By Tammy Pio
There was a six-year-old girl in a small room with the door Atlantic Kkg closed. I called out her name
and said, “Hello!” The little voice responded with “Hi Tammy!” I answered quickly,”How do you know it’s me?” A small pause before this simple response was heard, “Because I know your voice”. A simple statement in a child’s voice rang loud and clear and the Word came to life. Jesus spoke in John 10:27, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me:”
The passion that is alive in my heart is that of teaching our children to pray. It is an education that cannot be gained with a secular or theology degree. Prayer is the act of simply talking to God as though He is your best friend, which we know He is. It is a well known fact that communication is essential in any relationship. The act of teaching a child to pray is teaching them how to begin developing a relationship with their Heavenly Father. While I do not have children of my own, I believe it is fair for me to point out that parents not only love when their children talk to them they are extremely happy when their children listen. If earthly parents love when their children respond by listening, then is it not just as important to teach our children to listen to the voice of the Heavenly Father?
How do you teach a child to hear the voice of God? How can they even understand that God can speak to them? The same way my six-year-old little friend explained it to me. When you talk to someone (prayer) and let that person talk to you (reading the Word), they will begin to recognize the voice of the person they are getting to know (the still, small voice of the Lord). Children are not too young. Read your child a verse from the Bible. Explain it to them. I love to use Psalm 56:3 as an example: “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” A child will listen to someone talk to them 0
about something they personally care about. Take the time to teach a child that God cares about their fears and they can trust Him with the things that they are scared of, things that nobody understands. After that very short lesson, get input from that child about what kind of things they think God will care about. You may be pleasantly surprised or maybe even a little shocked at what that child will voice when they feel someone cares. Topics such as divorce, bullying, loneliness, and even world problems have come up as fears. That child may even express a fear of the greatest gift they could ever receive, that of the Holy Ghost. Oh, what a teachable moment for both the child and the adult in this scenario! If you were to put on a worship song and ask that child to write a letter to God, you might be amazed at the spiritual growth that happens from this small educational moment.
Proverbs 22:6 actually instructs us to “train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Are we training our kids in the way we want them to go? Are we teaching children to hear the voice of God? Have we as the adult, teacher or parent spent time lately listening for the voice of God so we can train our kids to hear it?
Kid’s Prayer is a ministry where we teach and train our children. It is a ministry in which we are challenged to a closer walk with the Lord. Being entrusted with training children to develop a relationship with our Lord is priceless. If you are involved in kid’s ministry in any way, you have influenced many lives through the life of one child.
There are excellent resources at www.kidsprayer.com, as well as a Facebook page if you are interested in building a Kids Prayer ministry in your church.
