MAY 1

God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer. — Mother Teresa

Today incorporate a time of silent waiting in your prayer. You may want to use Jeremiah 29:11 as a starting point. “Lord, I know You have amazing plans for my child, plans that I can’t even fathom. I know that you have a future and a hope for her. Would you please show me how to pray according to Your will and Your Word for my child?” Take a few moments to wait and keep your eyes and heart open for God to speak to you about your child.

MAY 2

Let’s pray for our leaders—that God will give them wisdom and cause them to promote life and righteousness and peace.

MAY 3

It’s tempting to rush right out the door in the morning without taking time to sit down, invite God into your family’s life, and give the events of your children’s day to Him. But morning prayers don’t need to be a long, drawn-out affair. They can be as simple as an acknowledgement of His presence and a request for His protection and provision throughout the day.

Your kids may have some specific concerns—even fears—about certain upcoming events. Praying with them in the morning can help alleviate that kind of anxiety and give an opportunity for them to see God working in their lives at a very intimate, personal level.

MAY 4

When you feel like you can’t pray, here are some things you can do:

• Take time to be silent. You don’t always have to use words. It’s OK to simply be still and know that God is with you in that moment.
• Sing a song of praise or worship.
• Recite the Lord’s Prayer.
• Look around you and just start chatting to God about what you see or think.
• Ask the Holy Spirit to help you pray.

MAY 5
If you’re too busy to pray, you’re too busy. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Paul encouraged believers to “pray without ceasing,” which assumes, of course, that God is always listening and wants to hear from us. Yet, for some reason we often keep God waiting. Our prayerlessness gives God the repeated message that we won’t answer His call to pray now, but we’ll get back to Him later.

What are the things that keep you from praying? Begin by talking to God about whatever is hindering your prayer-life. Such praying will cultivate the two-way closeness that your heavenly Father is longing to enjoy with you. Why keep God waiting any longer?

MAY 6
The word “amen” means “yes, it is certain” or “so be it.” We say “amen” at the end of a prayer to show that what we have said to God is true. We say it to show that we believe that God has heard our prayer. We say it to show that we believe God will answer our prayer. Finally, we say it to show our agreement with what someone else just prayed. Check out Psalm 41:13 and 1 Corinthians 14:16.

MAY 7

It’s not nearly so important to teach children the mechanics of prayer as it is to help them get to know the person to whom they are praying. The more children understand who God is, the more intimately and confidently they can pray.

MAY 8

Teach your children to pray God’s Word. Many children don’t mature in their prayer lives because they lack a prayer vocabulary. Teach them to use Scripture to formulate their prayers, and a whole new way of talking to God will open to them—new words, new concepts, and new things to pray about. A child with God’s Word planted deeply in the heart and an understanding of the concept of praying Scripture is equipped to pray in the varied circumstances of life he or she will face.

MAY 9

There is no better way to teach the utmost importance of prayer than by praying FOR and WITH our children. It is one of the ways they begin to sense a compelling need to reach out personally to God in faith. Demonstrating our daily dependence on God is essential in a family since many children first learn to trust God as they observe genuine faith in the people closest to them (2 Timothy 1:5).

MAY 10

Our children need to know that they can talk to God about anything, anywhere, at any time. But there are somethings God specifically wants us to remember to talk to Him about. For example, people in authority over us (1 Timothy 2:1-2.) Encourage your children today to pray for their teachers, coaches and pastors.

MAY 11

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words, than words without a heart. — John Bunyan

Read the story of Hannah and her wordless prayer in 1 Samuel 1:13-20.

MAY 12

Teaching our children to pray will truly prepare them for life and equip them to face everything life has to offer.

MAY 13

A man prayed, and at first, he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realized that prayer is listening. — Soren Kierkegaard

MAY 14

A prayer journal is like a diary between you and God. It provides a written record of your prayers. Your prayer journal doesn’t need to be fancy. It can be as simple as a spiral notebook.

When you write in your journal, be sure to put the date at the top of the page. That way, as weeks go by, you can go back and see how God has worked in your life. When you’re feeling low, reading through your prayer journal can help you remember how God has helped you in the past. Should you choose to keep a prayer journal, you will be amazed to see how God answers your prayers!

MAY 15

If you want to know how to pray in the hard times, pray in the easy times. Many people turn to the Lord only when they are in a crisis. Of course, praying in an emergency is better than not praying at all. But whether things are going against us or for us should make no difference. Prayer should be such a natural part of our lives that we engage in it no matter what the circumstances.

