God hears children's prayers

Myanmar: God hears children’s prayers

When children pray, God seems to move more powerfully. John Robb, chairman of the International Prayer Council, shares this observation with confidence. He witnessed it when he was director of prayer at World Vision, a large international development and child-care organization.

“Staff often observed the Lord’s miracles when our project children prayed. We actually surveyed this phenomenon in five very poor countries where staff asked the kids to pray for specific infrastructural changes, such as the resolution of community splits, and many other needs. They did this for two years, and all were astonished by the miracles that occurred. When the children prayed, the parents got healed from terminal illness, governments chose those villages for the wells or the clinics, or the terrorists were kept out of those communities where the kids were praying.”

The results were so extraordinary that ‘Children in Prayer’ (CiP) began to spread more widely within World Vision, going from five countries to twenty countries. Finally, fifty of the national offices wanted to investigate CiP as a resource for community transformation as well as for the spiritual nurture of the kids themselves.

“They included the children in their strategy for national transformation.”

“I believe that as children and youth connect with the power of the Holy Spirit through prayer, God is going to use them in all walks of life,” says Robb. “They are going to be great missionaries, great political leaders as well as lawyers, doctors, or whatever He calls them to do. If they become intercessors, God will definitely make them His agents of transformation. He did this with the child Samuel who became sensitive to His voice and later became one of the most influential leaders in history as prophet, priest and judge of Israel. Praying children and youth will have a large impact on the future of our world. In 2016 we plan to hold a World Youth Prayer Assembly which will be primarily led by the youth and children, with the older generation in support.”

A recent example of the involvement of youth in the prayer for transformational change in a nation has been Myanmar. “We had been praying for Myanmar for many years,” says Robb, “but nothing much seemed to happen. It was such a spiritually dark place as well as being oppressed by its dictatorial government. In January 2011, two hundred Christian leaders came together within the country and decided to include the children as part of their strategy for national transformation. A colleague and I were there with them for this purpose. They raised up many thousands of child prayer-warriors all over the nation, and within just a month or two remarkable developments began to happen in the political situation.”

In March 2011 the military junta dissolved. In August 2011 Myanmar transitioned to a new government that improved the country’s human rights record.

Source: John Robb, IPC

Joel News International, June 14, 2014