Blessing Your Children, How and Why
Bless your children! What on earth do you mean, Ruth? Think of Isaac blessing Jacob and Esau, laying his hands on them and speaking a blessing. Or your Pastor lifting his hands over your congregation and giving a benediction (that you should actually listen to) at the end of the service. That is what I mean.
Each night before bed my husband blesses our daughters. He puts his hand on their little heads and says something like, “May the name of the Lord be your strong tower. May you run into Him and be safe.” It has become a sweet rhythm in our home and we see rich benefits from it already! I want you to have those same benefits!
Let me explain a little further. We’ll start by defining terms and parameters, explain some benefits of blessings, and then dive into some practical suggestions for how you (or your husband) can start blessing your children today!
Where did we learn to bless our children?
Before I start, I want to tell you about a resource that we’ve used. It is a very short book called A Father’s Guide to Blessing His Children by David Michael. These ideas are Biblical, but my husband and I have understood them because of David Michael and I want to give him credit. So, even when I am not directly quoting from his book, my thoughts have all probably been shaped by it!
I would highly recommend this short (34 page) book to you! It would make a great gift for your husband! You can find it on Amazon for about $10 (as an affiliate I make a small commission if you purchase via my link) but you can also find it at Truth78.org along with many other quality resources. You can also access this material through an app! It is called A Father’s Blessing, it costs $2.99, and includes the entire book, preloaded blessings that you can modify, and a way to add new blessings.
David Michael was the children’s Pastor at our church when my oldest daughter was born. David and his wife Sally richly blessed us with their passion for helping us disciple our little ones to know and treasure Christ. They started a curriculum called Children Desiring God which has become Truth78. They have a fantastic Sunday School curriculum as well as resources for parents and homeschools. I would commend any of their resources to you.
What is a blessing?
Different dictionaries all offer different definitions for the word blessing. It can mean simply a good thing in our life (My children are a blessing). Blessing can mean approval (Before anyone marries my daughter they will need to ask for her father’s blessing) Dictionary.com has this listed as a definition, “The invoking of God’s favor upon a person”. That is the type of blessing we are talking about here.
Blessing is a type of a prayer. David Michael says, “When we bless, we are invoking, summoning, or calling upon God’s blessing for the benefit of another.” Basically, we are taking something good (as defined by scripture) and asking that God do that for our children.
Because we want to bless our children according to God’s word we only use scripture to bless. We know that what God has written in His word aligns with His will. It is right to ask Him for things that He has already promised or already defined as good.
Biblical Parameters for Blessing your Children
In the Bible, priests were to bless. (Numbers 6:22-27) Isaac blessed Esau and Jacob and his grandchildren in Genesis 27, 48, and 49. Jesus blessed the little children in Mark 10:16, “And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. Jesus also blessed his disciples before his ascension in Luke 24.
There are many prophetic blessings in scripture. Isaac’s blessings would fall into this category. My husband and I are not prophets and neither are you. I believe that prophecy was a special revealing from God for Biblical writers and that God has finished speaking. The Bible is complete. Let’s look at an example. One of our blessings for our daughters comes from Psalm 84.
My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. . .Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways of Zion.
Psalm 84:2, 5 ESV
When my husband says, “May your heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God, blessed are you whose strength is in the Lord and in whose heart are the highways of Zion”, he isn’t prophetically declaring that those things WILL BE true for my daughter. He is asking that the Lord would make those things true for her. He is declaring that his heart as a father wants THAT for his little girl.
I don’t see any reason in the Bible why a mother can not bless her children, but the example is of leaders blessing (the priest, the father, Jesus, etc.) So, just as my husband leads family devotions as the head of our household he also is the “primary blesser”. When he is away, that leadership is delegated to me. Discipline and decision-making happen much the same way in our home. My husband is the head and the leader. That said, his leadership doesn’t prevent me from following suit. His leading of family devotions doesn’t prevent me in any way from teaching the Bible to my kids. In the same way, his being the “primary blesser” does not mean that I can’t additionally bless them. In light of this, I do encourage you to share this article with your husband and buy him David Michael’s book!
What are the benefits of blessing your children?
We all learn scripture
We memorize verses in order to bless, and our children also memorize those verses. I love to imagine them at age 35, in the middle of a taxing afternoon with their children, pulling out those verses from the recesses of their memory and finding hope.
Big grand desires are expressed through blessing your children
There is nothing wrong with praying your kids will sleep better, that their tummy aches will go away, and that they will find a friend tomorrow at recess. We do pray about those day-to-day things, but I want more than that for my kids! I have bigger goals for them than that they rest well tonight. I long for them to become women who seek first the kingdom of God, who sing for joy to the Lord, who have the highways of Zion fixed in their hearts, who hope in God’s word, and who run to the Lord as their strong tower. When we bless them we communicate to them these grander desires. Yes, rest well tonight little child, but find your ultimate rest and joy in Jesus!
Children internalize biblical desires through blessing
Communicating our desires through blessing helps them to internalize those desires for themselves. If every single night (365 x 18 = 6,570 nights!) daddy tells my daughter that his desire for her is that she seek first His righteousness it is inevitable that she at the very least realizes that seeking God’s righteousness is a worthy pursuit! More likely, she’ll start to see that as her own desire.
