show I've ever done. The people were writing in and saying things like, you know, we've got two daughters, we've got three daughters. I've never really thought about praying specifically for certain

things, even as they are only one, two, three, four, five years old. And apparently it was a big hit in terms of a tool that people can use to pray for their daughters. And so if you have daughters, listen to Show 145, and I wrote these prayers, I wrote them for my own children, my own grandchildren, and I'm sharing them with you. And so you're not going to find them in a bookstore or anything like that, but I want to give them to you. And by the way, if you don't get the show notes every week and you want the show notes, and I give out a lot of scriptures, prayers, and things like at, you can simply write Jeff Kavens, just my whole name in one word, Jeff Kavens, and you can text 33777. Pretty easy to remember Christian numbers, right? Trinity, 33777. And that's the number of

perfection. And you'll automatically be on the list. Well, this week, I have a prayer for sons, and I want to share that with you as a gift for Christmas. And I guess you could say it's one of those gifts that keeps on given, because you can take this prayer. You can, you can laminate it, you can fold it and put it in your purse, you can put it in the car when you've got spare time waiting to pick up your son at soccer, baseball practice, whatever it might be. You can pray for your sons. And the prayers for our sons and daughters really do have an impact. You know, as parents, God has given us custody of our kids for a period of time. And when you look at the fact that our kids, our sons and daughters are going to live

for eternity, and we have just 18 years or so to pray for them while they're in the home. And we, of course, we continue to pray for our daughters. We have three daughters, from 34 years old, all the way down to 21. And we continue to pray for them as daughters. But it's those priceless years when they're at home, that you have an opportunity to form them and to influence them, and prayer begins right away. And one of the questions that I received is, well, when do you start to pray for your kids? And I think the answer is actually before they're even born. My wife and I, when Emily was pregnant with Carly, back in the 80s, every night I would read scripture to Carly, even when she was in the womb, and I would lay my hands on Emily and pray. And

pray for this child of ours. At one point, we didn't even know if it was boy or girl. And once we found out, which was after she was born, that changed my prayers in some ways. You know, you pray for girls, sometimes a little differently than you pray for the boys in your life. Well, I have three daughters. I don't have sons, but I'll tell you what, I have grandsons. And I know what it is to have boys around, and, of course, Emily and I, when we were younger, she had two miscarriages, and who knows, might have been a little boy, and if it is, our little boy is in heaven praying for me today, but this is about you praying for your sons, and I'm going to, first of all, read the prayer that I wrote, and it's going to be available in the show notes,

and then let's take a few minutes to go through it, line by line, and just talk briefly about why it's important to pray for our sons in this way. You do know that fathers particularly are the protectors and the providers and the leaders in their home, and parents are the providers, protectors, and leaders in their home. We have little boys and girls, and it's our responsibility to pray for them. Think about that for just a moment. There's really nobody else in this world who is going to get on their knees, or close their eyes and specifically pray for your son as a son.

And the reason is, is because your son is not somebody else's son. It's your son. He is your son. And you have a responsibility to pray for him. So let's go ahead with that prayer, shall we? In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, I am blessed that you have given me a son.

I see, and there's a blank here in the prayer. so I'll just say my son, but you can fill it in with your son's names. I'll start over. I'm blessed that you have given me a son. I see my son as a gift from you and pray that I will be a faithful provider, protector, and model of your faithfulness to him. You have created my son in your image and likeness and have an eternal plan for his life. Use me as a model and mentor to help guide and direct him in becoming a strong and faithful man of God. May I be patient and kind when helping him through the difficulties he may face. I pray that my son will grow in his relationship with you, knowing your sacrificial love and covenant faithfulness.

