The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. Truly.
Sometimes the earnest prayer of a small child is the perfect model. This is a reminder that prayers don’t have to be elaborate, only heartfelt.
Jesus, we love You, and we love this beautiful world You’ve given us. Help us to steward it better. Thank You for our lives – be they to the ‘ripe old age of 30’, or 80 or 90. Thank You. Teach us to number our days and make the most of our time. Help us to love you as wholly and easily as a child. In Your name, amen.
I wonder if that little star, shining into the darkness, knew it would be part of this mind-blowing photo lightyears later. Maybe its glow felt dim and useless against the black void of space. Did it know God placed it exactly where and when He wanted it to shine? Did that small star know God had a PLAN and a PURPOSE for its light?
How about you? Are you shining faithfully into the darkness, trusting God’s plan for your light?
My kids love taking turns praying over our family’s meals, but my preschooler struggles to know what to say. To help him, we created a prayer for him to repeat.
“Dear God, thank You for this food, and please help us to grow big and strong…”
He can end there, saying “Jesus, God, Amen” (his version of ‘In Jesus’ Name, amen’), or he can add to that basic prayer if he has more to say. His older brother always has more to say when it is his turn, but sometimes that simple prayer is enough for my preschooler. Having a standardized prayer takes the pressure off of him to be creative and keeps the focus on the habit of prayer before meals.
I sympathize with my son’s struggle because I, too, have a hard time knowing what to say when I pray.
Fitness circles will tell you if you want to start jogging and eating healthy you should prep healthy snacks and lay out your jogging clothes so that the practices are that much easier. I’ve applied this same idea to prayers by writing out several prayers for myself, sort of a meal-prep for prayer. Figuring out what to say ahead of time allows me to cultivate the habit of prayer without being distracted but what to say.
Do you struggle with prayer? I’ll be sharing several prayers over this summer to help you get started. Prayer should be a daily habit, and we shouldn’t let a little thing like words keep us from approaching the throne of our Heavenly Father.
When I participated in my local Walk for Life, I shared the donation link on my personal Facebook. I was, I’ll admit, a little intimidated to share. Many of my Facebook friends (especially those in the outer circles of my acquaintance) are “pro-choice” and I wasn’t sure how a pro-life link would be received. Why was I ashamed to be proLIFE? That seems like a good thing, right?
It is the rhetoric of division. “Pro” implies an “anti”. Prolifers are anti-abortion because it takes a life, but the other side of the debate likes to claim pro-life equates to anti-choice, anti-woman. By that logic, pro-choice could be categorized as anti-life. Or so the divisionary forces would have us think.
Here is the true tragedy of the pro-choice/pro-life debate: the vast majority of those in the pro-choice camp think they are being kind – compassionate even – to empathize with the would-be mother and her freedom to choose what happens to her body. The “clump of cells” narrative has led the public astray, inducing them into a belief that nothing – or at least no one– is being harmed during an abortion. If only it were so.
So, yes, I am pro-life: pro the baby’s life, pro the mom’s life (and quality of life), and pro the lives of those who think they are fighting for women’s freedoms instead of the slaughter of human babies.
How to be PROLife without being antiperson:
Be Strong: Unwavering in upholding the scientific fact of life at conception
Be Kind: Treat all people (even those aggressively pro-choice) with respect
Be Helpful: look for ways to help women in crisis, through and beyond their pregnancies (https://www.helpherbebrave.com/ is a great resource for how to help)
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”[a] made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ…It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.”[a] Since we have that same spirit of[b] faith, we also believe and therefore speak.2 Corinthians 4:6, 13
The burning questions of humanity: Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here?
Christianity answers all of these, yet hardly any Christians actually talk about the truths they know. We ‘hide our lamps’ and are ‘ashamed of the Gospel,’ even though the Scriptures we claim to follow warn us against those very things (Matthew 5:15, Romans 1:16).
How is it showing God’s love to a hurting world if we hide the answers that could save humanity?
Christianity changes everything. The troubles of the world no longer seem dire; the purpose of humanity is suddenly clear.
We don’t need to be the next Mother Teresa to fulfill our calling. For some, it may be that grand and wide-scale, but for most it is not. Our faithfulness, our calling, our purpose here, is lived out daily. For those with small kids like me, that may be in the inglorious trenches of motherhood – in the sippy cups and endless snacks and toys scattered perpetually across the rug.
It matters. It all matters. Those who are faithful with little will also be faithful with much (Luke 16:10). Our Christianity is made manifest in the insignificant and the truth of our faith is something we should shout from the rooftops. He is mighty to save. He is all that matters and He asks this of us – to live faithfully, whatever our lives and duties are, and to tell the world of His love, and their need of Him.
Exploring Everyday Faithfulness 