Homeschool Prayer Challenge Week 7: Praying for Friendships in Homeschooling
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I’m so thankful you are joining me for my homeschool prayer series! You can learn more about the series here. We’ll pray about a new area of our homeschool journey each week and dig into God’s Word with daily devotional reflections. Find this week’s free printable at the end of this post.
What’s the number one question you are asked when someone finds out you homeschool your kids?
Let me take a guess – “How do you socialize your kids??” If it’s not at the top, I’m guessing it’s not far away.
So many people are amazed how homeschooled kids get by without sitting in a room with 20-30 peers each day, and how in the world they ever make any friends.
If you have homeschooled for any length of time, you may laugh those questions away; let’s be honest, it’s hard to understand from the outside looking in (I was once there myself, before we became a homeschooling family!). It’s not necessarily difficult to find activities to participate in or other other homeschooling families to connect with.
How often though, do you ask the Lord lead and guide you in your decisions involving those friendships?
Last week, I talked about companionship in our marriage, and the importance of praying for (and with) our husbands during our homeschool journey. Companionship in the form of friendships is also important – both for our kids and for us homeschool moms!
Friendship is such a blessing, and we should be praying for our current and possible future friendships. This week, I want to help us focus our hearts on praying for discernment in our family’s friendships, and learn what those friendships should look like when we turn our eyes upon Jesus, our closest friend.
Bad Company Corrupts
Friendships have more of an impact on us than we might give credit to. Who we spend our time with, what we saturate our hearts with, affects us and begins to reflect in our thoughts and actions.
Whenever I wake up and spend time with the Lord in prayer and reading His Word, I have the tools to better respond to situations that arise throughout the day. Similarly, when I have praise music on the radio, sermons or Christian speakers on my podcast app, or spend time with other believers, it changes my attitude and how I live.
Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”
On the other hand, if I am around people with constant negative attitudes, I tend to complain more. Friends that love to gossip? It can be hard to resist joining in on those conversations. That friend who continually disrespects her husband? We have to guard our hearts.
What are we saturating ourselves with daily: the world or the Word? When I spend more time with the world, I start to look more like the world and less like Jesus.
I don’t think that means we just cut people completely out of our lives. But we need to be good examples for our kids about what setting healthy boundaries looks like, and make sure that we evaluate friendships that may be leading us astray from how God wants us to live.
The friendships those that lift you up in prayer and will hold you accountable when you slip into sin? That will point you to the Bible when you call them for advice? Those are the kind of friends we want to keep close.
The same goes for our kids. Since we homeschool, I have the blessing of being around my kids a lot, which gives us multiple opportunities for character training and discussing relationships. We can teach our kids that they always have a choice in which friendships they want to invest effort into, and pray that they will choose friends that influence them for good.
Praying for Godly Friendships
This week, commit to praying for the friendships in our lives, and our kids’ friendships. Have you made a point to do this before? Not just praying for more friends (or for your kids to become “socialized”), but for God to place the exact right friendships in your life that He wants you to have.
Is there a certain area of your homeschool in which you need more support? Pray for a friend that can show you the way and keep you accountable.
Are any of your kids struggling against the influences of the world? Pray that their friends help them to stand firm in their faith and that they have a support system that will not let them be led astray.
Pray for your community to support one another and encourage each other to live in truth and light.
Your Heavenly Father loves you and your kids, and cares about your friendships. Ask Him for your will to align with His for all of the friendships in your life.
Jesus is Our Closest Friend
This week in church, as I was thinking about this topic and post I would be writing, we sang the song “What a friend we have in Jesus” – gave me goosebumps! It’s been quite a while since I remember singing that song in church, but oh what a week to be reminded of the truth of Jesus’s friendship and the privilege we have to take all of our cares to him in prayer.
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
Jesus left the comfort of heaven to come to Earth, to lay down his life for his friends. The greatest sacrifice, bearing all of God’s wrath so that we may be free from the burden of sin when we trust in Him as our Savior. If we take note from Jesus’s actions, we can plainly see that sacrificial love is a big element of friendship.
In praying for our friendships this week, let’s pray that our families have relationships that are shaped by this kind of love. When we love one another as Jesus loved us, we can bring glory to God and show Christ through our friendships with others.
Heavenly Father, you are all-knowing and care for me in so many ways. I praise you for the gift of friendship! Thank you for the friends you have brought into my life to teach me and encourage me daily.
May I be discerning in my friendships. Make clear to me who my family should be spending time with. I pray for my kids, that they keep godly friends who encourage them to do as you have commanded.
Help us to evaluate the friendships we need space from because they are drawing us away from you. Show us those who need extra love, and let our family be faithful friends and a blessing to others.
Thank you even more so for Jesus, our greatest friend who laid down His life for mine. Give me the desire to love with this kind of sacrificial love that was displayed on the cross.
In Jesus’ precious name I pray, Amen.
Join the Challenge
Finally, if you want to join in on the challenge from the very beginning, make sure to sign up below, and you’ll receive a printable prayer and journal pages each week, right to your inbox. Join in any time, and you’ll start the following Monday with Week #1!
Simply click below, follow the instructions, and you’re in.
You’ll also be signed up for the Blessed Homeschool Newsletter and receive my FREE Scripture Memory Cards (designed to complement the prayer challenge) as a bonus.
I would love to hear your comments and reflections below: how will you be praying for friendships in your homeschool this week?
Related Posts
- A New Prayer Journal and Devotional for Homeschool Moms
- How To Handle Trials in Homeschooling
- Trusting God With Our Finances in Homeschooling
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