No Secret Formula for Prayer
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We're encouraged in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul to pray without ceasing. But how do you do that if you have three little ones pulling on you and interrupting? You barely have three seconds to do anything without ceasing. What we're going to encourage you today, we have some practical advice. 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.

Jim spoke with Stephanie Thurling and Sarah Holstrom. They have small children, and they know that there's no quiet, no privacy for a mom, and yet they have encouragement for you to learn how to pray. Speak to the struggle parents have about prayer. You know, we're making a bit of an assumption there, but it is true. It's hard to sometimes keep that perspective. How do we pray for our kids? And why aren't moms and dads praying for their kids as often as maybe we should? And the other side is the guilt of it.

I mean, maybe we are praying, but are we praying enough? I mean, is there some secret formula that God has? There is no secret formula. Thank you, Lord. There's no secret formula. I think, but that's kind of part of the struggle, right? Is we think there is a secret formula. I have to be praying in a certain way.

I have to pray for certain things and I have to be able to have, you know, everyone knows that person at church or in their lives who's the most eloquent prayer. And you just, they start praying and everyone starts crying. And, you know, like you have to be that person to pray for your kids really well. And we just feel so strongly that

God just wants your heart. God wants to communicate with you. Right? And God wants you to go to him with everything. And I think the expectation that parents have on themselves to be perfect trickles down into a prayer life. And it's not about perfection. It's about a relationship. And Sarah, that fundamental notion that prayer for your kids is really important. Yeah.

Explain that for maybe parents that don't, you know, they're just, they aren't in that groove. They're not thinking I need to pray for my kid every day. Right. And we get so busy and so distracted. Jean is great at it. She's better than I am. Seriously. But it's hard to prioritize. It's a mom's heart. And I think understanding why it's so important helps when we were writing the book,

We got to do all this research. And we were so excited to find that there are all these things. You know, the practice of prayer during childhood is linked to better social, emotional, mental health as adults. Oh, that's interesting. So even that short investment in just praying with your kids will help them as adults. It does communicate you're important. Yes. You know, to a child, they're probably part of their...

is do they see me? Yes. Do they see me? Can they speak life over me? Don't feel it. Yeah. Especially if their parents aren't committed Christians. I mean, so many people contact us. That was their childhood. They never felt seen by their parents. And that's tough. So this is really important. It's a really connecting activity. And it's the only gift we can give our kids that lasts forever. And my goodness, you know what's so sad is when you hear the story that it's kind of like the dad that never said I love you. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And of course he loved them. Yes. But he never said it, didn't express it. And then some travesty occurs. And then the father says, honey, I always loved you. But the daughter's saying, I just wish you would have said it to me. Yeah. Right? I needed to hear it. Oh, yeah. Such a, you know, communicate it. And we dads, we're probably not good at that. Mm-hmm.

We think it often, but we don't say it for whatever reason. So Steph, you share a story about a question from your young daughter that kind of caught you by surprise. What were the circumstances and what did you learn through this experience? This was a season where my husband was working a lot. It was a very stressful time at work. We knew he was going to be laid off soon.

and he was in grad school, and my kids were, I think, five and under. So it was just, you know, it was a very busy season. And my husband was at grad school. He had just gotten back from a business trip. He was still traveling a lot. And I was at a cold. I was crabby. I was just like a nod. Man, self-disclosure. I like this. I was a crabby person. And I just was not being nice to my kids. I was just kind of, you know, barking orders, like, eat your food, go do this, go, you know. We just...

fall into that. And my sweet little three-year-old with her little pigtails just looked at me. She's like, Mama, are you nice or mean? And I was like, I hear you. Right now, I'm mean. I think a lot of moms have had a similar experience. Dads, too. For sure. But it just gave me pause. I'm like, wow, my interactions are affecting my kids, and they're seeing me. And this isn't what I want to model to them. So I just...

