What can parents do to bring children into discussion about faith and prayer? Can a structure like the Lord's Prayer help build life-strengthening habits?
As a church we are praying every day through Lent in the way Jesus taught his followers, reflecting daily on one short chunk of the Lord's Prayer. This week, the Watts family have been sharing their thoughts. Today, Mal Calladine chats with them about their experience.
This week, we are praying along with the Watts family - parents Jen and Rick with children Abbie and Nathan.
Rick writes:
We discussed that when we see the word ‘delivery’ we instantly think of grocery or parcel deliveries. It’s true that particularly grocery deliveries have been like gold dust over the past 12 months, but God’s deliverance is so much more than that.
It’s easy to read this as ‘God, please keep us safe from all the bad people out there’, but what’s interesting is that this phrase comes straight after asking God to help us with temptation. So perhaps this is at least as much about delivering us from doing evil to others than protecting us from everyone else?
Switching back to the shopping analogy, this deliverance isn’t a one-off action, we need to continue to be delivered each day, asking God to help us make the right decisions when we face difficult situations.
This week, we are praying along with the Watts family - parents Jen and Rick with children Abbie and Nathan.
Jen says:
For me, this is the hardest part of the prayer to understand and seems to contradict everything I think I know about the nature and character of God. Does God deliberately tempt us? Is there some kind of test that we need to pass? The story of Job seems to suggest so.
The verse in The Street Bible puts it this way:
‘Please pull as back from the edge of evil, if we’re falling, or being thrown.’
This feels a more helpful translation for me. Regardless of who is doing the pushing – us, God or the devil, the point is that we ask God to pull us back. We have our part to play too of course – we shouldn’t venture towards that metaphorical edge whatever that looks like for us. We can ask God to give us the strength to make good choices and break bad habits.
This week, we are praying along with the Watts family - parents Jen and Rick with children Abbie and Nathan.
Rick says:
We discussed as a family whether forgiveness affects us as well as the person we forgive. When we hold onto past hurts, resentment grows inside us like a poison. When we forgive others, it frees us too. However, just because we forgive someone, it doesn’t mean that our relationship with them remains unchanged. If someone hurts us and isn’t sorry about this, then we may not be able to trust them as much in the future.
Jen says:
This reminds me of the parable of the ungrateful servant in Matthew 18. The master cancels the servant’s huge debt when he comes begging to him, yet the servant hounds another servant for a far smaller debt. Whatever wrongs anyone else has done to us, it is nothing compared to what we have done to offend God. He is totally pure and holy, and our thoughts and actions can be impure, full of greed and self-serving.
Yet God graciously overlooks all our flaws and loves us as though we were as pure and deserving of heaven where all is perfect as his perfect son. If he can do that for us, then we can forgive others.
This week’s thoughts are from the Watts family - parents Jen and Rick with children Abbie and Nathan.
Jen says:
In other words, give us what we really need for today, not a weekly shop with luxury extras. We are to depend on God daily to meet our needs. He desires us to live in the kind of relationship where we depend on him and look to him to fulfil our needs.
I think it’s important to note that this section doesn’t come until after the first couple of lines. We are to dwell on God, his nature and get fully into his presence before we make our requests. If a friend contacted you out of the blue with a short message that read ‘I need a new car, now.’, you’d think that was extremely rude. If you wouldn’t speak to a friend that way, then we definitely shouldn’t approach God, the most powerful being in the universe, this way. We are also to be mindful about whether we truly need something before we ask for it.
Imagine a child running into the oval office to ask their dad (the president) something. If it’s urgent, they have the right to interrupt the president as their needs are hugely important to him. However, if they keep barging in asking for something that can wait or is really unimportant, then that’s not going to go down well. Of course, God is the ultimate father and infinitely more gracious and patient than any earthly parent, but he is also worthy of the highest level of respect.
This week’s thoughts are from the Watts family - parents Jen and Rick with children Abbie and Nathan.
Rick and Nathan say:
When I asked Nathan what came into his mind when we said ‘kingdom’, he proceeded to list all the board and video games we have with ‘kingdom’ in the title. (To be honest I had similar thoughts, I wonder where he gets it from…)
We discussed how ‘kingdom building’ in these games is about looking to build the best kingdom for yourself, and often this means taking territory and resources away from other players. However, God’s kingdom is for everyone’s benefit.
Abbie says:
We want heaven to come down to earth so everyone on earth gets to experience heaven.
Jen says:
This line reminds us that just because God has the power to change any situation, he won’t necessarily act. As children, we can ask him for good things, but any good parent knows that sometimes what their children want is not what’s best for them, even if the child is too young to understand why.
When my kids ask for snacks, my answer will change from day to day, even though they’re asking for the same thing. I might gladly offer a snack at 4pm when dinner will not be until 6pm but will deny them snacks when dinner is in only half an hour’s time.
The last part of this reminds us that there is a greater hope to come. As we pray, we can call heaven down onto earth and make earth more like heaven. One day, we won’t have to do this, because we will already be in heaven.
This week’s thoughts are from the Watts family - parents Jen and Rick with children Abbie and Nathan.
Jen says:
The Lord’s prayer is so familiar to us that it’s easy to overlook how radical it is and how rich a mine of information about God, our relationship with God and how to talk to him. Although Jesus modelled this prayer to his disciples, it was for their benefit and not for his. Jesus did not need to pray in this way; we do. It is a model for the structure of a prayer, not something that we need to recite by rote.
In just one line: our father in heaven, your name is holy; there is so much to delve into.
This sets the tone for the rest of our prayers.
By starting his prayer this way, Jesus shows us exactly how to access God and what tone to use. He reminds us of our relationship to God – we are his children. He is our father; therefore, we can come to him like a child. Children speak from the heart and share absolutely everything on their mind.
He’s also reminding us who God is. Yes, he is our father, but he’s reminding us that he is also a holy and awe-inspiring God. He is the only one with the power to change any situation.
When we focus first on who God is and our relationship with him, the rest flows naturally.
Abbie says:
There’s no point in praying if you don’t believe that God has the power to grant our prayers.
Nathan says:
You don’t need to use fancy words to speak to God, you just need to pray. It’s not about him giving you everything you want; people sometimes forget to thank God for what he has already given us.
Rick says:
Sometimes when we are sitting down to a family dinner, one of our kids turns to Jen and says "Pudding?" I normally reply back with something like "I think what you meant to say was - Lovely Mummy who gave me life and does everything for me, would it be possible to have some pudding please?".
I think this is similar to how we need to approach God, we need to respect him and all that he has done for us before we can enter into further conversation with him.
