As we prepare to go to the Dominican Republic in 3 days, we have been praying together each night this week, as a family, for the many requests that surround our trip. I learned a few summers back, when reading A Praying Life: Connecting With God In A Distracting World
Anyway, last night, we prayed in the early evening. James prayed for team unity, Ella prayed for travel safety, Rilyn prayed that she would make friends there, and I prayed for the rice and beans we are bringing would be multiplied like the miracle Jesus did from the boy’s lunch of 2 fish and 5 loaves to feed 5,000.
During these summer nights, James has been watching a cartoon called Avatar with the kids each night before bed. It’s not every night, but it’s most, and they love watching it together. After we prayed, I told them it was time for them to get ready for bed.
Ella promptly said, “Ugh! That prayer stuff wasted our time!”
Now before you think what an ugly thing to say, we adults think the same thing all the time, we just have the social graces to know NOT to say it out loud.
Ella wanted to watch Avatar, and because we had prayed, she thought that took up all her TV time with daddy. (Which by the way, we were going to let them watch Avatar after they got ready for bed, but because of that comment, they didn’t.)
We immediately talked to Ella about her heart. Luke 6:45 “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” What did that comment reveal about her heart? She loves Avatar more than praying for our mission trip? She believes that prayer isn’t that important or powerful? She feels she deserves the “comfort” of watching TV? Now I know she is only 6 1/2, but these “adult” conversations lay the groundwork for future conversations when the stakes are a lot higher (teenage years!).
I can’t wait to talk to our girls about this trip in 2 weeks to show how powerful our prayer was!
the paquettes 