PRAYING THE ROUNDS
- by Phua Kia Wang
As a Sunday School teacher and parent, one of the things that concerned me is whether our children know God or has a deep personal relationship with him. One of the signs, is how our children pray. I have struggled with teaching my own children on how to pray.
My wife and I have started them young from simple things like giving thanks at mealtimes to other times, like when they are about to sleep at night. There are occasions where the children have to pray through crisis in the family and for salvation of love ones. There are yet other simple things that we pray for, like a car park lot, so that my wife need not walk too far from the car to our house as she hurts much in her leg when she walks for a long distance.
We started with repeated prayers by the children saying prayers after us. However, what concerned me most was whether the children can pray for themselves. Can they exercise faith? How can they get started praying for themselves and others regularly?
One day, when I was reading a book on prayers, the answer dawned on me, even though it had nothing much to do with the book. I tried it with my 5 year old girl, Eleanor, and it worked very well. Remember the prayer that the Lord taught his disciples? Get the children to pray the Lord's Prayer. Start a part of the Lord's Prayer at a time. For example, teach your child to say, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name", and think of all the things that come to your head at that time about the Father and give thanks to Him or appreciate Him. Things like, "Our Father, You are so great", "Our Father, I love You", "Our Father, thanks for Jesus", "Our Father, thank You for taking care of me today", "Our Father, bless me today", etc.
Your child will pick up from there and learn to express his/her own feelings towards God, Our Father. They will learn to pray and express themselves, a bit at a time until it becomes natural for them to pray the entire Lord's Prayer. When they reach the part on "Give us today our daily bread", they will learn how to ask God for things in their lives. Things like, "Make grandma well, help her legs not be painful" or "Help Jie Jie (elder sister) to play the piano", etc.
Very soon, you will find that a half hour or one hour prayer session with your child is really quite insufficient. The whole problem is setting time aside to pray. I hope that you will enjoy praying with the family.
| KIA WANG |