Our Father, Part 1

We started saying bedtime prayers with the girls when they were 2 years old. Now that they are 5 and 2.5, they seem to have them down pretty good. We say the "Our Father", "Hail, Mary", and the "Glory Be". All followed by "God Blesses" where the girls ask for God's blessings on family members, friends, and sometime toys. For instance our youngest occasionally asks for God's blessing for her Hippo Bank or Dora Hat. We try and steer them towards their sister, Mommy, Grandmas and Grandpas, Nana, and the rest of the family.

One of the things that turned me off about the church when I was in high school was that I knew all the prayers, but I just didn't get anything out of it. The rote memorization wasn't helping anymore. It wasn't until later when I started bible study that I actually began to more fully understand what I was praying. Last summer, our Bible Study Group covered the Lord's Prayer as part of our study of the Sermon on the Mount. We used William Barclay's commentary on Matthew for the study. I really recommend reading it. It's quite illuminating and you will probably never say the Lord's Prayer in a hurry again.

From this learning, I plan to slowly break out the meaning of the "Our Father" for our oldest daughter. So, rather than knowing the prayer by heart and trying to get through it as quickly as possible, as is starting to happen, she will hopefully come to love and understand the prayer as I have.

Our Lord told us to pray like this: "Our Father"

So every once and a while, I will talk to her about the phrase "Our Father". I start by asking her what she thinks this means. At first she didn't understand, so I would explain, starting with something all the lines of: God is not YOUR father, God is not MY Father. God is Our Father. All of us are the children of the Father. Sisters and Brothers are supposed to love each other. Sisters and Brothers are supposed to be nice to each other. If we hurt or are mean to one of our sisters or brothers we say we are sorry and we ask for forgiveness. If one our sisters or brothers hurts us, we forgive them and move on.

I've been doing this in small digestible chunks with her and it is starting to sink in. When I ask her about it, she is able to explain it to me. Awesome!

Hopefully these small bits of learning will stick with her when she gets tired of the rote memorization. My biggest concern is that she falls away from the church like I did.

Blessings

Tim

---

If you like this blog please consider donating to Eastside Baby Corner.