Teach Your Child To Pray Quotes

First of all, my child, think magnificently of God. Magnify His providence; adore His power, pray to Him frequently and incessantly. Bear Him always in your mind. Teach your thoughts to reverence Him in every place for there is no place where He is not. Therefore, my child, fear and worship and love God; first and last, think magnificently of Him! —PATERNUS, ADVICE TO A SON

To pastors and teachers Compose catechisms particularly to teach prayer, not by reasoning nor by method, for the simple are incapable thereof; but to teach the prayer of the heart, not of the understanding; the prayer of God's Spirit, not of man's invention. Alas! By wanting them to pray in elaborate forms . . . you create their chief obstacles. The children have been led astray from the best of fathers, by your endeavouring to teach them too refined, too polished a language . . . A father is much better pleased with an address which love and respect in the child throws into disorder, because he knows it proceeds from the heart, than by a formal and barren harangue, though ever so elaborate in the composition. The simple and undisguised emotions of filial love are infinitely more expressive than all language and all reasoning.

Appendix 1 Seven Points and Fifty-Nine Slogans for Generating Compassion and Resilience POINT ONE Resolve to Begin 1. Train in the preliminaries. POINT TWO Train in Empathy and Compassion: Absolute Compassion 2. See everything as a dream. 3. Examine the nature of awareness. 4. Don’t get stuck on peace. 5. Rest in the openness of mind. 6. In Postmeditation be a child of illusion. POINT TWO Train in Empathy and Compassion: Relative Compassion 7. Practice sending and receiving alternately on the breath. 8. Begin sending and receiving practice with yourself. 9. Turn things around (Three objects, three poisons, three virtues). 10. Always train with the slogans. POINT THREE Transform Bad Circumstances into the Path 11. Turn all mishaps into the path. 12. Drive all blames into one. 13. Be grateful to everyone. 14. See confusion as Buddha and practice emptiness. 15. Do good, avoid evil, appreciate your lunacy, pray for help. 16. Whatever you meet is the path. POINT FOUR Make Practice Your Whole Life 17. Cultivate a serious attitude (Practice the five strengths). 18. Practice for death as well as for life. POINT FIVE Assess and Extend 19. There’s only one point. 20. Trust your own eyes. 21. Maintain joy (and don’t lose your sense of humor). 22. Practice when you’re distracted. POINT SIX The Discipline of Relationship 23. Come back to basics. 24. Don’t be a phony. 25. Don’t talk about faults. 26. Don’t figure others out. 27. Work with your biggest problems first. 28. Abandon hope. 29. Don’t poison yourself. 30. Don’t be so predictable. 31. Don’t malign others. 32. Don’t wait in ambush. 33. Don’t make everything so painful. 34. Don’t unload on everyone. 35. Don’t go so fast. 36. Don’t be tricky. 37. Don’t make gods into demons. 38. Don’t rejoice at others’ pain. POINT SEVEN Living with Ease in a Crazy World 39. Keep a single intention. 40. Correct all wrongs with one intention. 41. Begin at the beginning, end at the end. 42. Be patient either way. 43. Observe, even if it costs you everything. 44. Train in three difficulties. 45. Take on the three causes. 46. Don’t lose track. 47. Keep the three inseparable. 48. Train wholeheartedly, openly, and constantly. 49. Stay close to your resentment. 50. Don’t be swayed by circumstances. 51. This time get it right! 52. Don’t misinterpret. 53. Don’t vacillate. 54. Be wholehearted. 55. Examine and analyze. 56. Don’t wallow. 57. Don’t be jealous. 58. Don’t be frivolous. 59. Don’t expect applause.

When We Need to Remember the Purpose of Family Did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. MALACHI 2:15 THE PURPOSE OF A FAMILY—a husband, wife, and children—is to glorify God. For those of you who do not have children, for whatever reason, I am not mentioning this to make you feel bad or self-conscious about that. Paul did not have children or a wife because God had another plan for him. Perhaps He has another plan for you. He used Paul in a powerful way that would not have been possible if he was a husband and a father. He is surely using you in that same way. If you have peace about not having children, then God has something else for you to do. If you don’t have peace, then ask God to either give you a child or else give you the peace you need about not having a child. He will do that. With that said, the simple truth about the purpose of marriage is to have “godly offspring” who will grow up to glorify Him. The message in this section of Scripture is that the husband is not to “deal treacherously” with his wife and treat her badly, because the Lord sees all that goes on in your marriage (Malachi 2:13-14). He knows how your husband treats you, as well as how you treat him. But God lays the responsibility right in the husband’s lap. He expects the husband to honor the covenant of marriage by treating his wife well. You both made a covenant before God when you married, and now you are one in His sight. And it is your husband’s responsibility to love you as he loves himself because you are part of him and he is part of you. When he does that, you can glorify God by having godly children—or raising up spiritual children—and not ending up in divorce court. Family is a great calling and a high purpose, and God wants you both to never forget it. My Prayer to God LORD, I pray You would help both my husband and me to remember that the purpose of our marriage, and any children we may have, is to glorify You. I know we are one in Your sight, but help us to truly become one in our hearts toward each other. Help us not to live in separate worlds, but to grow closer together with each passing year. Where we have already grown apart, I pray You would stop that drift between us and reverse our course so we are headed in the same direction. Teach us how to glorify You in the way we treat each other and in the way we raise our children—or raise up spiritual children—to follow You. Help us to “take heed” to our spirit so that we are always controlled by Your Spirit and no other. Even though I know that the purpose of our marriage and our family is always to glorify You, I know we cannot do that without Your help. Enable each of us to rise above our own selfishness and put renewed desire in our hearts to serve You only. In Jesus’ name I pray.

