Praying Like A Child
November 27, 2022
Dave Stephens
Text: Proverbs 3:5–6
Big Idea of the Message:
We might feel like prayer isn’t working, but God wants to change us, not just give us what we want.
How do you begin to develop a life of prayer?
Begin with realizing: Without God’s help you are helpless.
- The feeling of helplessness is necessary to completely understand prayer.
Brother Lawrence, the 17-century author of The Practice of the Presence of God, wrote: “For many years I was bothered by the thought that I was a failure at prayer. Then one day I realized I would always be a failure at prayer; and I’ve gotten along much better ever since.”
How do we come to God like a child?
1. Run to God when
Most children hate thunder. When the sky begins to darken and storm and clouds gather, they get timid and want to cling.
At the first rumble, they drop anything they’re doing, run to their mother or father, and bury their face in their parent’s embrace–(want you to hold them). Every time it happens, we can identify—not in a fear of thunder, but in my desire to run quickly into my Father’s embrace whenever a storm assails.
- To pray like a child is to run, not to the police or the bank or the newscast when life’s storms hit, but into the waiting embrace of your Heavenly Father.
2. Run to God when you
Our granddaughter spends the night once in a while…sometimes in the morning, we hear the pitter-patter of little feet coming toward our bedroom as soon as she wakes up. Even in the middle of the night—awakened, perhaps by a loud noise or a bad dream—children dash immediately and instinctively for their parent’s bed.
To pray like a child is to run immediately and instinctively to God upon waking. I’ve heard of families training their children never to “get up” in the morning; they train them to “get down” onto their knees at their bedside to begin the day in prayer.
- Maybe instead of getting up, we need to get down.
When our children run out of gas and get tired and crabby, what do they do? When that happens, they find consolation in their parent’s arms. Children don’t know, of course, that their mood has a physical explanation—they just know that Mom’s embrace is what they need.
- -That’s another way to pray like a child.
You don’t have to clean yourself up, brush yourself off, dry your tears and re-apply your makeup before praying—far from it! His arms are open for you when you’re at your worst. The Father says he will “cover you with his feathers, and under his wings, you will find refuge.” (Psalm 91:4, NIV)
We don’t need to aspire to “expertise” in prayer but to childlike humility, honesty, and simplicity instead.
- Children are not tied up in all the details when they come to their parents. They just come.
4. Be
Children often say exactly what they think—even when we think they shouldn’t. We can bring our pain and worry and joy God in the same way: without filters.
- “He is near to those who call to him, who call to him with sincerity.”
Psalm 145:18
Kids are full of imagination. They often think without barriers. They hope for things that seem impossible. When you pray, remember that God is more powerful than the walls we create for ourselves.
- “I assure you that if you have faith as big as a mustard seed, you can say to this hill, ‘Go from here to there!’ and it will go. You could do anything!” — Matthew 17:20
There isn’t a prayer gene that some Christians possess, making them naturally better at praying than others.
- Jesus knows we are all weak and has sent us a powerful helper.
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth.” John 14:16
That’s why Paul instructs us to pray “in the Spirit”, and in Romans, explains that
- “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us.” Romans 8:26
He hears every single word, and He already knows the ones that just won’t seem to fall from your lips.
Psalm 145:18