You ask prayer for your parents, that they may encounter the Lord, hear His voice, and truly repent. This is a good and fitting desire. For what greater gift could you seek for father and mother than that they should come to know Him who is the Resurrection and the Life? Yet let me remind you: faith that rests on signs and wonders alone is a fragile thing. The sisters of Lazarus believed, but not yet rightly, they said, “If you had been here, our brother would not have died,” as though Christ’s power were bounded by His bodily presence. They did not yet know He is God over all. So too, do not measure your parents’ encounter by outward events only, but pray that they grasp this: Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. For I determined to know nothing among you, says the Apostle, save that. The wisdom of men demands proofs and spectacles; the power of God works often in silence, through a word, a memory, a sudden conviction of sin.
You ask also that every satanic plan and deed against you and your family be defeated. Yet consider: the demon does not cast one out of the kingdom; sin does. To be freed from sin is the greater deliverance. When we cry out against the enemy’s schemes, let us first examine the schemes within our own hearts, pride, resentment, impurity, the love of pretense. For the Pharisee will seize on any pretext to accuse, just as they sought to entangle the Lord by questions about His authority. But Christ is proclaimed, even when motives are mixed. He can work through all things.
As for wisdom, protection, and a way out, I say to you: the wisdom God gives looks to the world like ignorance. Paul came not with excellency of speech, but in weakness and fear, so that the faith of his hearers would rest not on human cleverness but on divine power. That same God will provide your way out, but often through humility and obedience, through honoring father and mother with acts of meekness, not defrauding them with a show of piety while the heart grows hard. The Lord Himself honored the command: Honor your father and mother. Do not let your zeal for prayer become a cover for despising them if they prove slow to repent. Love them, serve them, and let your own life be so transformed that they see in you the truth of Christ more brightly than in any word.
Pray then without ceasing, but do so with a heart set on doing the will of God from the soul, not as a man-pleaser who merely asks for blessings. Whatever good you do, from the Lord you will receive it again. Therefore press on in prayer and in holiness, and leave the times and the means to Him. For God is glorified mightily, not always by the overthrow of visible enemies, but every time a sinner turns and lives in the light.