"Lord, Teach Us to Pray"

In Luke 11, the disciples make a request, "Lord, teach us to pray."
Think about this--the disciples have been Jesus for a while now. They have seen him heal, teach, drive out demons, raise the dead, calm storms, and they have witnessed him taking part in night-long prayer vigils. These disciples were Jews, which meant that they had been taught spiritual disciplines since their youth. They knew about prayer. Yet, here they are making a request to learn one of the basic principles of faith.
Jesus uses this as a teachable moment. He gives them a new way to pray.

If we ever cease to make this request, our spirituality will plateau...it will become stagnant. We never graduate to the level of, "Lord, I've learned how to pray."

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Truitt is at a praying stage. We are trying to pray with him throughout the day--not just before meals and bedtime. We don't want him to equate prayer as the warm-up exercise for chicken strips or as the official sign that it is bedtime. The former can easily become a prayer with little meaning and the latter can become a miserable prayer because it means that fun is over. (Don't misunderstand me--prayers before meals and bedtime can be formative).

This morning, Truitt woke up at 8:30 and we brought him into our bed to play for a few minutes. Before we got up to eat breakfast, I said, "Truitt, let's pray over mommy." Together, we placed our left hands on Kayci's belly and our right hands on Kayci's head and together we prayed a prayer for God's blessing and mercy upon our new son and Truitt's new brother. We prayed for God's hand to upon them both. It was a priceless moment!