March 1st

Better Families

Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray.’ Luke 11:1

What is the most important thing you want to teach your kids? What one thing do you want your children to someday take away with them?

Probably near the top of the list will be: Jesus is Lord of their lives, they maintain financial responsibility, they make it to marriage sexually pure, and other very admirable goals. All of these should be key targets in your parenting, without a doubt. However, there is one thing of utmost importance that is so simple that many of us might forget about it. That thing is prayer.

Did you know that the disciples only asked Jesus to teach them one thing? They never asked Him how to do the miracles-healing the lame, opening blind eyes, walking on water, calming storms, or raising the dead. Instead, they asked Him to teach them to pray.

That is maybe hard for many of us to imagine-actually wanting someone to teach us how to pray. Our picture of prayer is someone piously folding their hands in quiet personal prayer, but what we see in Jesus is quite different.

For one, He apparently would pray at times with all of His disciples there with Himanything but private. He wanted them to see how He connected to His Father and interceded for the things He was called to do. But this was no show; it was a demonstration so that they could repeat what they saw.

You see, prayer works hand in hand with our study of God’s Word. Hear me in this-we absolutely need God’s Word! However, it is all too easy for our study of the Bible to go no deeper than our intellect, which leaves our brains smarter but our lives unchanged.

It is impossible, however, to engage the Lord in prayer for very long without having to dig deeper into our heart. Try praying for longer than ten minutes sometime. If you haven’t practiced it, then you will run out of things to pray for very quickly. But then what to you do? Do you give up praying and go on with your day? Or do you keep pursuing God until you reach a new depth in your heart that you never knew existed?

Prayer reaches the core of who we are and is able to fill it with the truths from God’s Word. The question is whether prayer is a significant enough part of your life that your kids will see it and ask you, Mom, Dad, please teach me to pray.

Prayer Lord Jesus,

I confess that I don’t really understand what’s so great about prayer, but I believe there is more to it than I know. Please teach me why You prayed and help me to pray the same way.

Amen