When out talking with some mommy friends of mine, the subject of our personal prayers came up and my thoughts jumped instantly to this month's first presidency message by President Henry B. Eyring. (In the LDS church we have a message from our Prophet and/or his two counselors that is published each month in church magazines.)
Families and Prayer by President Eyring
President Erying focused his message on his father's example of prayer and this particular quote jumped out to me and inspired me to change and improve the way in which I pray:
"I am still being blessed by a father and a mother who spoke with God. Their example of the power of prayer in families is still blessing the generations who came after them."What my children need and what they need to know is that their mother and father speak with God. We speak with God in their behalf, we ask for help for them, we ask for blessings for them, we are praying for their safety, we are praying for them when they are away from us. We know God and we love Him and we can teach them how to know Him too.
All of this inspired a family home evening lesson in which I opened up my heart to my young children regarding prayer and it has been changing the spirit in our home this week. I write this so that I can always remember that these goals have the potential to change my children's lives for the better. Confession: building up the habits for good personal prayer have been a struggle for me. I grew up in a home where we rarely prayed together, I was not taught or reminded to pray besides the random prayer here and there to help us find something or get home safely when we were having car trouble. Regarding Heavenly Father as my Father who knows and loves me and wants to hear from me is a concept that has taken me years and years to wrap my head around. And I want to give my children this precious, important knowledge right away in life.
I opened by telling my kids that they were given to us by Heavenly Father and that he expects and needs us to teach them things so that we can all return to live with Him as a family. "Heavenly Father wants us to teach you to prayer so that you can know him and speak with him." This caught my 6-year-old's attention immediately. I am not just telling you things because I'm in charge, blah, blah, blah- be quiet and listen. I am telling them that Heavenly Father wants and needs them to learn this. We need to teach them how to pray and why we pray.
The Bible Dictionary points out the reasoning behind many of our struggles with consistant personal prayer- and the solution:
"As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are His children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part (Matt. 7:7–11). Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship."The Family, a Proclamation to the World teaches us what is necessary in successful families, and prayer is an important part:
"“Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.”President Eyring's message struck me. I dare you to read it without hearing the spirit whisper to you that your children need you to pray with them:
"Think of what that can mean to those who kneel with you in family prayer. When they feel that you speak to God in faith, their faith will increase to also speak with God. When you pray to thank God for blessings they know have come, their faith will grow that God loves them and that He answers your prayers and will answer theirs. That can happen in family prayer only when you have had that experience in private prayer, time after time."The best way to bring my children to God is to show them the way. My children need to know that God loves them! And they can learn this through my prayers and through our family prayer. There have been many times that I just want to give up when attempting to have family prayer and scripture study with young children that ends in sheer craziness. "What's the point? They are just fighting. They aren't listening. I'm just getting frustrated. It would be so much easier not to do this. I don't even know why I try." Ever find yourself saying these things? I would venture to bet that you are probably doing better than us but are still saying these things. I would always tell myself- keep going so that they will always remember that we tried- we had family prayer and scripture study. It wasn't perfect but it was important to us and we worked at it and didn't give up. This message spoke to me and reminded me not to give up!
The main thing that hit home to me in this prayer light-bulb-moment, and the way to help my family was: If we want to strengthen our family prayers we all need to be working on our own individual prayers! All of us: me, my husband, my 6-year-old that often wants to do only what he wants to do, my energetic 4-year-old that cannot be rushed, my baby....well, she can't talk yet but she does know when we pray.
When we are working to do this- because prayer can be a form of work- we need to remember that a loving heavenly father hears and answers our prayers. We have to remind our children when we are wrestling them to come kneel with us that we are getting ready to talk to Heavenly Father.
I loved what President Eyring said his father would do when praying:
"My father had often said that when he prayed, he thought he could see in his mind the smile of Heavenly Father."I remind my children of this now. That He is happy when we speak to Him. He wants to hear from us. Her knows us. He knows our names.
And this is our Family's reminder (that I need to print out so that we can have at our bedsides) "A loving God is as close as a prayer."
I have been touched by my 4-year-old's sweet prayer that she has said nightly since this lesson, "We are thankful for Heavenly Father and that we can talk to you."
One thing I know- prayer in my home will bless my family.
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