Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and also with man.
-1 Samuel 2:26
As I read this verse, if you’re familiar with Luke chapter two, you know there’s a very similar verse there describing Jesus. Luke 2:52 describes how Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and favor with God and man. So as we read this in 1 Samuel 2 and Luke 2, aren’t we just driven to pray this for kids around us, for some of us for kids in our homes. Let’s pray 1 Samuel 2:26, Luke 2:52 over them continually. To pray this for kids in our churches, to pray this for children, for students, for teenagers. Having just spent time, not long ago at our student camp, just seeing all that they are walking through as they navigate how to follow Jesus in this culture, I am driven to pray this verse over them.
God, we pray that our children would love you wholeheartedly and love others selflessly.
1 Samuel 2:26 Leads us to Pray for Our Children
So can we just pray this over kids we know, children we know, teenagers, students that we know, just picture them in your mind right now, picture their faces. Some of them are listening right now. We’re about to pray for you right now. God, we pray for the children we have in our minds right now. Some of them we’re in a car with right now or we’re in a house with. God, we pray for them. We intercede for them right now. Children in our homes, children in our churches, God, we pray that you would help them to grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor with you. God, help them to grow in favor with you. May their hearts be soft toward you. May they know you and desire you. Lord, may they know your love for them.
God as you know, I pray this all the time over my kids. May they know the depth, the height, the width, the breadth of your love for them. God, help me to love them well, as a reflection of your love for them. God, may they know how much you love them. And may they love you with all their hearts, soul, mind, and strength in return. May they grow in favor with you and in favor with others, God. May they know how to love you. Lord, may they love you with all their hearts, soul, mind, and strength, and may they love others as themselves.
1 Samuel 2:26 Prays for Wholehearted Love
God, we pray they would love you wholeheartedly and love others selflessly. We pray this, God, over kids, teenagers, students in our homes and in our churches. And God, we pray for children, teenagers around us who are far from you right now, who don’t have maybe a mom or dad praying for them or maybe they do and yet they’ve wandered from you. God, we pray that you would draw them to you, draw them back to you. God, we pray that you would help us to pass the gospel on to the next generation. Not just in our homes and in our churches.
Yes, there, but in the culture around us, that more and more children and teenagers might know your love for them, that they might grow in wisdom, not in foolishness, according to this world, but in wisdom and in stature and in favor with you. God, we pray that over them and in favor with others that glorifies you. And we pray this over children, teenagers around us, in Jesus’ name. According to your word in 1 Samuel 2:26 and Luke 2:52 in Jesus’ name, amen.
View the 2021 McLean Bible Church Reading Plan.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
