One of our elders often includes in his prayers a request to God to “build a hedge around our families.” What a great, heart-felt petition to make of our God on behalf of our precious families! Do our families need the protective hand of God around them today? Perhaps more than ever! Does the God of heaven love our families enough to answer that request and encompass them with His divine protection? Of course, He does!
We know, when it comes to the planting business of God’s people, that we are in this work with the Lord Himself. Truly, “we are God’s fellow workers” (1 Cor. 3:9). As He plants, we plant. As we plant, He plants. Christian homes belong to God, and God belongs to Christian homes. With His help, how can families work beside Him to plant a hedge of protection around our homes and around our children?
God plants a hedge of protection around our families with our help when we fill our homes with prayer. Prayer is a direct line of communication with our Father in heaven, in which He is invited into our homes and into any and every part of our lives. Our homes should be filled with “praying always with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:18), pleading with Him to “deliver [our families] from the evil one” (Matt. 6:13). Do our children understand the power available to them in prayer? Do we surround our children with prayer—in their presence (so that they can hear us praying for them by name) and out of their presence? The One to whom we pray, asking Him into and all around our homes, “is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Eph. 3:20). What a hedge that is!
God plants a hedge of protection around our families with our help when we fill our homes with Scripture. If God’s Word, hidden in the heart of one of His children, can help that individual to “not sin against” Him (Psa. 119:11), then what about having God’s Word hidden in the hearts of an entire family? Do you remember what God told the Israelites to do with His Word, in addition to putting them “in your heart” (Deut. 6:6)? “Teach them diligently to your children” all the time, and “bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deut. 6:7-9). Do we have Bible verses being heard (through teaching or audio readings) and seen (in printed form and living form) in our homes? What a hedge that provides!
When you think of a hedge around your family, do not think of a small shrub. Think of a massive protective barrier that reaches to heaven—because that’s where it originates.
