« July 2011 « Arkansas-Louisiana Conference
Prayer 101
My wife, Micki, was enjoying a nice phone conversation with Dominic, our seven-year-old grandson. I had been busy packing my suitcase for the weekend Sabbath appointments and getting ready to start off for my trip when my wife called me and said, “Dominic wants to pray for you before you leave.” I was pleasantly surprised but was very happy to let my grandson offer prayer for me. I took the phone and listened as my grandson offered the sweetest prayer for his Papa who would be traveling on the highway, asking for his safe arrival. To say the least, I was touched. It was a simple prayer, but power-packed because of the faith of a seven-year-old claiming God’s care over his Papa.
A month later we got to take Dominic home with us for three weeks at the start of summer vacation. One day I asked him if he was ever asked to pray at school in his first-grade class. He responded, “Every time it’s my turn to be the 'line leader' I pray at the beginning of school, at lunch, and before we go home.”
“So,” I said, “every time you get to stand at the head of the line, you also get to offer all the prayers for the day?”
“Yes,” he answered.
Dominic’s Mom and Dad taught him to pray at the same time he learned to talk, so he had already been praying for at least five years. However, when I stopped to think of the impact of his church school experience with prayer, it reminded me once again of how critically important the church school is in teaching and reinforcing spiritual values in the lives of our young people. How gratifying to know that children in the first grade are learning to pray–and learning to pray “in public.” Children are being taught that they can talk to God and that He hears their prayers. It has been proven that our schools offer top-notch academics, but it is also being demonstrated that spiritual values and practical godly lifestyle are a part of the curriculum. I’m thankful for my grandson, and I’m thankful for Seventh-day Adventist Christian education . . . and “classes” like “Prayer 101.”
