The language of prayer consists of the pictures, the words and the feelings expressed in those moments when we approach our God.  Pictures gives shape to our dreams, fears and desires.  Our words spring from our creative thought and is the force that brings our prayers to life.  Feelings are the power that allows us to reach heavenward, beyond the private wall of self-isolation.

When we involve all aspects of this sacred language then we discover those moment when the Windows of Heaven seem to open and like fireworks exploding into luminous color, there is no doubt that your soul was heard and understood.  But, regretfully, that doesn’t happen with the same intensity each time we bend our head and seek the Lord.

How do we teach our children the wonder behind prayer?  It is hard enough to capture it ourselves but to guide our loved ones in this delicate activity can seem overwhelming.  And so we retreat into hope that they’ll figure it out someday...and maybe they’ll let us in on the secret.

Communication between any two people is complicated because each person has their unique pattern of understanding their world.  There is a wealth of knowledge in how to really communicate with other people. I have written several articles on that favorite topic and will undoubtedly write several more.  It is a lifetime pursuit...to understand and be understood.

I am confident that God understands me even when I struggle to understand Him.  I am confident because experience has told me so.  And in this, I am one step ahead of my children.  Trusting that experience, I can move forward in teaching my children.  I teach them because even though God already understands us, he wants us to strive to understand Him, and through Him to understand ourselves.  So the prayer process is one of awakening our spirit and building a lasting relationship.

The three elements of language are visual, auditory and feeling.  Or pictures, words and emotion.  Adults tend to prefer one or two of the three and our children will as well.  Helping our children use their preferred method while developing the entire package will lead them to more effective prayers.

The Language of Pictures

Help the child get a visual picture of what he needs.  Teach him that in prayer, God understands the pictures of our mind as well as the words we utter and the feelings of our hearts.  Help him to first see what he is praying about.  Is it mother being happy?  Picture that.  Is it a lost toy?  Picture the toy and where it should be or where it last was.  Is he trying to decide between doing two good things?  Picture both and see if they both look equally good.  Then approach God.

Some are able to picture their Savior, their Heavenly Father, whoever they are praying to.  They can see him smile on them, see him hold them, see him walk and talk with them.  The picture brings it close and real, especially for the children who are strong visuals.

If we only teach our children words then we leave behind all our children who are visual in their brain language.  What a disservice!  Before long they get the persistent suspicion that prayer doesn’t work for them, that it really doesn’t mean anything.  All those words and for what?

Little visual children will picture things even without our talking them through it.  But if they never hear us talk about the visual methods of prayer then they will eventually think it unimportant, a silly mental game.  The real struggle will appear as these visuals become teens and go through the stage when they want to solidify the spirituality they have learned.  If you have been comfortable talking about prayer over the years, even the aspects that you don’t use much yourself, then you have laid the foundation for helping them develop trust in their own ability to communicate with Deity.

So help your visuals to get the pictures of prayer.  Help them to know that in prayer, what they see is a message to God just as powerful as anything they say.  As they live their lives in constant prayer they will understand that not only actions, feelings and words reach heavenward but the pictures, visions and dreams of their creation as well.

The Words of Prayer

This is my own personal strong point in prayer.  When it comes to visual I limp along with a few favorite pictures of me talking to my Father in Heaven or looking at two pictures and comparing them, quickly and briefly.  In the feeling department I have to LISTEN very carefully to understand what I am feeling.  Oh, sometimes it is overwhelming obvious but my strong point is the words and thoughts of Prayer.

When teaching an auditory child about prayer, do not neglect the other two methods but also don’t forget to help him develop his primary method in confidence and allow the others to build over time.  Teach him the words and the pictures and feelings will follow.  At least sometimes.  But when they don’t he can know that the Lord hears the words of his soul and the thoughts of his mind.

Teach him to carefully consider what he needs to ask.  The question leads to the answer.  The request leads to the result.  Does he ask to win over his playmates in the race or does he ask for help to do his best?  Does he talk on and on and say nothing or is he specific, ever perfecting the clarity of his own communication?

Ah...auditory prayers!  Is he praying silently in his head and not getting anywhere?  Then he is external auditory and needs to hear the words outside of his head to best express himself.  Teach him to pray aloud.

Does he begin to pray and then jump in and out of the conversation as his mind leaps to different thoughts?  Then he is optional and multiple conversation is a comfortable condition.  Teach him that this is a valid method of communication for many people and help him learn how to bring his mind back on track, to check why he leaped to a different thought and discover if that is somehow important to the conversation he had begun.  This type of child would do well to keep a piece of paper handy and write down the branching thoughts so that he can come back to them once prayer is over.  He might discover that one of the branches is what he really needs to pray about!

