Simple Prayers

So, we are sitting at the dinner table the other night and my five-year-old daughter said, “I want to pray to God that He will make me like picking up and cleaning.  Then, I will come in and ask, “Mommy, can I please clean up?”, and mommy will say, “But everything is already clean.  You cleaned it already.”"

We shared this with my family, and they wanted us to keep them posted as to how effective this was.  They were going to help their kids pray this way if we had a lot of success with it!

But, I share this for two reasons.

1. Amazing cute factor
2. Why do we complicate prayers?

In the mind of my five-year-old, it made perfect sense to ask God to help her like something that she didn’t like but she knew was necessary.  She didn’t ask to pray that her sister would clean for her or that God would wave his magic wand, and do her cleaning for her.  She prayed that He would change her heart!  Isn’t that what God is in the business of doing?  How many times have we asked for a job we disliked to be taken away from us?  How many times have we prayed that God would make someone else more helpful?  How often have we prayed for a change of our circumstances instead of a change in our hearts?

I am constantly amazed at what I learn from my kids.  And one of my favorite lessons is always their child-like faith.  And please don’t read that as me looking down on them.  It is quite the opposite.  I am jealous of their faith.  I model a lot of things as their father.  Some good…some not so good.  But, they model things for me also.  I think this is why Jesus was so fond of children.  Children were to be seen and not heard in his day.  Tolerated.  Yet, he was constantly calling kids to Him.  In Matthew 18, it says:

^“1At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

²He called a little child and had him stand among them. ³And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

⁵“And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. ⁶But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

So, I think I will continue to learn from my kids, and any kids I allow to teach me.  I am thankful for these lessons.  And, I want God to change my heart and not, necessarily, my circumstances.  For, it is my heart that is forever with me while my circumstances are always temporary!

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