Blessing your children Makes them feel safe
When I asked my older girls why they like being blessed they both said something to the effect of “it makes us feel safe”. I think that blessing them puts everything in its proper order both in the hierarchy of our family and in the relationships . My husband demonstrates for them that he is under and dependent on the Lord by asking the Lord to perform what is in the blessing for them. In blessing, my husband is acting the way a godly leader ought to act. Relationally, all the sin from the day is set aside. If we were cranky during dinner with each other he demonstrates that he still loves them and is able to set that aside to seek their good from the Lord.
You touch the future by blessing your children
David Michael expresses this point so poignantly.
I hope that the desires of these blessings be carried through to my grandchildren. Even to my great great great grandchildren! We are after a legacy of people who fear the Lord and seek His favor.
We’ve already seen fruit from blessing our children!
Much of parenting has to do with delayed gratification and the trust that someday this will reap rewards! Blessing our children is very future thinking but there are benefits that we see now.
First, we experience better sleep when we bless our children.
Early on, with our first daughter, we noticed a pattern. On nights that my husband blessed her she tended to sleep much better than on nights that he forgot! Even now, if our baby wakes during the night we ask ourselves, “did we remember to bless her?“. I don’t think blessing is some good luck charm that will magically give you the sleep you long for. But, I think my kids feel more settled before bed when they have been blessed and therefore sleep better.
Second, the blessings we chose have become applicable.
When our little ones were in the womb we prayerfully chose verses that would be their blessings. I believe that God directed us to these verses. He knew the entire future for each baby before they were born and certainly could have directed us on how to pray for them.
example 1
One of my girls has a blessing that comes from Matthew 6 about not being anxious and it turns out she struggles with worry! I love that we tell her each night that she is worth more than many sparrows. That she need not be anxious about her life. And that when she seeks first God’s righteousness she can be confident that all these things will be added.
example 2
We chose, May your heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God . . .” as part of a blessing for one or our daughters. She has really significant eczema. Each night we pray that her “eczema bloodied flesh” would sing for joy to the God who can heal her now and will one day certainly heal her. On really difficult nights for her when her eczema and allergy issues are flared up, my husband often points her to the true hope of a new earth! One in which she will never itch again, nor have bloody flesh. He encourages her that this is a light and momentary affliction, which is preparing for her a very specific glory that she will enjoy for all of eternity!
example 3
For some reason we landed on a blessing from Psalm 119:73-74 about learning God’s commandments for my daughter who struggles with obedience – go figure! So each night we remind her (and ourselves) that our ultimate longing is for her to learn the commandments of God. Part of her blessing is also that others would “see and rejoice because she has hoped in His word“. There is something about this little girl that does already cause others to rejoice – at the grocery store, the park, church…everywhere we go friends and absolute strangers rejoice over her beyond what is normal. As an aside, she is really cute and quite hilarious! Our prayer is that as she grows the reason for that joy in others would be her faith.
example 4
We picked “May the name of the Lord be your strong tower, may you run to Him and be safe” for our little baby. It makes my mommy heart a little nervous. Will there be something in her life where she needs safety? This blessing also holds a comforting promise. The name of the Lord is a strong tower and no matter what her life holds she can always run to him and be safe.
Third, blessing our children adds sweetness to their relationship with their daddy.
Girls beg for daddy to come and bless them. If I put them to bed and say, “daddy will be up soon to bless you”, they can only wait about 5 minutes before they tiptoe down in their PJs to find daddy because they just can’t wait. They say they feel “safe” when daddy blesses them. Relationally it sets everything right before bed. If there was discipline during the day or cranky moods all is set right in that blessing. Daddy loves me, he wants good for me, and he is dependent on the Lord so everything is in its proper order.
My daughters know those verses well!
All our blessings are straight from the Bible. Each of our kids has their own specific blessing, but my husband has about a dozen that he regularly uses. They have learned them very well. Even the 2 year old can say her blessing! I love that those verses will be carried in their hearts into adulthood. Every time they encounter those verses in their Bible reading they will think, “that was what my parents wanted for me!”
How to start blessing your children
Pick a verse
We prayed about and chose verses when we were pregnant with each of our daughters. If you are expecting you can do that too! Otherwise, it is never too late to start! You could start blessing your adult children if you have them.
As you read the Bible look for verses that express something you desire for your children. Psalms are a great place to start because they are poetry expressing the Psalmists desires. Also, toward the beginning of Paul’s books there is typically a prayer that he wrote for the recipient of his letters. Ephesians is a particularly good place to start. You can also use the Aaronic blessing from Numbers 6, “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
Turn it into a blessing
Adapt the words of the text, if needed, to make it a blessing. Here are a few examples:
Memorize it and deliver it!
Pulling out an index card and reading your blessing will be a little awkward. Reading a blessing also makes it more difficult to deliver it with conviction and meaning. You can start out reading a blessing, but work toward memorizing it!
Also, nonverbals like touch and eye contact will help you communicate more deeply. You want to show your heart for your child and you’ll accomplish that better if you have the words memorized.
Get the book and the app!
Again, I would encourage you to get David Michael’s book and/or app. The tools in the app will help you to find verses, adapt them, and memorize them. The book also includes sample blessings and pages to write out your own.
Conclusion
I would love to hear how blessing your children goes in the comments. At first it might feel a bit weird, but stick with it! You’ll soon see benefits. I hope to write on a similar topic soon – Family Vision Statements! You’ll want to subscribe so you don’t miss out on that.
Please give this article a share – it will bless our family!
I am not paid by Truth78 but I am an Amazon affiliate. If you make a purchase after clicking on a link to an Amazon product I may earn a small commission. I share products because I truly think they will benefit you.
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