Peaceful, Calm Night

[Chrysostom]

Your prayer for your son has been heard and we join you now before the throne of grace with thanksgiving for your faithful love as a parent and for the mercies of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We pray together for your son tonight, that the Lord who gives sleep to His beloved and whose peace surpasses all understanding will quiet his mind, body, and spirit. We ask the Father in the name of Jesus to calm every wave of confusion, restlessness, anger, anxiety, fear and frustration, and to replace it with His own peace, clarity, joy and rest. May the Lord remove every source of distress and discomfort, still every tormenting thought, and grant him a deep, undisturbed sleep, that he may lie down in safety and wake refreshed and strengthened.

We pray for healing and restoration according to the perfect will of God, remembering that by the wounds of Christ we are healed. We ask the Lord to touch every area of need you have lifted up, his health, his senses, his emotions and his routines, that he may eat in peace, sleep without disturbance, communicate with confidence and gentleness, and find satisfaction and joy in his daily life. We ask that the Lord surround him with His hedge of protection, clothe him with the full armor of God, and command His angels to guard him in all his ways, so that no weapon formed against him shall prosper and every influence not of God must depart at the name of Jesus.

We also lift up you, your family, and all who care for him. We ask God to fill you with wisdom, knowledge, patience and discernment to do what is right and helpful for him, and to give his caregivers gentle hearts, steady hands and godly dedication. We pray for unity and love between him and his siblings, for godly friendships and mentors to surround him, and for every meeting and service concerning his care to be guided by the Lord for his good and for breakthrough.

We thank God for the peaceful days He has already granted and we trust His lovingkindness to continue His work. Even as we wait, we remember that Christ delays judgment out of mercy that we might be cleansed, and He offers His easy yoke and light burden to all who come to Him, promising rest for our souls. May you and your whole household rest tonight in that rest, knowing that where two or three are gathered in His name He is present, hearing and answering according to His perfect will.

We continue to stand with you in prayer, asking that your home be filled with the light and presence of Christ, dispelling all darkness, and that you all may know His comfort, strength and unfailing love. In the name of Jesus Christ our only hope and Savior we pray. Amen.

 

[Silas]

Your prayer has been heard and I join you in bringing your son before the Lord for a calm and peaceful night and for days that are steady and full of His grace.

God sees and He hears. When Leah was unloved and overlooked she named her sons to mark that God had looked upon her affliction and heard her cry. He sees you and your son in the same way. He knows the restlessness and confusion, the moments of anger and anxiety and sensory distress, and He is not far off. Like the ladder that was set on the earth and reached to heaven with the Lord standing above it, heaven is open over your home even while your son sleeps. The Lord is present and near, not distant, watching over him through the night.

We come to God only through His Son. That is the heart of the gospel. Forgiveness and acceptance do not come by another way, which Jesus described as thieves and robbers trying to enter by a different door. The Jesus we trust is not a created being and not one among many, He is the only begotten Son of God, God manifested in flesh, the promised Messiah. He that has the Son has life. No one truly knows the Father except through the Son, and no one honors the Father who does not honor the Son. The Father has committed all judgment to the Son that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. When Jesus found the man born blind, whose parents confirmed he had been blind from birth, He asked him, do you believe on the Son of God, and revealed Himself as the one speaking to him. It is in that Son alone that we have confidence to pray, and it is through His name that we ask for peace that surpasses all understanding to guard your son's heart and mind.

You can trust the Father's heart because of what He has shown about His love. The first time love is spoken of in Scripture it is a father's love for his son, take now your son, your only son whom you love. Abraham was called to offer Isaac, and that was a picture beforehand of what God Himself would do when He gave His beloved Son, His only begotten Son, for the world. The angel of the Lord who said you have not withheld your son from me is the Son Himself, showing the unity of Father and Son. If God so loved the world that He gave His Son, you can be sure His love for your son and for your family is not holding back.

The story of the younger son who demanded his inheritance and wasted it in a far country also shows the Father's heart. When he came home ready to ask only to be a hired servant, the father did not wait for him to get clean or to finish his speech. While he was still in his filth the father embraced him and covered him with kisses, put sandals on his feet as a sign he was restored as a son and not a servant, and called for rejoicing because his son who was dead was alive again. That is how God sees your son, not as a problem to be managed but as a beloved child to be clothed with sonship, dignity and joy. We ask the Lord to lift any sense of shame or striving and to surround him with that same welcoming love.

Scripture makes a distinction about anger. There is an anger at evil and unrighteousness that is not sin, as when Jesus was angered by hardness of heart that would keep a man from being healed or by the desecration of God's house. But bitterness, wrath, clamor, evil speaking and malice grieve the Spirit and should be put away, along with letting the sun go down on wrath. We pray that the Lord will remove the tormenting kind of anger, fear, confusion and rigidity that has unsettled your son, and replace it with gentleness, clarity and a calm spirit, and that caregivers and family would be given wisdom and patience to respond with the same gentleness.

I pray with you for the covering you asked for. May the Lord place a hedge of protection around him so that no weapon formed against him shall prosper, and clothe him with the full armor of God, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, feet fitted with the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. May ministering angels encamp around him and guard him in all his ways. By the stripes of Jesus we ask for healing in body, mind and spirit, and we bring before the Lord the specific burdens you named, autism, trauma, anxiety and sensory challenges, with every source of pain and discomfort. We ask that he may eat in peace, sleep without disturbance and wake refreshed, that his schedule, meals, routines, activities and relationships would be marked by calm and that he would be able to adjust and communicate with confidence and satisfaction.

I also join you in praying for wisdom for you, for his caregivers, family and friends, that God would give discernment to choose what is truly helpful and to do what is right to help him become all God created him to be. We ask for godly mentors and friends who will encourage him, for unity and restored bonds with his siblings in love and compassion, and for any division, isolation or harmful influence to be removed or redirected. May your home be filled with the light of His presence that dispels darkness, and may your whole household rest in His peace.

We stand together in agreement, believing the promise that where two or three are gathered in His name He is in their midst, and that He hears according to His perfect will. We thank Him for the victories He has already given and for the work He is doing even now, and we ask for continued miracles, breakthrough and favor to surround your son like a shield, that he would know he is included, respected, loved and accepted, and that his life would reflect the love and grace of the Lord.