A young child’s prayer of praise: “Dear God, I didn’t think that orange went with purple until I saw the sunset You made Tuesday night. That was really cool!”

This article offers a lighter-than-usual touch, focusing on prayers of children, and an eight-year-old boy’s explanation of God. Some content is humorous, and some informs us for Christian living.

For me, reading material such as this makes it difficult to stay despondent.

 

Children and Prayer 

Little Johnny and his family were having Sunday dinner at his grandmother’s house. As soon as he received his plate, Johnny starting gulping down the food.

“Johnny! Please wait until we say our prayer before you eat,” said his mom.

“I don’t need to,” Johnny replied.

“Of course you do,” insisted his mom. “We always say a prayer before eating at our house!”

“But that’s at our house,” Johnny explained. “I don’t have to pray before eating here. This is grandma’s house, and she knows how to cook!”

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A five-year-old’s bedtime prayer:

“Dear God, please wash away all our sins. And wash away everyone’s sins, God. And God, just wash away the devil….just drown him, God. Amen.”

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“Dear God, if You can’t make me a better boy, don’t worry about it. I’m having a really good time like I am.”

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“Dear God, please take care of my daddy and mommy, and my sister and brother, and my doggy. Oh, and please take care of yourself, God. If anything happens to You, we’re gonna be in a big mess.”

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“Dear God, thank you for my little brother. But what I was praying for was a puppy.”

***

“God, my grandpa says You were around when he was a little boy. How far back do You go?”

*****

The young mother had worked hard to prepare the meal. She had  invited several friends for dinner. When everyone gathered around the table, she asked her six-year-old daughter to say the blessing. The girl said, “But I wouldn’t know what to say!”

“Just say what you’ve heard me say,” encouraged the mom.

The girl bowed her head and said emphatically, “Lord, why on earth did I invite these people to dinner?”

*****

The little boy was hyperactive during a worship service, clamoring all over the seats and making noise, even when the sermon started. The mom and dad tried valiantly to quiet him down, but lost the battle. Finally, the father, with a stern face, picked up the boy and started down the aisle to remove him from the service. That’s when the boy screamed loudly to the congregation, “Pray for me! Pray for me!”

 

Explanation of God by an Eight-Year-Old from California

An eight-year-old boy wrote the following explanation of God in response to a school assignment in Chula Vista:  “Explain God.” I filed this away after seeing it distributed through email over 20 years ago. I’m sharing it just the way he wrote it. Anything in bold face is my emphasis on what I consider an insightful statement.

One of God’s main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die so there will be enough people to take care of things here on earth. He doesn’t make grown-ups, just babies. I think that’s because they are smaller and easier to make. That way, He doesn’t have to take up His valuable time teaching them to walk and talk. He can just leave that to mothers and fathers.

God’s second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times besides bedtime. God doesn’t have time to listen to radio or watch TV on account of this. Since He hears everything, not only prayers, there must be a terrible lot of noise in His ears, unless He has thought of a way to turn it off.

God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere, which keeps Him pretty busy. So you shouldn’t go wasting His time by going over your parent’s head asking for something they said you couldn’t have.

Atheists are people who don’t believe in God. I don’t think there are any in Chula Vista. At least there aren’t any who come to our church.

Jesus is God’s Son. He used to do all the hard work like walking on water and performing miracles and trying to teach people who didn’t want to learn about God. They finally got tired of Him preaching to them and they crucified Him. But He was good and kind like His Father and He told His Father that they didn’t know what they were doing and to forgive them, and God said OK.

His dad (God) appreciated everything Jesus had done and all His hard work on earth, so He told Him He didn’t have to go out on the road anymore. He could stay in heaven. So He did. And now He helps His Dad out by listening to prayers and seeing things which are important for God to take care of, and which things He can take care of Himself without having to bother God. Like a secretary, only more important, of course. You can pray anytime you want and they are sure to hear you because they got it worked out so one of them is on duty at all times.

You should always go to church on Sunday because it makes God happy, and if there’s anybody you want to make happy, it’s God. Don’t skip church to do something you think will be more fun like going to the beach. This is wrong! Besides, the sun doesn’t come out at the beach until noon anyway.

If you don’t believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely, because your parents can’t go everywhere with you, like to camp, but God can. It is good to know He’s around you when you’re scared in the dark or when you can’t swim very good and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids.

But you shouldn’t just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and He can take me back anytime He pleases.

And that’s why I believe in God.

 

All We Need To Know

A Sunday School teacher decided to have her young class memorize one of the most quoted passages in the Bible: Psalm 23. She gave the youngsters a month to work on it, and reviewed with them every Sunday. With the pastor’s cooperation, she arranged to have several of the kids recite the entire Psalm in front of the congregation.

Ricky was excited about the task of quoting the Psalm in front of the church. Yet he was really nervous, too. Before his turn came for the public recitation, he reviewed the Psalm in his mind and couldn’t remember much, despite remembering it word for word earlier that morning. In his attempts at recall, Ricky struggled to get past the first verse. He knew he was too anxious to recite the Psalm in front of all those people.

Yet rather than refusing to participate, Ricky decided on a plan. When his turn came, he stepped up to the microphone and proudly bellowed, “The Lord is my Shepherd–and that’s all I need to know!”

Indeed!