How we talk can be important, depending on our culture.  In my church we use thee, thy and thine in prayer.  We talk to Heavenly Father through the name of Jesus Christ.  We use the term Lord to refer to Jesus Christ.  Other religions approach God through other methods, other words.
While we have a few set prayers in my church almost all of our prayers are unmemorized.  Yet we have informal traditional ways to word things.  If you are praying for a blessing on the food there are only so many different ways to actually ask God to bless the food.  Other religions have a body of memorized prayers.  They have meaning when the person uttering the prayer means what is said.

Some use a more casual verbal approach and the results are as tender for them as the more structured.  Teach your child how you pray, how you express the words, and your own culture of Divine Conversation.

As your child grows to be an adult and marries, prayer becomes something companionable.  It can be frustrating to find yourself praying about the same thing as your companion but getting a different answer.  Often it comes down to the words of the prayer being different between the two.  Or the intent of the utterances not being unified.  Teach them how to talk with their spouse, through years of talking with you, and to come to one heart (feeling) and one mind (words, thoughts) before approaching the Lord.  This way they are more likely to understand the mind (words) and will (intent/feelings) of the Lord and be unified in their understanding.

How do you do this?  In the Prepared Prayer, you talk about what is needed and then you pray.  Talk together and discuss the best way to ask, to word the prayer.  Talk about the feelings and pictures involved and capture what each person wants from the event.  Come to an agreement if possible.  If no agreement is reached and only God can bring about the agreement, then approach him honestly being able to express all parts of the dissidence.  The entire process becomes one of strengthening the group even if total agreement has to take time.

The Heart of Prayer

Feelings and Intent, the power behind prayer allows us to grow in capacity.  The phrases, pray with real intent, pray with all your heart express the importance of feeling in prayer.  When the person is more comfortable with either pictures or words rather than feelings doesn’t mean that the feeling isn’t there.  It is just not the dominant expression.  For the children whose main expression is feeling they might have difficulty expressing themselves or seeing what they want.  All types need to be taught the magic of feeling in prayer.

For the ones that struggle finding the right words, have them concentrate on their feelings and send those feelings up in prayer.  The Lord knows the intent of their heart, he knows the joy and agony of their spirit.  He embraces them even if they struggle with the other elements of communication.
 

Help them identify the feelings and how different feelings effect them.  They need to know that they can approach God even when their emotions are full of frustration, anger or doubt.  Some say that when you don’t feel like praying it is the time when you most need to pray.

In helping your child identify feelings, it is best to talk a little quieter, a touch slower.  The language of the auditory child will be even in sound and speed.  The language of the visual child will be faster and louder.  But to tap into the emotions and give them ability to be heard above the auditory and visual, conversation needs to slow down and become softer.  In prayer, we call that reverent.  Reverence works gives strength to the feeling child and it helps the visual and auditory child increase in ability to capture their own feelings.

If you are a feeling parent this process will be natural.  If you are a hearing parent it is a comfortable step to make.  But if you are a visual parent it will be more difficult.  Discovering the power of prayerful emotions is worth the effort.  And you may find that your quiet feeling child has a deeper testimony then imaginable because tapping into that power has become second nature.  He just can’t express it as well as the verbal or be as flamboyant as the visual in sharing what he is experiencing.

Step by Step Growth Through Prayer

The purpose behind the Language of Prayer is to develop a relationship with God.  To open up and communicate the pictures, thoughts and feelings of your soul.  To understand yourself as He understand you.  To prepare yourself for the other half of the conversation, personal revelation and direction from God.

Whichever method our children are strongest in, they can grow on all levels.  There will be moments in their lives when they will need as complete a conversation with Deity as possible.  Moments when the connection between our prayer and the Lord is instant and full of wonder and perfect understanding.  As parents we can prepare our children for those events by helping them understand all the paths to prayer.  In their early years they look to us for validity and understanding of what they are experiencing and in their older years they remember our teachings as they discover their own spiritual strengths.  Giving them the tools to communicate with their God brings to them the an ability to communicate with their entire world.  Help prayer to happen for your children and you will find your own prayers increase in tender supplication and personal discovery.

Next:
Prayer Is Only Half the Conversation
Understanding What God is Saying

Search My Site!

Search our Site:

sitemap

.

Noble Child Message Board

Cherie's Family Life
and
Cherie's Homeschool Index

The Noble Child Experience Index