Following is part two of Truth78’s interview with Bible teacher, Nancy Guthrie. Nancy and David Guthrie experienced the death of two of their children and now lead respite retreats for parents in similar seasons of suffering. Steve Watters: How do we help children pray for things and especially pray in the midst of difficult situations?
Nancy Guthrie: This is a very significant and personal question for me because when our son was in second grade, he had a sister who was only going to live a short time. He went to a Christian school and every day at the end of the school day, they prayed. So what do you think all those kids prayed for? They prayed that Hope would live.
I remember picking up Matt from school and waiting in the carpool line. And he hops in the car and immediately he says, "Mom, is there any chance Hope might live?" And I knew why he was asking. I knew they were praying for that every day. And he's thinking it through, which is great. He's thinking it through, "Should I expect that?" And I said to him, "Well, Matt, here's what I know. I know no children have ever lived very long who have this condition that Hope has. But here's the other thing I know, I know that Hope is in God's hands. And whether she's here with us, or she's home with Him, she’s in God's hands."
So I think the challenge for us in helping kids know how to pray through these things is really the challenge we have with adults knowing how to pray for these things. And that is: we are oriented primarily to ask God to take this suffering away, rather than being oriented to pray and ask God to use the suffering in our lives to conform us to His image. That's His purpose in it. He wants to use it to discipline us, to mature us. He wants to use it to give us the opportunity to live out genuine faith.
There are lots of verses in Scripture that say, "this happened, so that" and those verses are answering the question, “Why?” Both with adults and with children, my plea would be, "Look at what the scriptures say God intends to do in and through suffering, and pray for God to accomplish those things."
That's a whole kind of reorientation. I suppose a kid is going to state the request, "pray that this happens." And sometimes we just ask. Isn't it great that God is our father and we can just ask Him for what we need? But I love the Westminster Catechism which says that prayer is asking God for what He's promised to give, not just for what I want. And, and you know what? He has promised to give sufficient grace. He's promised to give divine power. He's promised that His holy spirit would work for us. And so those are the things we should ask for.
A child might say, "Teacher, I want you to pray that God will give my family a new house to live in.” That was one that was in a class I was in recently. I said, "Would you give this family a new house? But more than that, Lord, would you give them contentment with what you are providing right now with what you're providing to them?
In children's ministry we have the opportunity to train children not to focus on prayer being solely asking God for these things or these situations that we want, but instead for inviting God to work in the situations we don't want.
When Jesus responded to the disciples' request to teach them to pray, He gave them the Lord's Prayer as a model. He shows us what should be in the believer's heart when he comes to his Heavenly Father in prayer. For an in-depth look at how the Jesus teaches us to pray, consider our 13-week study for children and adults, Lord, Teach Us to Pray.
Read Part 1 of our interview with Nancy Guthrie: Helping Children Prepare for Suffering
About the author: Steve Watters is the Truth78 Communications Director. Before joining Truth78, he earned an M.A. in family discipleship at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary where he served as the Vice President for Communications. He and his wife Candice co-authored the book Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies. They have four children.
