“Seven days without prayer makes one weak”
Allen Vartlett
There is one important truth about connecting with God that I desire my sons to know – that prayer is just chatting with God. No “Twelve Steps to Praying Successfully”, just talking to God, our Father.
How can people have a relationship and not talk with each other? They can’t – there would be no real relationship there at all. A healthy relationship needs good quality ,quantity and two way communication. It’s the same with our relationship with God. Talking with him (i.e. prayer) is like oxygen. It is essential to life. Not a day goes by that I don’t chat with my Heavenly Father. No fancy long prayers – but just chats throughout the day.
It’s all about having an awareness of God during your day. Knowing that He is present where ever you are. Chatting to Him about everything. When a need arises – seeking His answer first. When any worry thoughts creep in – chuck it towards God and let Him take care of things. It sounds easy – and it is!
I guess the first step is to impress upon our children the truth that God loves them, really loves them – truckloads of love! Once someone knows, really knows that God loves them then they can relate to Him as their Father.
How do we impress this on their hearts and minds? Well, it is something that the Holy Spirit reveals to them. But we can help by praying for them and showing them God’s Words on His love for them. How about including a study or devotion on God’s love in your homeshooling?
Here’s a couple of ideas of how to practically incorporate Prayer as a natural part of your child’s day:
- Get into the habit, as a family, to pray for anything that is missing. We did this very early on when the boys were toddlers. God knows where everything is and He can help us locate what we have lost. Once we prayed we don’t worry or think about it anymore – we just trust that He will lead our eyes to where the item is. This is a test in following His timing – sometimes a lost item is found straight after praying, but often time is involved. But we have never not found an item after we have prayed.
- Make certain daily activities a reminder to chat with God. I made going out in the car as my reminder. As soon as we drive out of the driveway – I pray and ask God to help us in whatever we were going to do.
- Praying a blessing over them at bedtime. This is an amazing opportunity to chat with your kids and pray specifically together over any issues or say thanks to God for something good that happened in their day. I also use it as an opportunity to pray a blessing or a declaration over their lives.
- Saying Grace at the main meal. This is probably one time in the whole day where the family is gathered in one place (especially when you have teenagers who can’t drive yet). Make sure you don’t forget to thank God for the day and the food. We have tried to make it a habit to have one of the boys to say grace.
- Including God in your children’s school work. It is good to teach your children to talk to God about any issues they are having with their school work. Are they finding maths hard? Talk to God about it then try the maths problem again. This gives them a good foundation for when they are outside the home working. They won’t have you to help them with any problems – they will need to rely on God’s wisdom. Start early!
How about your home? How do you bring prayer into your child’s everyday life?
This is part of a series titled Six Daily Activities That Kids Need. Here is a recap on the six activities. Click on each one to read the post.
3. Good books
5. Ideas to ponder and discuss
6. Prayer
I highly recommend that you go back to the first post in the series to gain the full benefit of the series.
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