Prayer of a Child

This past Wednesday evening we hosted a couple missionaries at our church for the evening. Prior to going to the church my wife and I invited them to come to our home for dinner. It was quite a blessing and encouragement to have them share with the church family and to spend time visiting with them. But, as much of a blessing as that was, it was not the most meaningful thing to me that evening.

On Wednesday evening storms raged in our community that caused many to take refuge in our basement and almost caused our evening to come to an early end due to tornado warnings. After the missionaries had left the church we sent them on their way from our home and then began to prepare our two oldest children for bed. As I knelt down with Addison, our five-year-old she began to pray;

"God is good, God is great, I thank you for the sleep we will get. Thank you God that we have a house, thank you God that we have a basement, thank you God that we have missionaries, thank you God that missionaries are our friends, thank you God that the big kids are our friends, thank you God for our beds, thank you God for storms, thank you God for keeping us safe through the storms, thank you God for letting us get sleep during the storms."

After our prayer time with the kids on Wednesday, I went back to the church to clean up. The storms came closer, the wind grew stronger, the thunder grew louder, and the lighting grew brighter. And as my wife sat in the living room she heard our daughter praying again, praying softly and then a bit louder, praying prayers of thanksgiving and prayers requesting safety. How wonderful it is when children pray. How pure it is when children pray. How we can all learn from children.

I make a lot of mistakes, but I thank God that my kids are learning to pray, that they are learning to thank Him for the little and big things in their lives, and that they are learning that they can trust Him. May God grant us the ability, the knowledge and wisdom to continue to teach and train our children in his ways so they grow in their admiration and trust of Him.