Monday, December 22, 2008

A 5 year old's question

Isn't it funny the things our kids can come and ask us about. Some questions are so simple and then there are the ones you have to think about and try to explain to young minds who are trying so very hard to understand about life and God. Our 5 year old came up to me tonight and asked "why doesn't God answer our prayer sometimes?" I asked her what she meant and she gave the example of her great Uncle who died a few years ago. She said we prayed for him to get better but God didn't answer our prayer. Wow....what a great question. Does God not answer prayer?
I tried to explain it in the simpliest terms I could. God answers our prayers but sometimes we don't get the answer we are looking for because we aren't praying the right way. We can go to God and ask our hearts desire....He wants us to do that! He wants us to bring before Him our needs, our hopes, our desires. We also need to bring those requests before God wanting His will! God knows what is best for us. He knows how the outcome of situations will bring about great things even if it means we must suffer some pain from that outcome for a time. God sees everything from start to finish and sometimes while we live in the moment, we can only see pain and heartache but through it and because of it, God will be glorified! We need to bring our requests before God wanting His will. That can sometimes be very hard because what we want may not be what we need. God knows best and we should want God's best! He loves us and cares for us so much.
Did she understand? Probably not all of it.....but she is taking baby steps towards understanding about her relationship with God, about the importance of prayer and our attitude when we come before God in prayer. How wonderful it is to hear our children inquire and have an interest in heavenly things. I pray for God's wisdom to help me as I guide and instruct her.

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