May he come to know and imitate your holiness, humility, and power, and also to learn to hear your voice through a life of prayer, reading sacred scripture, and embracing the sacraments. Strengthen him when faced with peer pressure to do anything contrary to your ways, O Lord. Give him the wisdom and courage to flee from youthful lust and embrace virtue. Lord, I pray that my son will give you the opportunity to call him to the priesthood or religious life. If he is called to live a generous single life, prepare him to do so. If marriage were his vocation, I would ask you to help him remain pure as he prepares to completely give himself to his future

bride. Help him to stay free of pornography and use wisdom and caution while on the internet. May he be attracted to the great saints like St. Joseph as models of what a godly man is. Lord, I ask that my son will be protected from physical harm as you guide him with angelic strength. May he be wise in his relationships with girls and walk in virtue and integrity. May my gentle reminders speak to him when faced with the temptation to drink or experiment with anything that would impair his judgment or bring harm. As a father, I stand in the gap between my son and anything that would harm him, and I ask that a hedge of protection would be set around him so that he would be preserved for your purposes, O Lord. You have given my son to me for a time. Help me provide and protect him with eternity in mind.

In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. You know, I wrote that prayer and I wrote the prayer for last week about how to pray for your daughters. And it was a couple of years ago that we were having a meeting with some men, and we laminated this prayer, and we passed it around the group, and guys started praying for their daughters, and they started praying for their sons, and it was an amazing, it was an amazing experience. As the men began to pray, some of them actually began to cry as they prayed for their daughters as they prayed for their sons and later said, you know, it just dawned to me that I've never really, really, really prayed for my son. I've had some rope prayers and those are good,

but I've never from my heart really spoke words like this. And it really hit them at a deep emotional level. And it's something that they are stepping into and something that they are now owning to pray for their sons and daughters on a regular basis. You know, it's a good prayer to pray. Your son says, Dad, can I borrow the car? He's 17 years old. Can I borrow the car? Where are you going? Well, he tells you where he's going. Why not pull out something like this and just pray as he drives away? Lord, I lift him up to you. This is something that we do, not just once in a while, but daily pray for our children. You might take a prayer like this or last week's prayer for daughters and print it out and put it someplace where you and your wife pray regularly or in your Bible

and you go to Holy Hour, you can pull it out and pray for your sons, pray for your daughters. Well, today we're talking about praying for our sons. I'm going to take a little break right here. When I come back, I want to go through this prayer, kind of thought by thought, and give just a little bit of commentary. And again, this is my gift to you for Christmas, how to pray for daughters, how to pray for sons. You're listening to the Jeff K. And if you're looking for a way to learn more about your Catholic faith, I invite you to check out the Ascension Presents YouTube channel. You're going to find tons of free videos featuring Catholic presenters like Matt Frad, Liadero, Jackie Bobby Angel, and Emily Wilson. Go to YouTube.com

slash Ascension Presents. That's YouTube.com slash Ascension Presents. And if you like what you see, please share and subscribe. And welcome back and a Merry Christmas to you once again. We are talking this week about how to pray for our sons, and based on the email I get and, you know, the messages that I get, and the people that I speak to when I speak around the country, I know. I know that people, they know their sons need prayer. They know their daughters need prayer. Hey, before we go through this prayer for sons, I got to remind you, it just hit me, we are coming to the end of the year.

We're also coming to the point where the deadline is going to be coming up. And if you're interested in going to Israel in June with young adults, it's going to be a fantastic trip, a really a fantastic trip. Father Mike Schmitz is going to be joining us. And he and I are going to be leading this with great singers like Taylor Tripodi, Ali Aliah, Brother Isaiah. We also have Andrew and Sarah Swofford from Atchison, Kansas. They're going to be, they just ignite the place. And they're going to be with us. for this very special trip. We're opening it up, opening the trip up now, to anybody that wants to go. We have some seats left if you want to go and you want to join the young adults. It's always

nice to have other people with us as well. You say, well, I'm 50, I'm 60. That's okay. You can join us, but you've got to do it soon. Go to jeffcavens.com under pilgrimages. Register, pay. We'll see you there. It's going to be the trip of a lifetime. It really is. We call it 2020 vision. It's June of 2020 in the Holy Land, Franciscan University, and Stubanville is co-sponsoring. It's going to be a great time. So praying for our sons, let's go through the prayer, shall we? Together, as I wrote it, we start off with a prayer, you know, with a sign of the cross, and the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And by doing that, we invoke the presence of God, the power of God, as it pertains to the life of our sons. I am blessed that you have given me a son. You pause right there. That is an incredible thing right there. You know, when you go through salvation history in the Bible, children were always considered a blessing. And to have a son in the Old Testament was a special blessing, not because boys were better than girls, but it really meant the protection of the family back in the patriarchal age.