It’s easy to lose perspective when you have little kids. One of the hardest things about this season in your life is that you don’t see many results of your training. Even though you try to teach kindness, your kids still fight. Although you pray for patience, you lose yours. You sing “Jesus loves me” until you are blue in the face, yet you wonder if it’s really sinking in. This is a season of input and training, and you are not likely to see the results of this training for years. That’s hard because we really need to see tangible fruit of our labor. We live in an instant society. We expect instant results in so many other areas of our lives and then we don’t experience it in raising our kids. We need to recognize that looking for immediate results is an unrealistic expectation. We have to remember that God is patient. He is not in a hurry. He is not surprised by our mistakes. He knows and loves each one of our children even more than we do. And he has chosen the exact children in the exact birth order with the exact personalities for our family. He has given us our kids not merely so that we can raise them but also in order that they might be used by him to grow us up into the men and women he has created us to be. He will use our children in our lives. He is at work in our family even if we can’t see it right now, even when we feel like a bad parent, even when we fear we have messed up our child forever! We have to remember that there is no mess that God cannot redeem. He is not condemning us. Instead he is delighting in us! He is patiently working through us and in us. And as he does he will gently lead us.

Dear Jesus, I know I am a sinner. I have sinned against You and other people, and I am sorry for my sins and repent of them. I ask for and receive Your forgiveness today. Jesus, I invite You to be the Lord and Savior of my life, and I believe in my heart You died for the penalty of my sin on the cross and after three days were raised from the dead and are now seated in Heaven. Lord, I ask You to send Your Holy Spirit to fill me to overflowing even now and to melt me, mold me, and shape me into the person You want me to be. In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen. If you just prayed that pray and meant it, it is settled. You are now a child of God and are in covenant with Him. This is the absolute most important decision you will ever make, and whether you felt anything or not, you are now “reborn,” as Jesus said in John 3. This is just the start of a new and exciting life. To help you along that journey, here is a list of things you should do as soon as possible:          1.   Find a church that teaches the Word of God and get involved.          2.   Fellowship with mature believers who can help you to grow in your newfound faith.          3.   Get water baptized and tell others what you have done.          4.   Start reading the Bible daily and praying to God as you would talk to your best friend, knowing that He loves you.          5.   Make the daily choice to live for God and hon-or Him through your obedience to Him and love for others.

go back to being that curious child you once were. A child who hoped. A child who trusted. A child who was full of expectations. A child bursting with questions, who was ready, willing, and able to learn. Childlike faith means cutting down our pride, becoming dependent, giving up control of our lives, and allowing Jesus to reign over us, guide us, and be our good shepherd. Empty your heart of suspicion, skepticism, cynicism, and doubt—all those characteristics we often develop as we grow older. Children don’t exhibit those characteristics! When you have kicked those negative qualities to the curb, then your heart will be more open to the Lord’s revelation and the Holy Spirit’s wisdom. St. Thérèse of Lisieux teaches us the importance of becoming like a child: In our relationship with God we are very small children. We always will be. There is no need to be anything else. On the contrary it is essential that we never try to be anything else.31

Dear Jesus, I pray you will show me the importance of humbling myself like a little child. Instead of instructor today, help me put on the hat of “learner.” Use my children, Lord, to teach me more about you. Use their words to point me to your Word. Use their freedom to infuse freedom into my heart.

PRAYER With these inspirations in our hearts and minds, we turn to you, Jesus, and pray. Lord, help us to be constantly aware that life is precious. Liberate us from our life-wasting habits so that we can live life to the fullest. Nudge us when we feel tempted to waste a day or an hour, or even a few minutes. Remove any judgment from our hearts that causes us to think of ourselves as different from or better than others in any way. Warm our hearts so that we may see that it is within our power to help other people clean up their messes, and to act with the generous mercy you have shown us. Jesus, we offer this decade to you for our own mothers—living or deceased—and for all mothers. We pray for all the children who will be born today. May they each have at least one person in their lives to teach them to walk with you. We pray in a special way for single mothers and for all those couples struggling to conceive a child, and for all parents who have lost a child. Mary, pray for us and share your wisdom with all mothers. Amen.