went over to her and I gave her a hug and we said a prayer of just like, God, give us the peace we need in this moment. 'Cause this is a hard moment. It's hard. Like that was a very hard season for our family. It was a hard parenting time. And so not gonna sit there and tell him like,

Okay, it's good. We're all good now. You know, I went and just said, Lord, this is hard and we need you. So give us the peace that only you can give us. And it transformed the rest of the night. The rest of the night was great. We had a great little bedtime. No, that's good. I'm just thinking, yeah, that conversation with that child, you know. No, I'm very nice. I'm nice. Don't you know that? I may have been yelling at you a little bit, but I am so nice. You know, let me ask that since we're in this moment. I think, yeah.

You know that idea that we're trying to project the right thing. There is good in reality. I mean so your kids can see you when you're not on your best behavior. I remember one time I had to discipline Trent and he was in a bunk bed and so he was eyeball to eyeball as I was standing there and he was laying in bed and I said hey I just I overreacted I'm so sorry and he had this big smile on his face. This is interesting.

And I said, why are you smiling like that? He's probably like five or six. He goes, I didn't know parents had to apologize. I went, oh, yes, we do. I'll be saying I'm sorry a lot more over the next 15 years. But it's good. We're not perfect people. I think there's more power in that humility than there is in...

expressing parental strength. Yeah. Kids need to see brokenness. Yeah, it shows that my parents who love Jesus and are Christians still make mistakes. Just because you grew up, that doesn't mean you have to be the perfect person we can't be. Well, Dani, I so appreciate those stories from Jim and Stephanie. And I wonder if time comes to mind when you apologized for

John, I don't apologize. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for listening. This has been focused on... No, that is great. Yeah. There have been many times where I've apologized. One stands out to me when I got home and I had a stressful day and Lexi had come up to want to connect.

Still sticks out. I repeat this story over and over again because it was impactful to me. She came up to me all excited, but also wanting to share some other things that she was concerned about between she and her brother. And I just said, stop. And I just was, man. Uncharacteristically forceful. I mean, I came in strong. And you could see in her just a closing up emotionally. And she kind of walked away. And I felt that emotion from her.

And then I went to her and I said, hey, honey, I'm sorry. I carried in some stress. It's not you at all. And I love you. And I held her for a little bit. And then I said, hey, tell me. I got down on my knee and I said, hey, tell me what you're wanting to share. I'm ready for it. Clearly, I wasn't ready then.

And just really tried to own the whole thing in front of her to model that because that creates a secure attachment. The secure attachment means that when I do something wrong, I own it.

And I will accept responsibility for it, ask for forgiveness, and it creates a safety between me and you. And that's a security. And they know that if there is something that feels off, we can repair it together. And so as a parent, when you are repairing, when you're asking for forgiveness, you're creating a secure attachment, a security that is essential for their future relationship. Got it. That is so important. And I wish...

We'd have this conversation 24 hours earlier because last night was when I last apologized to one of my kids. I just said, I totally missed it. I am so sorry. I came on so strong and so inappropriate. And typically there's forgiveness on the other side of us doing that. So let me encourage you, mom or dad, to own your stuff, to apologize to your children and to work through that. It's important for our kids to see what we do with those feelings.

This reminder that Stephanie and Sarah have a wonderful book they've written ties right into some of the conversation today and last time. It's called Raising Prayerful Kids, Fun and Easy Activities for Building Lifelong Habits of Prayer.

And you can learn more about the book, and hopefully you can make a donation of any amount to this ministry to support the work that we're doing here at Focus, to equip parents, to help your family thrive. When you donate either a monthly pledge or a one-time gift of any amount, we'll send that book to you. It's our way of saying thank you for being a part of the support team.

The link is in the show notes for that and also for the full conversation we had with Stephanie and Sarah, which includes what you heard today and more lessons that they've learned from their journeys as moms. Next time, encouragement for single moms who are feeling left out. For now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for listening to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.

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