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Teaching Our Children To Pray

This week a friend asked my wife a question about prayer. She prays with her children at bedtime and has taught them a simple prayer that they can memorize and repeat. This is a very good practice in my estimation. A friend of hers, however, said that she should not teach her children to repeat memorized prayers. Apparently, this friend believes that memorized or repeated prayers contradict Jesus’ instructions on how to pray. While I admire her friend’s desire to do what is right, I think she has reached an inaccurate conclusion.

It is true that Jesus taught his disciples not to “heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matthew 6:7) The empty phrases here concerns prayer that is a string of many words such as, “bless me, bless me, bless me, bless me…” and so on; thinking that God will honor your work in prayer. It does not concern praying the same pray every night or even several times a day.

When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed the “not my will but yours be done” prayer repeatedly. Matthew tells us, “So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again.” (Matthew 26:44) So we can and should teach our children to pray using prayers that they can remember and repeat. To be sure, we want them to mature in their praying as they mature spiritually, but grace gives us plenty of room to begin as we see fit.

I Hope This Is Helpful,

Pastor Mitch

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