This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology, and we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network. It's about to start in just a few seconds.
Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. at any time about anything. On Encouraging Prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the best-selling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer, provides weekly biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray.
And now, here's James. Oh, we have a wonderful topic for you today, how to help kids pray. I mean, this matters whether you're a parent or a grandparent or a Sunday school teacher or youth worker or even a VBS volunteer. It's so important.
It really is, Robby. I think about the people in my life who go way back. I still have my New Testament from my first grade Sunday school classes at Emmanuel Faith Community Church in Escondido, California, and I was really blessed to have a mother who showed me how to pray from a young age.
Oh, that's so good. So, how'd she do it? Well, she prayed herself.
It wasn't this solemn thing. She prayed out of the circumstances of her life. I mean, I think about my dad.
He taught us to pray, now I lay me down to sleep, and the Lord's Prayer when we went to bed. But Mom, she taught me that my life mattered to God, that He had a purpose for me. She was in an accident when she was pregnant with me. It was on this winding canyon road in California, and there weren't any guardrails, and the tow truck driver, a friend of the family, pulled her off the edge and said, looking at your tire tracks, you really shouldn't be here right now. And then he says, someone was looking out for you. And, man, Mom never let me forget about that. And maybe that's why she made the effort she did to make sure I knew how to pray.
Wow. So, let's take one of our examples for our listeners that may be helpful for the kids in their lives. Well, the first is, our kids really do matter to God. And I think we need to show them, like my mom showed me, we need to tell them they're here for a reason, and that God loves them.
And He can reach them at a younger age than we may think. My friend Dave Brannon, a retired editor and a man I really admire, wrote these words in Yesterday's Our Daily Bread. Just listen to all the scripture examples in this.
It's outstanding. He writes, we sometimes think the wishes and dreams of little children don't carry the weight of adult hopes. But scripture seems to make no such distinction. God calls children, as in the case of Samuel, 1 Samuel 3-4. Jesus honors the faith of little ones, Luke 18, 16, and 17. And Paul said younger believers shouldn't let people discount them just because they are young, 1 Timothy 4-12. So we're called to guide our children, Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7, Proverbs 22, 26. Recognizing that their faith is a model for us all, Matthew 18, 3, and understanding that hindering them is something Christ warned against, Luke 18, 15. When we see a spark of hope in children, our job as adults is to help ignite it. And as God leads us, encourage them toward a life dedicated to trust in Jesus and service for Him.
Wow, that really is outstanding and so on point. You know, God does call children. Weren't you like 13 or 14 when He called you to write books?
Yeah, I mean that's the funny thing, Robbie. I was. I really wanted to write Christian devotional books from about that age. And it didn't fully come about until I was in my 40s, but God put the desire in my heart young and then granted it years later. And I, you know, it was just such a fulfilling thing when that happened. And, you know, that, you know, He wants to move at our kids' lives. And that brings me back to another lesson from my mom on prayer.
Sounds good. Okay, well, she was spontaneous with it. You know, sometimes I'd walk into the room and find her sitting there with her eyes closed and, you know, I'd pop off with something like, wake up, mom, and she'd say, I am awake, I'm praying. And sometimes she'd bring me into what she was praying about, you know, she was really worried about my oldest brother at the time.
He was kind of taking a walk on the wild side in the 60s and 70s and into something spiritually that, you know, really could have been harmful for him. And she'd say, Oh, we really need to pray for him right now. And she'd do it, you know, right then, entirely out of love. So I think it matters to let our kids know the things that are on our hearts. And this isn't just about asking for stuff, you know, our kids need to know our prayers aren't just about that.
It's about being with God and thanking Him and loving Him in the moment as well. Yeah, that's one of the ways we keep it real with them, right? So they don't just see prayer as something that we do at church. They need to catch us praying, right, in our own lives.
Yeah, right. I mean, I think it's great to bring kids into our prayers, again, in the moment. Let's say you're out on the road together, an ambulance drives by, grab that moment to pray aloud for whoever's in that ambulance, you know, the one who's sick, the one who's helping them, the one who's driving. Life is with lessons like that. Yeah, that's so true. And there's something contagious, really, about praying like that.
Yeah, there really is. I mean, one of my favorites is when you lose something and you pray about it, and then you find it, you know, that's a great teaching moment to thank God for answering prayer, or let's say you don't find it. What an opportunity to say, God, I don't know why we can't find it right now, but I'm still going to ask you to help us find it and to help us be patient until we do, or, you know, God, if for some reason we don't find it, help us to still love you and believe in you.
That's real. Yeah, you know, another area where we can teach kids to pray is how to listen, right? The best example of this is in Samuel's story that you mentioned earlier.
Yeah, isn't that right? Yeah, Samuel realizes God is talking to him and tells him to pray, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening, and so he does. And it's not that most kids will hear an audible voice from God, but we need to teach them to be attentive to him, to understand that he really does speak to us. Yeah, yeah, right, and that way we can help them learn that listening isn't just with your ears, it's with your heart, and what an important lesson, you know? And the beautiful thing is that our kids do hear from God. The faith of a child matters. If they've received him, why shouldn't he speak to them? They may be more open than we are, you know?
Their heads are less cluttered with stuff. And I think of what happened to my dad when he was a boy. He dreamt that his uncle's attic was on fire, and he told my grandmother that, you know, he had dreamt about this, and she's this very matter-of-fact person, and she's like, well, don't tell stories. So they're driving by his uncle's house on the way to church that morning, and the smoke is just starting to come out of the attic, right? And the house was saved as a result.
Wow. What a great reminder for all of us. I mean, we really do need to pray with our kids, James. Why don't you wrap up with a prayer that will do just that? All right, Father, help us to pray. Help us to teach our kids to pray, to show them how to love them in it, to listen to them pray and learn from them as well. But Lord, please just bless us in this, that we all may have the faith of a child in Jesus' name. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray.
