Text Box: FAMILY CORNER     

 

                  TRUSTING GOD

 

      It’s scary to trust God with my kids’ prayers.  I want my kids to learn that God answers prayers, and they should use prayer as a first resort.  But I get worried that God won’t answer a prayer in the way they expect, and they will lose faith.  To me, it seems a valid concern: some of the prayers my kids shoot up there are unimportant, or trivial, or just plain wild.  I think that God is too big for these little concerns.  Boy, did He have a lesson for me!

     

      Since I walk my two children, Mark (age 9) and Sarah (age 6), to school about four blocks everyday, we’ve gotten in the habit of saying prayers on our morning trip.  We started this one morning because we were in a hurry, and it just stuck.  I like our daily tradition because the kids are learning that they can pray anywhere and everywhere, even with their eyes open!  We like to pray for the upcoming day, ask a blessing on their teachers, thank God for all He has given us, and express any concerns we have.

 

      Well, the prayers I was hearing began to sound the same after a while, so I started talking to my kids about being specific when they pray.  “Just talk to God about your lives,” I’d tell them.  ”Pray about things that matter to you.”  I started modeling for them the everyday concerns we can bring to God. I prayed about a job possibility, a church member in the hospital, and worries I had about my busy schedule.  They caught on and started to pray about a mean kid at school, or a sick friend, or concern over a spelling test.  This routine has become one of my favorite times of the day, and their prayers almost always make me smile.  ALMOST…

 

      On our walk to school, we pass by an abandoned house. The house has broken windows, a boarded up front door, and weeds growing out of the gutters.  No one cuts the lawn, trims the bushes,  shovels the sidewalk or rakes the leaves.   I sometimes complain about this house’s state of disrepair.  The fact that we can’t even use the sidewalk because it’s so overgrown with bushes and covered with dead leaves really irritates me.  I guess my son Mark got tired of my complaining and decided to do something about it: so he prayed about this house.   He asked God to send someone  to  clean  up  the yard and sidewalk so we could use it.   Now, this was one of those prayers that made me nervous.  That house is abandoned!  I knew full well that no one was going to clean up the yard to that eye-sore.  We’ve lived by that abandoned wreck for six years, and no one has touched the yard, EVER.  Two days in a row he prayed about it.  I started formulating my explanation for God’s silence on the matter. 

 

      Wouldn’t you know that on the walk home from school that second day, there was a lawn service at that house trimming the bushes, mowing the lawn, raking the leaves, and cleaning the yard!  I stood there in complete shock.  I’ve spent six years complaining about the mess in the yard; my son spent two days praying about it.  God had answered Mark’s prayer.

 

      But the greatest lesson for me was Mark’s attitude: he wasn’t surprised at all.  He said, “Mom, why are you surprised?  I knew God would take care of it.”  I guess that’s what we Christians call “faith.”  The Bible tells us that if we have faith as small as a grain of mustard seed, we can move mountains.  (Matthew 17:20)   Mark’s faith moved an amazing mountain in my life that day.

 

      That answered prayer was probably more for me than for Mark.  God taught me to trust Him with my children and their wild prayers.  God cares about my kids, and He knows how to build faith in them  better than I do.  I can stop formulating explanations for God’s actions.  He’s big enough to handle whatever they throw His way.   So I will keep teaching my children to use prayer as a first resort, or should I say, they will keep teaching me.

 

      I’ve got a bigger problem now, though.  I’ve learned that God honors the prayers of children, and Mark is praying for a baby brother!

                                                                                                   T. Elliott

 

                                Matthew 18:3

 

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

 

May we come to the point of trusting our Heavenly Father and Lord Jesus Christ just as we see in children the example of what true, simple  faith and confidence is all about.