Dear Jesus... please help them know what college to go to... please help them get a job, please help them on their tests this week, help them pass their driving test... please help them and their parents... please help them make church a priority... please help them in their friendships...please help them make wise decisions... please help them to stay pure with their boyfriends... Jesus please help me know how to encourage/ challenge them/ know what to say... please help them read their Bibles...

Those are just a few of the prayers I've found myself praying over the months and years for the girls in my life that I'll call the "next generation." The high school girls I love and see week in a week out. Sometimes life gets busy or heavy or crazy and I find myself just reeling with burdens for them. For their lives, their hurts, their hopes, their own personal relationships with Jesus. I found myself praying for a few of my own small group girls one night recently, just on my own in my bedroom, feeling especially burdened for a few of them. And as I was thinking of all the specific ways I should/ could pray for them, Jesus kind of helped me narrow it all down to the heart of it. Although I value bringing specific prayer requests to the Lord, in that moment, I realized that the heart of all of those specific things was one bigger thing. There was one thing that both trumped and included all of my other burdens for them. The one thing, in all the things, that I deeply desire for them and have been praying lately for this next generation of girls is this...

That they would love Jesus more than they love ANYTHING or ANYONE else.

To simply love Jesus above ALL else. I know, it's not flashy. Not super wordy, not super elaborate. But that's it. When all my prayers for them come down to it, I am just praying that their love for Jesus will be THE driving force in their lives.

That they would love Jesus more than they love their future plans, more than they love themselves, more than they love their friends, more than they love their boyfriends, or their schedules, or their schoolwork, or their accomplishments, and more than they love our youth group or our church or even this city.

Yes I want them to the Scriptures, to walk in purity, to make wise decisions about college, to honor their parents, to be loyal friends, to be honest, to work hard, to persevere, to be committed to the community of believers in the local church. Of course I want all those things for them. But I really truly believe that if Jesus is their biggest passion, their number one love, their first priority, and the axis around which their whole life revolves, those other things will become repercussions of that great love.

I pray that God's Word and what HE says will mean more in their lives and carry more weight than their own feelings, than what their best friend says, than what I say, than what their boyfriend or their crush thinks, than what a celebrity says, or even than what they read in any good book.

I believe that if they love Jesus with all they are, obedience will follow. That saying yes to God's best for their lives - in their relationships, in their future plans, in their families, in their decisions - will be something they're compelled to do, HAVE to do, even when its hard.

There have been so many decisions I've made over the years, even decisions that weren't fun at the time, that were simply motivated ultimately by my love for Jesus. That love motivated my trust in Him. That trust compelled my obedience to Him. And as I obeyed more, I loved more, and trusted more, and then obeyed more, and loved more, and trusted more. A beautiful cycle.

I think about John 14:15, when Jesus tells His disciples, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

Sometimes I pray for others, in more specific ways, that they'll keep God's commandments. That they'll obey Jesus. But I've often neglected to simply pray that they'll love Him like crazy. The kind of love that takes over their whole hearts and lives and transforms the trajectory of their decisions, relationships, and dreams for the rest of their lives. We prioritize what we love. Sometimes it really is that simple. We'll make time for the things and the people we are absolutely obsessed with. For this next generation of girls, I'm praying that obsession is Jesus.

The other thing that happens when I begin praying that my sweet girls would LOVE JESUS ABOVE EVERYTHING ELSE, is that I come face-to-face with the reality that I have absolutely no control over that reality in their lives. I can encourage them to obey Jesus, to follow Him, tell them that He IS worth following, challenge them to read the Word, and walk with them through the practical, everyday life stuff. But I cannot MAKE them love Jesus more.

I can inspire and encourage behavior change, but I can't do heart change. I've said for a long time that IF heart change was in my court, it would be way too tempting to take all the credit when someone said YES to Jesus and walked with Him faithfully and, conversely, unbearably devastating when they decided they didn't want to follow Him. Only Jesus. Only Jesus does the heart level change. Only Jesus can affect and transform them and LOVE them in a way that will ultimately change the extent to which they love Him back. I hope with everything in me that I would love Jesus in a way that would help them want to love Jesus with their lives, and that I would love them as Jesus would have me love them, but I can't do more than that. That's a Jesus thing.

It's something I want to begin intentionally praying over my own life, praying over others, both in their presence and when I'm alone. And to speak that prayer into their lives in hopes that, when it all comes down to it, they would KNOW that that is my hope and dream and biggest prayer for their whole lives. The one thing that matters more than anything else.