Anger in Parents A fool gives full vent to his anger. (Proverbs 29:11 CSB) Anger in parents is a grace killer in your home. Anger in parenting can stem from a variety of personal agendas, when parents seek compliance, obedience, personal comfort, respect, the good opinion of others, reputation, etc. What we know is that angry responses in parenting are never about a love and concern for a child. Here are some things that anger does in parenting: Anger instills in a child a fear of a person rather than a fear of God. It incites animosity rather than trust. Anger teaches children that any sin and failure will cause hostility from God. They worry that God responds to them in similar ways. Anger crushes your children’s spirit. They feel shame and worldly guilt instead of life-giving faith that produces change. It produces condemnation, not conviction. Anger embitters your children and alienates them from you and possibly other adults. You can combat this by reining in your own emotions so that anger, fear, and frustration do not control your discipline. Don’t be easily offended. Though it is right for kids to know that their words can impact you, we do not want to hold them hostage to our emotional irregularities or insecurity. Invite feedback and critiques from your children. Let them say the hard things they need to say to you. Ask how things felt to them. Ask what you could have said or done to help them in the moment. Pray with them and for them. We should pray that we are not a stumbling block to our children, but a pathway to hope and the good news.

Family Worship Evening and morning join with your children in God’s worship, reading His Word and singing His praise. Teach [84] them to repeat God’s law.—Evangelism, 499 (1904). Let the seasons of family worship be short and spirited. Do not let your children or any member of your family dread them because of their tediousness or lack of interest. When a long chapter is read and explained and a long prayer offered, this precious service becomes wearisome, and it is a relief when it is over.... Let the father select a portion of Scripture that is interesting and easily understood; a few verses will be sufficient to furnish a lesson which may be studied and practiced through the day. Questions may be asked, a few earnest, interesting remarks made, or [an] incident, short and to the point, may be brought in by way of illustration. At least a few verses of spirited song may be sung, and the prayer offered should be short and pointed. The one who leads in prayer should not pray about everything, but should express his needs in simple words, and praise God with thanksgiving.—Child Guidance, 521, 522 (1884).

Magnify His providence; adore His power, pray to Him frequently and incessantly. Bear Him always in your mind. Teach your thoughts to reverence Him in every place for there is no place where He is not. Therefore, my child, fear and worship and love God; first and last, think magnificently of Him! —PATERNUS, ADVICE TO A SON

The Roman Catholic view of prayer also must be opposed. Prayers to saints and to Mary amount to (1) a rejection of the accessibility of God in Christ (the only Mediator12) and (2) an ascription of attributes to glorified human beings that belong to God alone (omniscience, omnipresence, and sometimes omnipotence). Mary is called the “refuge of sinners,” the one who is to be asked to “guide” and “teach” us, who is “never implored in vain,” to whom “fervent prayers are to be addressed,” and the one whose “name alone comforts” (The Catholic Church the Teacher of Mankind). She solves the problems of rain and drought, famine and plague according to this book designed to instruct “the Catholic child at the mother’s knee” (Title page. The book was published in New York by the Office of Catholic Publications and bears the imprimatur of Archbishop Johannes W. Farley). On page 643 we read: Unfortunately, you are still mastered by many faults which prevent your becoming the pious and dutiful child God wishes you to be. To be able to cure yourselves of them you must implore the Blessed Virgin. Words almost fail in replying to such unrestrained idolatry. This concept of prayer puts Mary in God’s place. In fact it seems that according to this doctrine of prayer, God has delegated the answering of prayer to Mary. The response to make must be this: (1) Nowhere in all of the Scriptures can any such ideas be found. One will search in vain to find anyone at any time praying to Mary; nor is there any injunction to do so. Indeed, the Scriptures tell us to pray exclusively to God in Christ’s name (see vss. supra). And there is no model of prayer to Mary, any other human being, or to angels. The biblical picture differs considerably from the Roman Catholic one represented in these words: “…in his shortcomings, at each instant of his life, and in the hour of his death, the Christian turns to Mary. Her name alone comforts him, and gives him confidence” (ibid., p. 642). (2) When we pray to someone, we thereby ascribe to that one all of God’s attributes. For example, we must assume that the one to whom prayer is directed is omnipresent even to be able to hear the millions of prayers that are directed to him from all parts of the earth. But omnipresence is an attribute of God alone. Omnipotence likewise is required of the one to whom we pray; he must be able to answer all requests. Omniscience cannot be divorced from prayer either, since the answer must be given with reference to all other matters of all time (past, present and future). Does Mary have such attributes? Some think so (“Mary is all powerful, for she is the mother of God,” ibid., p. 642), others have not carefully thought through the issues involved.

The goal is to tirelessly teach, train, and pray that God will change their hearts.