Praying Over Your Home

How would you define your home?

The dictionary app on my phone lists over two dozen definitions for the word “home”.

I like this one, “the place in which one’s domestic affections are centered.” Or how about, “a principal base of operations or activities.” Although some days it does feel like “one of three attack positions..”.

Whether it is large or small; owned, rented or borrowed; temporary or sort of permanent; new, old, or somewhere in-between; we all have some place we call home.

Home is our very personal private space. It’s our family space. It’s where real life happens with real life people feeling real feelings and fighting real battles. If your home is like our home, we celebrate here, we play here, we cry here, we argue here, we contend here, we eat here, we entertain here, we learn here, we work here, we live life here everyday.

What place is more central to our lives than home?

So I want to invite you to do something you may have never done, or if you have, then I want to encourage you to do it again -  pray over your home.

There is really no specific way you have to do this, but I am going to share with you how I like to pray over my home.

A prayer walk is pretty simple, it is exactly what it says, you pray as you walk. I like to pray and walk around my neighborhood. It’s a great stress reliever and helps me recenter.

But in this particular case, we are going to pray as we walk around our home.

“Our home” is where you live right now. It may be a 3 bedroom, 3 bath in the burbs, it may be a one room apartment or space in the city. It may be a space on loan from a friend, or it may even be a place you don’t really want to be. But we are going to walk all of these home places and spaces together.

We are each going to invite and welcome God into our homes. We are going to walk Him around our private spaces and talk to Him in those rooms.

To begin, we are going outside. Walk all the way around your house praying, not just for the physical structure but for all of your family and residents.

Then move inside, walking through each room praying for that room’s purpose and family member. Pray for any specific needs of that person and your personal relationship with them, remembering to always include thanksgiving.

1. Dedicate your whole house and residents to God.
“And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15

2. Build your family’s spiritual foundation on God.
“He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.” Luke 6:48

3. Protection from the outside world.
“He has made strong the iron bands of your doors; he has sent blessings on your children inside your walls.” Psalm 147:13 (BBE)

4. The building of unity and healthy relationships.
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Colossians 3:12-17

5. Create a welcoming environment for others.
“Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.” Romans 12:13

6. Bless the food and share with others.
“He took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.” Matthew 15:36

7. Pray for good health and well being.
“Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.” 3 John 1:2

8. Develop a harmonious marital relationship.
“With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:2-3

9. Teach your children to follow God.
“Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.” Psalm 86:11

10. A blessing for peace.
“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” Numbers 6:24-26

11. Dedicate your work to God.
“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.“ Colossians 3:23-24

Download this printable of the 11 Scriptures featured above and keep in your Bible or journal for quick reference. 

Jana Kennedy Spicer is a born and raised Texas girl who has a heart for studying God’s Word and is passionate about encouraging women to do the same. She is the author of Let Your Light Shine: Being a Light in a Dark World; Praying For Revival; Inspiring Women: Who They Are and How To Be One and Gracious Words: Speaking with Kindness and Mercy; and the illustrator of the scripture based Garden of Life Coloring Book and Coloring the Scriptures.