My family makes it a habit to pray together before we eat and before bedtime. We also pray together before long car rides and sometimes over other random things.

Our two-year-old loves to lead us in prayer now, and it’s so cute because she goes on and on and on and on…

But I’ve noticed that her prayers all revolve around either thanking God for things or asking Him to essentially keep us safe and make us comfortable. She doesn’t say it like that, but that’s what it boils down to.

And then it hit me: that’s what she’s learning about prayer from listening to me pray. Whenever we pray together I say things like,

• Help us to have good dreams and fall right to sleep.
• Keep us safe while we drive.
• Bless this food to make us strong and healthy.
• Help Hannah’s tummy to feel better soon.

Essentially, “Make my life better and remove discomforts.”

Praying for these things is not bad, of course, and most of them probably have equivalent examples in scripture. But overall, what if my children grew up praying for deeper things?

• Help me to understand your Word better.
• Make me a mighty woman of prayer.
• Give me the courage to talk about you with the people around me.
• Give me the wisdom to make tough decisions that are honoring to you.

If I want my kids to grow up with this kind of perspective on prayer, then I need to be setting the example and praying it in front of them regularly because what they learn about prayer during these formative years will be a result of mine and Dana’s personal prayer life modeled in front of them.

No pressure or anything!

QUESTION: How do you model a prayer life that you want your kids to adopt?