MAY 16

A man without prayer is like a tree without roots. — Pope Pius XII

MAY 17

One of the best ways to instill faith in children is to tell them the stories of how God had answered our prayers and met our needs. When parents, teachers, and church workers tell children their most memorable faith stories, it is usually not long before the children start having faith stories of their own.

MAY 18

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

Point out anything in me that offends you,

and lead me along the path of everlasting life. — Psalm 139:23-24

MAY 19

At any time and in any place we can lift our voices to the Lord with full assurance that He will hear us. And He does more than just receive our requests—He comprehends, He understands, and He perceives exactly what His children ask for in faith.

Has God heard you yet today? He invites you to make your requests known to Him. What a tragedy that so many of His children go through the day without uttering a single prayer to the One who takes pleasure in hearing their voices! Proverbs 15:8 says, “The prayer of the upright is His delight.” So pray. God listens!

MAY 20

What would a child watching your prayer life learn? If children see us praying in a dull, forced, dry ways, they’ll get a picture of prayer opposite of what we want them to see. How will they ever see prayer as exciting? But if we pray from the heart, kids will see the freshness and power of our relationship with God. As a result, they will grow up with a simple approach to prayer, having natural conversations with God.

MAY 21

One of the most exciting spiritual adventures children can undertake is prayer-walking. As you prepare to prayer-walk with your children, encourage them to keep their eyes and hearts open. Explain that sometimes we have no idea what to pray for ahead of time, but when pass a certain house or circle around school or government building, God may give us ideas. As one author pointed out, prayer-walking isn’t just about walking around or praying outside. It’s getting nearer to pray clearer.

When you return from your prayer-walk, ask the children to talk about what they saw. Let them talk about things that they observed, such as condition of the neighborhood, people they saw, and what they think was on Jesus’ heart for the people who lived there.

MAY 22

The most important prayer we can teach our children is to ask God to teach them to pray.

MAY 23

Prayer is not just about asking for God’s blessings—though we are welcome to do so—but it is about communication with the living God. Without communication, relationships fall apart. So, too, our relationship with God suffers when we do not communicate with Him.

MAY 24

Sometimes God doesn’t respond to our prayers in the time or way we feel He should. It is important for children to develop a relationship with God that goes beyond expecting to receive everything requested in prayer.

When God doesn’t answer their prayers in the way they’ve asked, our children will come to us with questions. Whenever possible, we need to give them answers. However, we must guard against giving pat answers. Sometimes there will be no satisfactory answer to give. That’s when we weep, ask God a lot of questions, and keep trusting in His goodness no matter what happens. This is where our actions as parents speak louder than words. In times of crisis and disappointment, children watch to see if we really believe what we teach.

MAY 25

When you pray, you…

• Recognize that you are not God.
• Express love to your Heavenly Father.
• Admit that you need someone stronger and wiser than you are.
• You gain strength outside of yourself.
• You seek and receive forgiveness of sins.
• You invite God’s power into your struggles.
• You trust that God is with you.

What would you add to this list?

MAY 27

There’s a vast difference between saying prayers and praying. We can teach our children to pray long and hard with all the right words and tricks, so they’ll impress everyone around them. But that will hinder them from learning how to truly pray. They will be so caught up in their performance that relationship with God will be missed. We need to teach our children to speak from their hearts, to use their own words, to talk about things that concern or interest them. We also need to teach them that sometimes it’s okay to just sit and think in God’s presence, without saying one word.

MAY 28

Avoid asking God to simply “bless the missionaries.” Instead, try to pray for a specific missionary or missionaries in a specific part of the country, or for missionaries who are undertaking a specific charge like church planting.

Pray for missionary families in the same manner that you pray for your own family. Ask God to help them in their daily Christian walk. Pray for their children’s spiritual growth and for good health. Pray that God will protect their travels and that He will accomplish in them the purposes for which they’ve been called. And don’t feel embarrassed to pray for their financial wellbeing either, since missionaries often trust the Lord to provide the finances they need to be stewards of faith in parts of the world that are lost.

MAY 29

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays. —Soren Kierkegaard

MAY 30

The Bible doesn’t mention praying with eyes closed. Sometimes it’s more powerful to keep them open. Try it today and let us know how it went. If you need a little bit of help to re-ignite your own prayer life, check out Sherry Harney’s book “Praying with Eyes Wide Open.”

MAY 31

If we fail to balance our checkbook, service our car, or get a physical exam, we can run into serious problems. But if we neglect prayer, we will lose our spiritual power. We don’t have time not to pray.