How to open up an opportunity to pray with your teen
..I was determined to have them share their ups and downs so that we could take our prayer life to a higher level.
Creating an opportunity to share
Have you ever asked the kiddos, "Is there anything you need prayer for?" and the answer was always no. In fact, even when you try and throw a hint there way by saying things like, "Do you want to pray about the upcoming school trip or sport competition that is out or state?", but still received no response. This happens all the time in most households, especially with teenagers.
I must admit after several failed attempts, I wanted to throw the towel in and just go for the “blanket prayer of protection”, however I didn’t want to give in as I was determined to have them share their ups and downs so that we could take our prayer life to a higher level. So, we had to get creative and think outside the box!
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1. Get an ordinary shoe box and decorate the outside of it to resemble a gift. Seal the top closed but cut a slot in it similar to what you find on a voting ballot box.
2. Then cut out slips of paper or “ballots” that can be placed in our newly crafted Prayer Gift Box.
We assembled the kiddos to explain to them that whenever they need for us to pray about something that they didn’t feel comfortable telling us about, they were to fill out a prayer
ballot and drop it in the prayer box. We agreed not to look at the requests, however we set some ground rules as we were not going to pray harm/hurt to people and things of that nature. Once that was understood, we would pray over the items in the box. However, a stipulation we added was they were to write on the box “prayer answered” if their prayer was answered.
The first few weeks there was no requests. I would go and shake the prayer box only to find that it was empty. But by the third week we finally got a request! I can't explain how excited we were to pray over the contents in the prayer box and then the joy of seeing more requests and eventually, "prayer answered" written on the box. As a result we were able to capitalize on sharing ups and downs as our kiddos would share the prayer that was answered. It created the perfect opportunity for them to share - what a great gift!
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