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Teaching My Family to Pray – UPDATED

Yesterday during the morning hours, I felt that God was speaking to me about my country and my family.  In particular, the Spirit spoke to me that things are going to get much worse in this country.  My responsibility is to teach my family how to pray.

Our family has been having family devotions for years and years, so the concept of praying in our family is not new.  But I believe that there is much more for my family to learn about prayer, especially in light of the Word I heard.

You see, in Ezekiel, God told the prophet that He was looking for a man to make up the hedge and stand in the gap for the land, but He could not find one.  The thought occurred to me, if God was looking for just one, what could He do with a few?

Last night, we began by taking some baby steps.  Since the children range from 4 to 13, I want to bring everyone along.  We talked a little bit about what prayer is, and I had  my younger ones repeat that prayer is simply “talking to God.”  Then we talked about being thankful.  We then spent one minute (by the clock) thanking God for things.  Next, we talked about praise, that praise is telling God how great He is in so many ways.  I asked the youngest what he knows about God by having him complete the sentence, “God is …”  He could think of “good,” “strength” and “love.”  So I told him to just tell God over and over for the next one minute those things as a way to praise God.  For our third minute, we spent time talking to God and asking Him for things that we need or that other people need.

The typical response was, “That went by fast.”  Yet, as a family, we had prayed for three minutes.  (I can’t help but wonder how much time the average family DOES spend praying together.)

I’m not sure where God is headed with all of this, but I want to simply be obedient.

A few years ago, I was in a small group where a prophecy was given out about the future of our country.  There were warnings similar to what I heard yesterday, “Things are going to get worse” basically.  But the promise that came through is that if we are faithful to serve God, when the hard times hit, we will have the RIGHT to call upon His name.  Wow.  There’s a lot to be unpacked in that simple promise.  The RIGHT to call upon the Name of the Lord in times of trouble is worth more than all the gold bullion in the world.

What are your thoughts?

UPDATES:

The second time, we moved from 1 minute in each category to 1.5 minutes each.  It still seemed “short” to most of the children.

The third time, we spent 2 minutes each on prayer and praise and had a goal of one minute on requests.  My four year old said he didn’t really want to do that part, because he didn’t know what to ask for.  I told him I would help him, so I led him in some prayers for family members (sleep well, not hurt, find a job, etc.) and then a prayer for himself that he would serve Jesus.  That ended up being a minute and a half.


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5 Responses to "Teaching My Family to Pray – UPDATED"

  1. anonymous says:

    I like the idea of teaching your family how to pray, being one who has never really been taught how to pray growing up, therefore not praying, or struggle with praying as it isn’t the natural thing for me to do. I intend to be able to, as I get older and start a family, teach my future children the importance of prayer etc…I just need to grasp it myself first. That’s really exciting to see what God is going to bring out of this for you, your family and your Country!

    I myself get the feeling that because I don’t really pray, even though we should be constantly, that I don’t have the right to ask God for the help I may need when troubles come. It’s a tough one.

  2. Kirsty Allan says:

    “For this (i.e. prayer) is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” 1 Timothy 2: 3-4

    This a really good post – thank you!

  3. Craig says:

    I really enjoyed reading your article on the importance of prayer as a family. As time moves forward, the newer generation is losing sight of the importance of prayer and who God is.

    Thank you for your thoughts.

    God bless you and your family!

    1. admin says:

      Thanks for the comment. We continue to try and delve into the realm of prayer a little deeper with the children. I want my children to be able to know many reasons that God is worthy of praise and to be able to thank Him in any circumstance. The latter is harder to model if we don’t live in an atmosphere of thanksgiving ourselves.

  4. Thank you for this article. We could write a similar story ourselves in our family. We are working on our own prayer life while we teach our children to pray.

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