CHILDREN AND PRAYER

Welcome to Monday With a Mission

We try to have a family dinner once a month. It’s always a gathering of love and food. A time to catch up, to laugh, to plan, and to enjoy each others presence.

Because there are so many of us, we have at least one birthday or anniversary to celebrate in each month, so why not celebrate each other?

Prayer is the first thing that happens. After everyone has arrived, we gather in a circle. The children love this as they can stand by a cousin and hold hands.

One Thanksgiving we were all holding hands, Tom squeezed my hand, like “go ahead”. Well, in my mind I had decided Tom would pray so I squeezed his hand back and said you go ahead honey, then he said no that’s ok….well, before we could make up our minds… our three year old granddaughter starts singing her prayer she learned at preschool –

“God our father, God our father, bless this food, bless this food, we are very thankful, we are very thankful. Amen”

…in a most beautiful child voice. (The above picture was taken several years later when the same child wrote her special prayer for Thanksgiving).

It was so emotional to experience a child taking the lead without being coaxed to pray. From then on we would always ask which one of the children would like to pray. They would excitedly accept most of the time. Sometimes they just weren’t ready.

Sometimes it’s more than one child to pray, sometimes we pray for the pet fish and sometimes it is an emotional cry for healing for their grandma or pawpaw. But it is always the perfect prayer by a child who knows God loves them and hears them.

Meal time, no matter what time of day, is a special time to give thanks to God, an added bonus, you could say.

Meal time is also family time when you share your day with those you love. Good and bad times.

If you don’t have a daily family meal time I challenge you to start one.

Get together with those you love on a regular basis with extended family and friends also. Share the cooking, or bringing of food, and, of course, the prayer.

Help children, and adults, to pray for the food, for the families, for the world we live in. To take the lead to pray before a group is not always a comfortable or easy thing to do, but, oh, when you allow the presence of the Holy Spirit to lead you, it is a worship service in itself.

If ever in doubt of what to pray when called on, pray the Lord’s Prayer…

Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen.

When you create the bond of family – allow it grow, sprout love, bloom in hope, and be harvested through service to others. We must come together to witness Jesus Christ working through each of us. 

Romans 12:9-10 discusses how to live and conduct ourselves in love.

“Love must be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good.  Be devoted to one another with mutual love, showing eagerness in honoring one another.” 

Honor your family and friends by sharing with them the beauty of prayer and the obligation we have to it. It is through our prayer time that we have open line of communication with our God because of Jesus Christ.

Thank You Jesus for the gift of prayer, teach us to be consistent and passionate as we boldly proclaim who You are. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen