How Have You Seen God Move?
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Let me ask you to just pause as a mom or a dad and think to yourself, when was there a time that I saw God really work in one of my children?

I'll bet if you just ponder that for a few minutes, you'll come up with a list of some really powerful moments where God did something remarkable. And it's a reason to celebrate. I'm John Fuller, along with Dr. Danny Huerta, who heads up the Focus on the Family Parenting Department. And we're going to turn now to a clip from Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

In that show, Jim spoke with Stephanie Thurling and Sarah Holmstrom. They both have young children, and they've written a terrific little book called Raising Prayerful Kids. Here's the conversation. Sarah.

Sarah, in the book, you describe something you call a miracle book. This sounds like a line from Princess Bride. It does. The miracle book. It does. I'd like a miracle book. What is your miracle book? You can call it something else. You can call it praise book. But yeah, we do. We just bought this cheap little binder. And we, since the kids were little, we'll kind of just fill out if there's some sort of miracle. Like one time my daughter-

It is so fun. And you can leave it out and look through and add to it or dictate what the kids say. But my daughter recently, she felt like God put this name on her heart at bedtime and she was praying for this woman or this person's name. And then we ended up meeting that person. And so that was like a big miracle. Sometimes it's littler things, you know, we were nervous about something and God helped us or he provided financially, whatever it is. And it's just a great reminder to be looking for God and noticing he is still working his miracles. And

It's just a great way to turn us into prayers and noticers of what God is doing. And in fact, your kids, I mean, you got them engaged. You had somebody staying at your home, and they were like, tell us about your miracle story. Yes. How did that guest, were they going, okay, what are you talking about? Well, my kids used to ask everybody, tell us things that you did when you were a kid where you got in trouble. They were obsessed with that. So one day I was like, why don't you ask for cool God stories or ways God has shown up? Okay, they did. They asked.

That's cool. We had this girl who used to be in our youth group, and she was just going through a really hard time and wasn't involved in church and had walked away from the Lord. And so when the kids asked her, has God ever shown up in your life? I was a little nervous. And she was at your home then. Yeah, she stayed with us for a while. She needed a place. Way to go. Thank you.

It was a blessing to us. But she just started to cry. And she said, you know, actually, he did. And she told this story. And the kids got to see. And she got to be reminded. Sometimes we just need to, like the Israelites did, right? We need to remind ourselves of the ways that God has shown up before so we can trust that he'll do it again. Yeah, which is so good. It's just, you know, when you look at how we see God move, man, if we're not moving, God can't move through us. Yeah.

So having someone come stay at your home who's in trouble, like the pregnancy resource centers are always looking for homes for these girls that are in trouble. And boy, the Christian community needs to act as well as know the truth of God's word. So way to go. Let me ask you, Steph, you're a big believer in memorized prayers. Jean is in that same camp. She loved that. My mom, she didn't become a Christian until the day before she died when I was nine, but

Even then, she would have us recite the Lord's Prayer. Isn't that amazing? That's amazing. She grew up in a Catholic home, but that was the only aspect of spiritual stuff that we ever did. We didn't go to church when I was a boy, anything like that. But she did have us say the Lord's Prayer, which is amazing. And it might be why the five of us kids are all believers. I mean, those little things she did. Yes.

Planted seeds in us, even though we weren't doing the traditional Christian family thing. But speak to that power of memorized prayer. I think memorized prayers are just really amazing. And I think that it's something that we overlook. Because if we've been a believer for a while, we're like, we should be able to come up with our own prayers. Like, it doesn't feel good enough if we say a memorized prayer, right? But the Lord's Prayer is how Jesus taught his disciples to pray. So I feel like if it's good enough for him, like, it should be good enough for us, too.

But I think that if you're a newer believer and you're just trying to figure this out and you're listening to this today because you're like, I don't know how to pray with my kids. I don't even know how to pray. Like, how am I supposed to do it out loud? Starting with a memorized prayer is just a good way to get into the rhythm and get more comfortable with it. Our Father who art in heaven. Yeah, you just have to say it. And God, again, wants your heart. And so I just think memorized prayers are a really good way for people to get used to the idea of praying out loud. And I also think it's just...

The Lord's Prayer is something that people for, since the beginning, since Jesus taught it, have been saying it. So if you think of how connecting that is to believers, so to teach your kids that is just something really comforting to connect them to the whole church. And there was a time when I had such bad postpartum anxiety with my number two that I just didn't really have any words to pray. I just was so...

in a bad place. I had people all around me praying for me, but I just recited the Lord's Prayer over and over and over again. That's amazing you could do that. And so I was just like, "This is all I have to offer you, God." It's a humble offering, but it's all I have. And it pulled me through that time. That number two that I had the anxiety with, now we say the Lord's Prayer together every night. Oh, wow. 'Cause he was also my stubborn kid who for a while was like, "I'm not gonna pray."

And I was like, okay, well, we're going, I'm going to pray for you. And then he was like, no. This is when he was three years old. So then we started teaching him the Lord's Prayer and we would do it every night together. We kind of turned it into a game to memorize it. And still to this day, if I'm trying to like rush bedtime, he'll be like, no.

Our father. He's going to slow you down. It's his mission. So we do the Lord's Prayer every night still to this day. It's such a gift to give your kids too because they, in the middle of the night or when they're afraid, they always have it. It's really good. Right until adulthood. When they're 80, they'll remember that. I certainly do.

Well, Danny, I've heard about memorizing scripture, but I don't recall a lot of conversations about memorizing prayers. I love it, though, because as I've shared in previous episodes, I really am now praying with regularity the scriptures.

I'm thinking I don't need to impress God with my words. I want to honor His word and pray that to Him. And so memorized prayers are pretty important. Maybe you as a dad have some prayers that you've memorized along the way. Maybe you're more spiritually tuned than I've been. Oh, no. I've done more of the customizing of psalms especially to putting a person's name or myself in there.

as I'm praying and talking to

my heavenly father and I picture this caring, loving heavenly father just pausing and listening and almost making eye contact with me. I don't know, that's just a picture I get as I'm praying. But there are some specific prayers I've prayed over the years for people and sometimes written it. If I sign a book or something like that, I write it in there and it's 2 Thessalonians 3 verse 5 and then verse 16. It says, may the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and

And to the steadfastness of Christ. And then verse 16 says, And that is an amazing prayer of blessing and thought for another person as we're loving them. And one that my kids would respond to if you ask them this question, it's Isaiah 26, 3 and 4.

He keeps him in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on him because he trusts in him. And so I'll pray part of that. And then I'll say, Lord, I trust fully in you for you are the everlasting rock. And I stand on that truth today. And so I'll pray that one specifically. And then as I'm praying, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, trust in the Lord with all your heart.

And I'll ask myself, do I trust Him right now with all my heart? And am I acknowledging Him in everything I do? Do I show that I know Him in everything that I do? And is He helping make my path straight? And that's part of that Lord's Prayer, and that leads me to that. The Lord's Prayer is an amazing one. It's one that throughout...

the centuries people have talked about. I mean, it's a classic. Jesus prayed that one. It's beautiful. Well, I appreciate what you've just said because despite what I said earlier, I'm feeling like, oh, well, if we're talking about praying a verse, yeah, I've memorized a number of prayers. And your children can memorize a verse and how to pray that verse. Appreciate your guidance on that. And appreciate Sarah and Stephanie.

for their heart to cultivate in our children a prayerfulness and a mindfulness that God is at work. Get a copy of the book called Raising Prayerful Kids, Fun and Easy Activities for Building Lifelong Habits of Prayer. We have that here. We're making it available for a donation of any amount to the Ministry of Focus on the Family.

make a one-time gift of any amount. Uh, if you're in a spot to do so consider signing up to be a monthly pledge partner with us, uh, that monthly gift that just is made automatic through a few clicks on the website, uh, really helps us even things out throughout the summer, which tends to be kind of a lean season for us. So please, uh, consider prayerfully how you might donate and request your copy of raising prayerful kids, uh,

We've got the links in the notes. And then we've got a link to another show with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, How to Be a Prayer Warrior for Your Children. It's a wonderful show to listen to, and I think you'll find great encouragement from Dr. Lutzer's prayerful perspectives. Again, that link is in the notes. Next time, kind of a natural follow-up to this topic, How to Read the Bible with Your Children.

For now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, thanks for listening to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.

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