Browsing Tag

Teaching kids to pray

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Teaching Kids to Pray #5: The Spiritual Blessings

Posted on May 31, 2022

I think it’s a pretty valuable family Bible time expenditure to get a piece of poster board or a dry erase board and draw a line down the middle and then let your littles write or draw the physical blessings on one side and the spiritual blessings on the other. They should learn the term from Ephesians 1:3. You should explain to them that spiritual blessings are things that God has given us to help us get to heaven. Cars are physical blessings because they help us get to the store and to worship, but we can get to heaven without them. Houses are physical blessings. We thank God for them, but we don’t have to have a house to get to heaven. Jesus did not even have one (Matthew 8:20)!

But spiritual blessings are things we need to get to heaven. The church where all the saved people are living, the Bible, the death and blood of Jesus, baptism, fellowship, prayer and its answers. Most of the spiritual blessings are even things we can’t see and touch, like forgiveness and our hope of heaven. These concepts are lofty for four-year-olds, but they will surprise you at how astute they will become at grasping this concept. You can even throw out things like an umbrella, a favorite toy, the godly example of Brother Joe, a vacation, worship, a doctor visit, a memorized scripture, etc… Have them identify as a physical blessing or a spiritual one and make it a game.

Then, when it’s time to pray, have them listen to you use superlative language to divide your thanksgiving. “We thank You, God for our houses and cars, but much, much more we praise you and thank You for Jesus!”… “We know You feed us when we are hungry, God, But OH!…Thank You for giving us Your word which feeds our souls for heaven! Help us to read it every single day so we can go to heaven!”…”We are very happy when we get to play out in the sprinkler or with our Hot Wheels cars. Thank You for those, Lord, but thank you most of all for the things we get to do to help other people to heaven. Help us to teach everyone we can find about heaven!”…”Lord, help us never to let houses, or cars, or toys or anything we have to keep us from having the important things that help us go to heaven! We just want to come and be with You! This is the BIG thing we have in our hearts!”

Let them hear these kinds of statements again and again and soon, they will be saying them (and meaning them) all on their own. They will begin, even as children, to set their affections on things above (Ephesians 3:2).

You can do this. Be diligent. Be consistent. Be victorious around the throne with your kids one eternal day!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Teaching Kids to Pray #4: The Material Things

Posted on April 20, 2022

Every child I’ve ever known who has been taught to pray gets in a habit of praying the exact same words without thinking about what he/she is saying. This is not a bad thing; after all, we are constantly encouraging our children to make habits of good things. The ultimate goal, though, is to mature them into people who talk to the Father rather than people who repeat a daily “liturgy.”

I think it’s important that we remind our very young children to think of new things for which to thank Him. So we say, just before the child prays “Think of some new things we can thank Him for…and let’s think of one thing we would love to ask Him for.” Then, in the prayer, if the children struggle to think of something new, you gently interrupt and say, “Let’s thank Him that the sun was shining while we were at the park,” or “Let’s tell God thank-you for the new book we got in the mail today,” or Let’s thank God that the rain is making our corn grow.” You might say “Don’t forget to ask God for help in some way…What about if we ask Him to help Grandma get over her cough or maybe we ask Him to help us to be able to invite someone to our gospel meeting tomorrow.”

Interrupting little prayers is a great way to prompt and promote “thinking” prayers. I’ve seen it become a great building block to sincere and thoughtful talks with the Father. Most importantly, your parental example of fervently talking to the Father, rather than “quoting” to Him is crucial in this process.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Teaching Kids to Pray #3: Relevance

Posted on February 21, 2022

I hope you’re praying with your children today. You probably have them home from school on this President’s Day. Make it a day of full glory for Him. Make it a day to encourage and bless someone from your home or automobile. Make it a morning that includes prayer with your children.

Making our prayers relevant to current situations is one of the key differences between rote praying and meaningful praying. Thus, it’s critical that our kids are taught to pray about what’s happening now–on this day. This makes their faith that he is hearing us increase It makes them know that their parents believe in the power of prayer in THIS moment. Most of all, it makes them know that YOU know the power of prayer.

Once, on my way to the emergency clinic with five-year-old Hannah in tow, my hand was bleeding from a knife injury, I was attempting to switch gears manually with the wrong hand, while keeping a cloth bound around my right hand. I was crying with pain and trepidation and blood was making a mess in my car. From the backseat, that little voice said “Mama, don’t you think we ought to pray?” I immediately pulled that car over and we went to the throne together. Relevance is so very important to children.

Pray (with your children) for patients when EMT vehicles pass you with blaring sirens. Pray for the policemen’s safety when you see them in precarious situations in traffic or arrests. Pray for those being arrested. Pray for the children you see disrespecting their parents in the grocery store. Pray before you go to invite someone to services. Pray before a tournament and after it’s over. Pray when you get in the car for a road trip. Shoot, at first, for remembering to engage in two or three prayers daily with your kids about relevant things. Bow heads together on the bleachers when someone is hurt on the court or the field. Pray in the car on the way home from worship for those who were on the sick list or who were not there due to unfaithfulness. Pray when the tornado watch is announced or when your phone signals an Amber alert. Pray short but fervent prayers in extreme moments of relevance. Your prayer time will not accumulate into very many minutes in all of these situations combined throughout your days, but your prayer time will be more valuable in their lives than you can start to imagine!

