As people who love a prodigal so much that we spend much time praying for their salvation, our human hearts sometimes can cause us to pray things that may or may not be in God’s perfect will for them.

One thing we often see in their lives is ungodly influence, and we want those influences removed immediately. We never have to wonder if these prayers are in God’s perfect will for their lives, because of things we are told in the Bible, so we can pray for this without reservation.

Also, since God created us all to need other people, we know we need to pray that when the ungodly influences are removed, they need to be replaced with godly influences, or there will be a tendency on the part of prodigals to seek out other ungodly influence.

The Bible gives us many examples of God’s wanting ungodly influence from the lives of people:

• Psalm 1 tells us that people are blessed when they don’t walk “in the way counsel of ungodly,” stand “in the path of sinners,” or sit “in the seat of the scornful” (verse 1).
• God said He would wall Gomer in so that she couldn’t “find her paths.” He said, “She will chase her lovers, but not overtake them; Yes, she will seek them, but not find them” (Hosea 2:6–7).
• Jabez prayed that the Lord would keep him from evil so he wouldn’t cause pain (1 Chronicles 4:10).
• A proverb says, “Do not enter the path of the wicked, And do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it, do not travel on it; Turn away from it and pass on” (Proverbs 4:14–15).

As for praying for godly influence, Jesus Himself taught His disciples to pray for godly influence: “Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest’” (Matthew 9:37–38).

We desire to always pray God’s perfect will for them, so we pray for those ungodly influences to be removed, and we pray for godly influences to be in their lives daily—people whose actions and attitudes reveal Jesus, who will be sensitive to the Holy Spirit in witness, who will boldly and gently speak life and truth to our prodigals, and who will pray and not give up.

Grant it, Lord, in the mighty name of Jesus!