Tracy and I have started to have Isaac say some prayers before he goes to bed each night. We felt it important to get him at least pointed in the right direction and to start some habits early. Who knows how it will turn out, but at least we can say we tried! It is interesting in the least to hear what he comes up with, and it amazes me sometimes who and/or what he thinks about praying for. Hearing those prayers brings home the story when Jesus talks about having the faith of a child to enter into heaven. Right now Isaac has no doubts he's talking to Jesus and Jesus is listening...that certainty of faith is certainly amazing and it is too bad our adult minds can mess it up as we get older.
What I've been noticing lately is that he has tended now to say the same thing each night in an attempt to get the prayer over with quickly. You'd think a "normal" 5 year old would drag the prayer on for ever to keep himself from having to go to bed! Last night he buzzed right through it without seemingly giving a thought to what he was saying. He was just repeating what he'd been saying the nights before. What he was praying for was fine, but it had become robotic and it got me to thinking if we become almost robotic in our prayer life. I reminded him that he was talking to Jesus and that he need to think about what he wanted to pray about and not just rush through it. Good advice for us too I think.
Examine for a second who you pray. Is it the same requests over and over, do you mean what you are saying or are you rushing through it so you can check another thing off your list for the day. Of course some things are worth praying about again and again, but I don't think the prayer should become so automatic it rolls off your tongue without a thought behind it. Now, I certainly can't say God listens better if we put a lot of umph behind the prayer, but I do know it will speak to us more if we think about what we mean each time and honestly pray the words. Familiarity can bread contempt...let's not let it happen in or prayer lives!
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