When kids show me how to tell the truth to God!

On Sunday I returned from leading a residential weekend with 11 leaders and 27 insanely energetic and joyous 7-10 year olds. As you might imagine this week I am feeling a little weary. The price I was willing to pay for this weariness and an aching body was seeing such willingness to explore faith and the vibrant life that is in these kids. Like many other trips before we played games, toasted marshmallows, ate pizza, managed around 2 hours sleep a night and generally had a blast. Also like other trips we managed to jump and dance to worship songs, get creative with prayers and also have great conversations about faith and life, this time looking at story of Daniel and his friends with a little help from the film ‘Luca’.

Nothing out of the ordinary you may think, maybe! But as I reflect on the weekend one thing has stuck in my mind more than anything else, and it is the honesty of the prayers of these kids. On the first morning we chatted about what enabled Daniel to stand firm in his faith in a strange land, and our conclusion was the priority he put on prayer. So to help the kids think about this we printed off some speech bubbles and asked them to write a prayer asking God what they want help with.

You may think upon reading them we would simply be getting a prayer for grandma who is unwell, a prayer for a lost cat, maybe even a prayer for test at school. Well they would have been lovely but if that is how I imagined our kids were going to pray then I was in for the shock of my life when we, with their permission, stuck these prayers up on the wall.

I am not always an emotional guy (and yes I probably need help with that!) but these prayers were deeply humbling. It made my own prayers seem trivial and fluffy. Reading through numerous prayers there was requests for “help me not to hide my faith”, ‘help to stop the chaos in their classroom’, ‘help because they were being bullied’, “Dear God, I need help to not hide myself. Please help me to stand up for you in school”, “Dear God, please help me to know that you are always here for me and that you never leave”, and so many more!

I stood there looking at these simple bits of paper stuck to an old wooden door and I was speechless (a rare occurrence)!

Their honesty before God made me realise my lack of honesty before God. Their willingness to bring deep struggles to God make me realised how shallow and trivial I sometimes am before God. Their utter belief that God would hear their prayers made me realise how inadequate my checklist I give to God was.

Now I know God hears our prayers no matter how big or small, how articulate or well thought out. I know God always loves to hear what is on our mind, and I know God is patient with me and knows what is actually on my mind. But this experience has made me realise I need to have a serious refurbishment of my prayer life. How dare I enter Gods throne room and simply throw a couple of impromptu thoughts at Him expecting a response.

If I am going to pray it means I have access to the Creator God, my access came through Jesus’ death on the cross. I must then always see my prayer times as being fought for and paid for, I must never take them lightly and I must always approach God sincerely because of the price Jesus paid. This should then help me see not only how much God loves to hear my prayers but also help me to ensure I do not take these times lightly and prioritise them in my day.

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings.”

So, back to being honest with God. Because God knows anyway, I need to be utterly sincere. This is what sincere means: ‘free from pretence or deceit; proceeding from genuine feelings!’ I mustn’t pretend with God, if I am struggling, I should tell God I am struggling. If I am angry at God, I should tell him this, He is big enough to take it. If I feel inadequate before God, I should say this and allow God to fill me with His Spirit of grace, forgiveness and peace. If I have a question for God about what is happening in the world, I should bring it to Him. Honesty, especially in prayer, is the best policy.

I can tell you I am approaching my prayer times very differently after seeing how honest these guys were. May I always be taught by the simple, beautifully honest, searching faith of our kids.