Susan Robinson

“God, you are the awesomest. Amen.”  “Jesus, please help mom remember to get pudding at the store. I ask every day and she always forgets.”  “Dear Lord, I really don’t like third grade. The boy next to me has bad breath. Please fix it so I don’t have to go. Thank you.”   Innocent, uncomplicated, and brutally honest.  As a young mom, I was still learning about prayer for myself (honestly, I still am)! How was I supposed to teach my children to grow their prayer lives when I was still working on my own? Two decades later, I now realize that I was way overthinking it. My kids, with their unfiltered, heartfelt brain dumps, were off to a great start!  At its core, prayer is simply talking to God. This seems to come naturally to most children. As parents, we just need to encourage and guide these God conversations so that prayer becomes a trusted and integral part of their day-to-day lives.  Use the Word The most effective and powerful way to develop your prayer life is to use Scripture. Praying God’s Word ensures that our prayers align with His will and that we will receive what is asked within the correct context (James 4:3, 1 John 5:14-15). Praying Scripture also draws us closer to God’s heart and renews our minds to be more like Christ’s (Romans 12:2). If your child is anxious, teach them 1 Peter 5:7 and pray, “Lord, I cast all my fears onto you because you care for me.” Or if a friend is sick they could pray Matthew 14:14, “Thank you Jesus that you feel compassion for them and You heal those that are sick.” You can also encourage your child to pray for things they want to see begin to happen in themselves or the world around them- freedom from sin (Romans 6:18), humility (1 Peter 5:5), discernment (Psalm 119:66) or servanthood (Mark 10:45).  Get Creative Kids are endless sources of creativity. They just love to make up stories, sing songs at the top of their lungs, and cover everything with glitter and glue. Using our creative gifts is a fun and immersive way to practice prayer. When you and your child are singing a worship song, encourage them to wrap their heart around praying the words as they sing them. Pray the lyrics of “Waymaker” over a challenging situation or “Glorious Day” when you’re having a tough one. Drawing as you pray is a great way to get out thoughts and feelings that may be difficult to put into words. And incorporating our imaginations can be a powerful tool. When my children would have nightmares, I would have them imagine Jesus on the throne in heaven. I’d ask them to use their hand to pull the nightmare from their brain and then give it to Jesus. It always gave them so much peace to have a visual of Jesus taking away the source of their fear.    Establish a Routine  Did you grow up praying at bedtime or before each of your meals? There is nothing magical about praying at these set times. They are just examples of establishing a prayer routine. Research shows there are numerous benefits to a predictable daily routine and that scheduling an item greatly increases the likelihood of that action being completed. Sit down with your kids and talk about making a family prayer routine. What consistent times work well for you? In the Robinson home, we pray before meals and we take extra time to pray with each child as we put them to bed at the end of the day. It doesn’t happen every single meal or every single night but, thanks to our routine, we are pretty close.  The most important thing you can teach your child about prayer is just to do it and do it all the time. There is literally never a moment that we cannot pray. Prayers can be serious or funny, short or long, aloud or silent. Prayers can be for yourself or someone else. Prayers can be filled with gratitude or heavy with frustration. You can pray while driving, walking, or taking a bath. You can tell God you really like that tree He made in your front yard or you can ask Him to heal your grandmother. Nothing is too big or too small to pray. Prayer can and should be a lifestyle, a way of living every day, a continual conversation with the One who knows you best.

They desire to understand—a trait we want to encourage as parents and, more often than not, be the voice that answers their questions. Remember the “why” years? Those years where every day you are bombarded by dozens upon dozens of questions, one on top of the next, until you’ve almost been “why-ed” to the point of exhaustion?  Those questions keep showing up through the years. Maybe not as often—typically with a much weightier question like, “Why do bad things happen?” Our kids eventually begin to recognize that there are beautiful moments and beauty to behold in life but also seasons of loss, disappointment, and pain. While this is not an easy topic to dive into, we absolutely want to be the ones to create a Scriptural narrative around why bad things happen.  This conversation could go in a lot of different directions. And while we need to keep it age-appropriate, we don’t want to water down the truth for our children.  Here are a few thoughts to help frame these conversations: Genesis 3. This is a great place to start to establish that there’s an adversary who wants to convince us to doubt God and turn away from what God says is best. That began in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. Because Eve chose to listen to and obey the serpent, the Devil, rather than God, sin entered the world. Sin brought destruction and death into our world, and it continues to this day. But God, in every way and in every season since then, is in the process of redeeming and bringing beauty from ashes. Even in that pivotal moment in the garden, God promised to provide redemption and hope for the whole world through Jesus Christ. (Gen 3:15) Personal stories. There is incredible power in personal testimony. When we’ve witnessed God move in our own lives or the lives of our family and friends, those are stories we want to share and leverage for faith-building and encouragement. Psalm 145:4 challenges us to commend His works from one generation to the next! Praising Jesus for what He’s done for us brings remembrance. And remembering can produce thanksgiving, joy, and hope! The story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50). An incredible story to demonstrate how someone can be mistreated and misunderstood, and one in which our humanity might normally choose to cry ‘unfair’ and lose hope. But Joseph models faithfulness to God and never gives up hope. Through all the details, we see God in Joseph’s story preparing and moving Joseph into a position of leadership, second in command to Pharaoh, where he eventually saves his family and all of Egypt during a famine. He declares in Genesis 50, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” Jesus Christ. The greatest example of all! Our Savior, of whose story we know the end, and it is victory. He came knowing He would live a perfect life, He would be crucified, buried, and He would rise from the dead, conquering death and sin and offering salvation to all people and one day, full redemption of the whole world! His life, death, and resurrection give us hope in every season we experience in this life.  Sometimes there is not a perfect easy answer to what our children experience in this life. Pastor Louie Giglio has framed it this way: we are either in a storm, coming out of a storm, or heading into a storm. If we can help our children understand that life, as amazing as it can be, will not be void of storms, we can help equip them with an attitude of hope and expectation. A heart posture that is intent on seeing Jesus in all the seasons of life and choosing to trust Him even when it doesn’t make sense. Many years ago, I came across a quote from Wallace Stegner that read, “The brook would lose its song if we removed the rocks.” I remember logging that thought into my head as without the rocks, the brook would lose its song. I had lost my mom to cancer years earlier, I was a mom of 2 young boys, and I was struggling with bouts of deep anxiety. This simple quote helped me frame difficult seasons like this one in my life with purpose. Rocks that felt sharp and jagged initially were tossed into the stream of life. They became smooth through the years, worn soft by Living Water which created a unique and beautiful life song that told a story of the good, the hard, and the faithfulness of Jesus Christ toward me. I learned to see the rocks differently.  My hope is to help my family grasp the truth that when difficult things happen in our lives or the lives of others, there is treasure to be found—namely Jesus Christ. In all things, no matter the outcome, we fix our eyes on Jesus, stand firm in faith, and trust that our amazing God is working all things for our good and His glory.