Today is President’s Day. Spend a minute in prayer with your children today for our President. Google “famous words of Presidents about faith” and read one applicable quote to your children. Talk about our current president and how important it is for Him to look to the Bible’s wisdom as he makes decisions. Pray for Him. If your children are a bit older, you may pray for the current Ukrainian crisis, as decisions are being made from the Oval Office.

Your kids are watching for relevance. In their minds, relevance reveals rationale for prayer. Are you praying merely because it’s commanded or are you praying because it avails? Your children know and their faith in prayer is depending on you!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Teaching Kids to Pray #2: Maximizing the Morning Mindset

Posted on January 24, 2022

Just as in school. young children are taught certain rituals each morning (figuring out the season of the year and today’s date, assessing the weather, and quoting memory work from a literary text or from the Bible in Christian education) children who grow up leaning on prayer begin their days talking to God. It doesn’t have to be long. It should never be arduous, but rather enthusiastic and positive. It should be the verbal and heavenward “prediction” by you and your kids that it’s going to be a great day because God is your Father. 

I know I’m not the expert, but it’s my suggestion, although you’re going to listen to and assist your kids in prayer every day, that this first morning prayer be led by Mom or Dad. At the breakfast table is a great place to do this. 

Your tone of voice is pretty important here. It’s not monotone and it’s not a daily quotation. Your breakfast voice to God should be the same one you would use to a friend who has just brought flowers and dinner for your family. It should radiate amazement at his goodness, because His mercies are new every single morning (Lamentations 3:23). Here’s a sample: 

Oh Father! It’s a brand new day you have given us. That sunshine coming in our window is from You! You let us sleep in our own warm beds and now, here we are …ready to go and do good things to show people how much we love you. You gave us our kitty and our house and our car and…oh God, you gave us EVERY single thing that makes us smile. Oh God, thank-you! We love these biscuits and eggs, Lord. You never let us run out of food and we even sometimes have enough to save for later. Help us to not ever forget that you are our Father. Daddy is so good, but you are even HIS Father. Thank you for taking care of our little family. Help us to have a great day for you. Please keep us safe. Help us to be good and help us to be happy all day. Thank you for giving us Jesus. We love Him so much! And we pray in His Name, Amen.

Remember, the voice they hear should be the same voice you would use to encourage them before their piano recitals or tournament ballgames—excited and confident and supportive. 

Next time: Should kids be required to put their hands together and bow their heads? What about prayer postures? 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Teaching Kids to Pray #1: An Important Job

Posted on January 20, 2022

As I think about the task of teaching our children to pray, I know I need to make the case that developing rich and regular prayer habits are important, in the first place. But then again, surely every reading mom and grandmother can see that the society in which our kids are developing makes their love for and belief in the power of prayer, both hugely practical and comforting beyond what they can now comprehend. 

For today, just four reasons to make teaching kids to pray a priority at your house. Next, we will move to some ways to make talking to God a first-nature go-to as they grow toward faithful Christianity. 

  1. Necessity. God is the only one who can “fix” our problems in this wicked world. It has always been true, but, in an America that has left behind its Biblical moorings and become a secular society, there are many foreboding realities which, while your children cannot assess them yet, will present challenges later that are herculean in nature and for which your children will find no answers outside of appealing to the Supreme One. Our legal system has veered so far from recognition of any relevance of biblical morality (in fact, often punishing its adherents) that your children’s recourse in life may sometimes be limited to appealing to the God in heaven who sees all and finally gets it right. Another way to say this is that there may be times in life when no one else but God will/can listen and respond to our very deep needs.
  2. Obedience. Faithful prayer is commanded and, of course, command-keeping is essential in all areas of our lives. (Mt.  26:41, Mark 13:33, Luke 18:1, 1Tim. 2:1, Eph. 6:18, Rom. 12:12). We want our children to go to heaven!
  3. Priorities.Faithful prayer in the home is one great way to teach our children spiritual priorities. Kids always see what’s important to us by how we spend our time. (If tapping on our phones is all they see us do, even to the exclusion of bowing in silent prayer and opening the Word, they come to examine and know what it is that takes all of our time.) They know. 
  4. Evangelism. Prayer spreads the gospel. It just does. If I’m on my knees in the morning and before I go to bed at night, I cannot help but to be aware of and vocal to the lost people around me in between those times of talking to God.  When I am talking to God, I will be talking to people. And souls are, by far and away, the most valuable of this world’s commodities. 

Today’s reasons for teaching kids to pray are necessity, obedience, priorities and evangelism. If you’re trying to remember an acrostic it’s “NOPE!” Let your kids grow up without learning to pray? 

NOPE! 

Maybe, for the next few days, moms and grandmothers could pray through these four reasons. Ask God every day to help you keep the importance of teaching prayer in your home at the forefront of your vision for your kids.