and so to have a son was in some ways guaranteeing the family line and that you yourself would be protected and that's something to think about right is that when your sons grow up when your daughters grow up you also have a family that watches over you when you can't take care of yourself and so truly i am blessed that you have given me a son i see my son as a gift from you and pray that I will be a faithful provider, protector, and model of your faithfulness to him. And so part of what we pray about when we pray for our children is we pray for ourselves, don't we? That we would be faithful providers. And that's not just a physical provider, but that's also a spiritual provider for our sons. And just a note to fathers real quick, it shouldn't be

this way, but it often is, is that the father steps away. way, and the mother takes over in this area of being a faithful provider, protector, and model of your faithfulness, O God. When fathers, you need to do that. You need to do that. And make this prayer a very personal prayer for yourself. You want to be a faithful provider for your son. You want to be a protector for your son. You want to be a model of faithfulness to your son. Now, you're probably going to do that in some ways naturally. But what we're talking about here is supernaturally. We're talking about the spirit realm. We're talking about the things that can happen that can damage their soul, rip them apart. So pray that you will be a faithful provider,

protector, and model of your faithfulness. Oh, God. You have created my son in your image and likeness. Isn't that beautiful? To think that God has created through an act of love, God has created a son for you that is created in the image of God and in the likeness of God. I don't know about you, but that is amazing that God has given us this privilege of creating sons, creating daughters. And the prayer goes on and have an eternal plan for his life. Let me just say that again. Lord, you have created my son in your image and likeness and have an eternal plan for his life.

Isn't that true? Read the very first paragraph out of the catechism, and it mentions that God has a plan of sheer goodness for your son, for your son. And so we need to pray and live to keep your son in that plan. The prayer goes on, use me as a model and mentor to help guide and direct him in becoming strong, and a faithful man of God. May I be patient and kind when helping him through the difficulties he may face. Now, there's two thoughts there in the second paragraph

of the prayer. And again, it's in the show notes. You're saying, use me as a model and mentor to help guide and direct him in becoming strong, a strong, and faithful man of God. Now, this line I put in because as a father, and I have all daughters, but even if I had all sons, there are times where it becomes difficult.

You know what I'm talking about. There might be disobedience. There might be sass. Sass is Greek for smarten off. And they may go through periods of experimenting with things, and you don't know about it, and it's causing difficulty in the relationship. You need to be patient as a mom, as a dad. And so part of the prayer is, may I be patient and kind when helping him,

through the difficulties he may face. Your son may face difficulties, and he may act out, he may be quiet, he may close the door to his room, he may retreat emotionally. You need to be patient. You need to be kind. Yes, you need to be right. You need to walk in holiness and righteousness, but you've got to be patient and kind when dealing with kids. It's not a contest. You are not the suddenly the enemy. You don't have anything to prove to them. You're not macho. You are kind and your patient. So every time you pray this, you're praying for yourself as well. And then the third paragraph, I pray that my son will grow in his relationship with you, knowing your sacrificial love in covenant faithfulness. Good thing to pray. God, help my son grow in his relationship with you.

You know what you're doing in his life right now. go on, may he come to know and imitate your holiness, humility, and power, and also to learn to hear your voice through a life of prayer, reading sacred scripture, and embracing the sacraments. Now, there's a whole menu right there, right? We're praying that he would come to know and imitate God's holiness and humility and power, and that he would learn to know the voice of God. that is probably one of the most important things that your son can come to know is the voice of God. Who do I listen to, Dad? Who's right? This philosopher, that television show, this radio show, this talk show host, this guy on the internet on YouTube. Dad, who do I listen to? Son, come to know the

voice of God. Come to know the voice of God through a life of number one prayer, a life of prayer, model prayer for your kids. Pray with your kids in the car on the way to the store. Have a word of prayer with them. Say a decade of the rosary that they would come to know the voice of God through prayer. Number two, reading sacred scripture. Do you model that? Do you read scripture for your children? Do you read scripture in front of your children? Not to act, but simply as a matter of life demonstrating that you have a relationship with God's word. And number three, embracing the sacraments. They come to know the voice of God by going to Mass, going to confession, holy hours, right? And the relationship that you have with your wife. Strengthen him when faced with

peer pressure to do anything contrary, to do anything contrary to your ways. So what are we praying? We're praying that God would strengthen your son when faced with pure pressure to do anything contrary to God's ways. What a beautiful thing for a father and a mother to pray for their son every single day. Lord, strengthen my son in the face of peer pressure. Help him, Lord. Help him to not do things that are contrary to your ways, O Lord. Give him the wisdom and courage to flee from youthful lust and embrace virtue. That line right there is gold, don't you think? Give him the wisdom and courage to flee from youthful lust and embrace virtue. The power, the power of prayer.

The next paragraph, Lord, I pray that my son will give you the opportunity to call him to the priesthood or religious life. Don't we always want to give God the first shot at our sons to become a priest or religious? It's something that we should be talking about as they grow up. It's something certainly that we need to pray is that, Lord, I pray, that they'll give you the opportunity. I pray that the door will be open. They may not be called to the priesthood, but I want them to at least open the door and to hear you and to discern. And so that act of discerning every day, every week, every month, every year of their life

is something that can be aided by the prayer of parents. If he is called to live a generous single life, prepare him to do so. Many young men may say, you know what, I'm called to the generous single life. Well, Lord, prepare my son to do that. If marriage were his vocation, I would ask you to help him remain pure as he prepares to completely give himself to his future bride. Wow. Someday when he gets married and you meet his future bride and they get married as she grows in her marriage and they have children, you can always take comfort knowing you prayed for her all these years as well. You prayed for your son. so that the joy of the Lord would become hers as well.

Help him to, oh, this is a big one right now. Help him to stay free of pornography and use wisdom and caution while on the Internet. Oh, that's almost like a, they call them arrow prayers, just a quick prayer where you could be driving down the road. Lord, help my son to stay free of pornography today on the Internet and help him to use wisdom and caution. That's right there in the prayer. Moving on, may he be attracted to the great saint?

like St. Joseph as models of what a godly man is. If your son is going to fall in love with the great saints, it means you've got to talk about those great saints. And I would encourage you to go back to a show I did some time ago about my posse. You can Google that, but on my posse, the five saints that I walk with every single day and I talk about, your kids, your sons should know about your spiritual posse. The saints that you study, did you pray to, that you want to emulate that you need according to your vocation? St. Joseph is a good one. Let me offer St. Joseph to you. He was a husband and a father. Ask him to intercede for your son and tell your son about St. Joseph. That's a beautiful thing to do. So we move on. Lord, I ask that my son will be protected

from physical harm as you guard him with angelic strength. It's always great, especially if your kids are, you know, driving now, they got the license, or they're involved in sports. Lord, protect my son. May he be wise in his relationship with girls and walk in virtue and integrity. Now, there's another great line. May he be wise in his relationship with girls and walk in virtue and integrity. May my gentle reminders, note gentle. May my gentle reminders speak to him when faced with the temptation to drink or experiment with anything that would impair his judgment or bring harm. That's a great prayer. You know, our kids are living in the world today where there's a lot of opportunities in the

area of temptation to drink or experiment with anything that's going to impair their judgment. And so often people make mistakes when their judgment is impaired. It can happen to me. It can happen to you. It does in our lives. And we have to use wisdom. We really need wisdom when it comes to this, and for us to pray for our sons, that they would listen to our gentle reminders, that they would heed wisdom.

That is really, really important. You know that at the time of this broadcast, at least, we have a number of states that are now looking at legalizing marijuana. Well, the states that already have legalized marijuana are talking now about the problems that it's causing in terms of impairing people. judgment when it comes to driving or it comes to making decisions. We've got to pray for our sons. Pray for our sons, okay? Pray for our sons. As a father, I move on in the prayer. As a father, I stand in the gap between my son and anything that would harm him. And I ask that a hedge of

