CROSSwind

Introduction
Thank you for securing a copy of this book. It is my assumption that you have taken it upon yourself to pray for a child who is close to you. May God, the Holy Spirit, continue to support you in your intersession. Earnest, persistent prayer for a single child has the potential to impact an entire generation. Remember God has created a space in history for this very child, and if she or he does not fulfill her or his calling, no one else can.
I am not a qualified theologian, philosopher, apologist, preacher, or even a perfect dad. It has been my intention to keep this book as practical as possible, and that is why I chose to use the word runbook in the title. (For those unfamiliar with the term, a runbook is a collection of documented procedures and operations that explain how to run a system.) I learned to pray from my mother who taught me that “prayer changes things.” My prayerful mother was widowed when she was forty, and I was six. I had no role model of a father in the home. It was only the prayers of my mother that saw me through some of my most tumultuous teenage years. It was during those years that I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.
Years later, when my wife, Christina, and I were blessed with our wonderful baby girl, Nandita, after a few years of praying, tests, and treatments, I was overjoyed and afraid at the same time. Suddenly God had entrusted to me something so beautiful and custom-created by Him. How could I, imperfect as I was, do justice to something as important as raising a child? I did the only thing I knew best to do—pray.
Nandita is now grown up, married, and a mother herself. In all my years of corporate life, during her years of growing up, I never made an organized effort to transfer all that I had learned about godly parenting over the years. Simply stated, this writing is a spiritual knowledge transfer from a dad to a daughter and her husband on praying for their children.
The concepts in this book are not new. As a “runbook,” it is a documentation of what happened in my home church in Columbus, Indiana, in 2012. The church embarked on a forty-day journey of focused prayer for the children of the church as well as those we knew outside the church. The process was simple: a wall of prayer was created near the altar and the names of children were written on it. Volunteers took turns praying at the wall, guided by the six C’s that were determined to be the most important principles.
The Six C’s
ü commitment
ü choices
ü challenges/sufferings
ü companions
ü character
ü calling
As a church body, we prayed for more than 350 children. Some mothers listed the names of their adult children. God performed amazing miracles. Children experienced healing, changed lives, restored relationships, and other significant blessings. I passionately believe that some of the aftereffects of those forty days still reverberate in our church today. Many young people have gone out of the church to serve Christ in different capacities and in different parts of the world. Some of those praying volunteers have passed on, but their prayers linger.
In writing this runbook, I added a seventh C for country, I have written this book during one of the most uncertain times in the existence of humanity. For the past year, we have been navigating the global pandemic caused by a virus known as the coronavirus or COVID-19. As the time of this writing, almost the entire known world was practicing social distancing (minimum six feet of space between people when in public) and was in a state of lockdown. In a matter of only a few weeks once the coronavirus became officially known, life came to a complete standstill with stadiums, civic centers, theaters, churches, and other venues closed, the stock market and financial systems shut down, and global economy experiencing one of its harshest downturns. Even burying the dead was an issue in most parts of the world.
Fear, anxiety, and panic gripped the world as a pandemic extended its reach with impunity. Prayer is the most potent weapon available to any believer. It transcends space, time, and distance, and it never dies. Nothing will move God like earnest prayer prayed through His Son, Jesus Christ, and enabled by the Holy Spirit. Prayers are never to inform or impress the Holy God. On many occasions, they are simply humble cries for help in the face of insurmountable odds. It may be words as plain as “I’m in so much trouble. Please help me, Holy God.”

Prayer Markers
It is important that we tell the child who is the subject of our prayers that someone has prayed or is praying specifically for him or her. At the end of every chapter, you can document the requests that were made in prayer for the child. Then, at an opportunity provided by God the Holy Spirit, share them with the child. It will be an adventure in faith building and prayer, both for the person who is praying and the child, when the response from the Holy God to that request is discussed.
The Holy Scriptures in Psalm 40:5 state, “Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders that you have done. Things that you have planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.”
I hope you will commit to support your chosen child in prayer as long as possible. The C’s I have presented are not organized in any particular sequence. You can choose to read about them in any order. Most importantly, I pray that you will apply them.
May the Holy God give you strength, determination and guidance in this journey.