protection would be set up around him so that he would be preserved for your purposes, O Lord. Now the purpose of that prayer is very important. You stand in the gap. You stand in the gap between the Lord and your son, and you pray, you pray that your son would be protected and preserved for God's purposes. So there's at least one man, one woman standing in the gap here and interceding for your son. And it's you. It's you. Yes, others may pray for your son, but you have the unique responsibility as a mother and a father to stand in the gap and intercede to beg God on their behalf, to beg God for provision, protection, and holiness, and to hear his voice, you have that very unusual opportunity. And then the last line of the prayer, you have given my son to me

for a time, help me provide and protect him with eternity in mind. Wow. And I I said that in the girl's prayer, too, or the daughter's prayer, you know, about eternity. It's a sobering fact, isn't it, when you realize that the child that you have been given, that you have custody over for a period of time, you're a steward over for a period of time. This son of yours is going to live forever and ever and ever and ever. and you have been given the responsibility to pray for him. As I give you this gift at Christmastime, I'm encouraging you to give the gift to your child, to give the gift to your son, to give the gift to your daughter by praying for them.

And what I'm doing in my life is I'm taking this prayer and I am going to get it laminated. Right now it's just a piece of paper, but I'm going to get it laminated and I'm going to put it in the area where my wife and I pray every morning. You can also put it in the notes on your smartphone, right? And give yourself a reminder to, you know, 2 o'clock in the afternoon, alarm goes off, pray for your son. 4 o'clock in the afternoon, alarm goes off, pray for your daughter. It's just a good way to get into the habit

of interceding and praying for your kids. You know, there's a wonderful scripture in the Old Testament, and it comes from Deuteronomy, and it's a scripture, that talks about Israel ready to cross the Jordan River. And when they cross the Jordan River, they're going to be taking the promised land. But there's people over in the promised land that are enemies, and they want your sons and daughters.

They want to intermarry. They believe in child's sacrifice and on and on. But Moses gives the command to Israel. if they're going to go over into this land, this foreign land, there's something that they have to remember. They have to remember. I want to read it to you. It's in Deuteronomy 6 and verses 4 through 9, and I'm going to put it in the show notes for you. In fact, I'll do a little click here, and let me read it to you. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your might.

These words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise, and you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontals between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. And so the idea here is that if you're going to have a successful family and you're going to pass this on to the future generation, then you've got to teach your children. You have to teach your children. You've got to keep the word of God before them. And that's a no-brainer, right? But praying for them is the next level for us,

is to constantly pray for our kids. And even after they have grown up and they've left the home, which our daughters have, maybe yours have as well, you continue to pray. Time is not up. It wasn't just a phase. It wasn't something that you were responsible for for just a period of time.

No, for the rest of your life. You will be a father. You will be a mother for the rest of your life, of mother and a father to that son. or to those sons, to those daughters. And so continue, continue to pray. Speaking of praying, I encourage you to pray for me, and I will pray for you and continue to pray for you.

I love you. And I really look forward to being with you. If you know of people that need to hear this show or any of the shows from the past, I would encourage you to share the show with them. And you can do that with most of the apps, that carry podcasts. You can go to iTunes and leave some comments about the show, rank the show. That always helps. It always helps when it comes to the algorithm. You can go to Google Play.

Anywhere where good podcasts are heard, we're there, but we really encourage you to get involved at that level. It so helps the search engine that when someone puts into Google praying for my son, this just might come up very, very high on the list, and you and I can work together that way. So take just a couple minutes and go to iTunes, go to Google Play, and share this with a friend, leave some comments. I do appreciate it. Let me conclude with prayer and pray that this next week will be a very fruitful time. For you and your family, as you prepare for Christmas.

In the name of the Father and the Son, in the Holy Spirit, Lord, I lift up my friend to you right now and I ask you, Lord, as I pray, to help them at this time. As we prepare for Christmas, not only we preparing physically, but we're preparing spiritually. And as our sons and daughters gather around and they come home, I pray, Lord, that we would be aware of the tremendous gift that we have been given for a time, a gift that will last for eternity. As we spend time this year with our sons and daughters, I pray, Lord, that you will remind us to shoot up those arrow prayers, the quick prayer for them, and to be patient and kind throughout this season, and to not be the reason for sparking fights, arguments, and discourse. Lord, we pray that you would bring joy and love to our families

this year. And may our sons and daughters see us as examples that they can adopt in their own families going forward. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God love you. And you have a great week.