What Ezekyal Taught Me About Prayer
Of course, with our fundraiser just a week away...First things First: If you have not yet registered for our Documentary Premier Event on Friday May 21 at 7:00pm at Murray Hill Theatre, Simply Click Here. It is only $25 and includes appetizers, desserts, and a great movie about our kids at All Things New!
If you cannot make it, but would like to donate toward the event, Click Here to donate and help us make this event as successful as possible! There are 3 other live events scheduled for the week after the premier including:
- Saturday May 22 at 6:00pm at Arlington Baptist Church in Jacksonville.
- Sunday May 23 at 6:00pm at First Baptist Church in LaGrange.
- Wednesday May 26 at 6:30pm at Clearview Chapel in LaGrange.
This blog is by no means a way for me to tell you how spiritual Ezekyal is. He turned 3 last weekend, so he has quite a ways to go...He did, however, teach both Jessica and I something awesome about prayer the other day that came from a place of innocence and understanding that can sometimes only be found in a mind that is not yet developed or too corrupt. It is why kids can really teach us things if we are willing to listen.
Ezekyal is in the 2-year-old class at Deermeadows Preschool on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday every week. He often tells us about things that happen in his class and about the friends he has made, and 2 of his friends are named Sofia and Julia (Juju is what Zeke calls her). Just yesterday, when Jess was walking them into school, Sofia and Juju ran up to Zeke and hugged him when he got into the school building.
A few weeks ago, we were sitting around the dinner table eating and talking about what was going on, and we had just finished praying for one of our cousins. Zeke then informed us that Juju and Sofia were sick and Jess and I both said we should pray for them and then proceeded to move on with dinner.
Zeke, however, was not having it. He heard his Mom say that we should pray for his friends, and so he stopped eating and was clearly confused as to why we had not stopped everything and prayed for Juju and Sofia...So we did.
If you want to know the truth about what happened, I (I can't speak for Jessica) would have never prayed for Sofia and Juju. I would have told my then 2-year-old son that we should pray for them, and then immediately forgotten ever mentioning it. The truth is, the phrases "I will be praying" or "I will pray for that" are overused and underperformed by almost everyone I know.
I guess the question is...Why?
It was so simple to Zeke. We said we should pray, so obviously we should stop everything else and just pray. Why would we say it if we never intended to do it?
What a great lesson. Also, he is 100% right. It was really simple. In fact, Ezekyal was the one who prayed for Sofia and Juju and it was one of the greatest prayers I have ever heard.
What a profound thought, right? If you say you are going to pray for someone that you actually do it...I am ashamed to admit how easy it is for me to flippantly say, "I will pray for that" with little to no intention of actually praying. Join me in changing this horrible habit, and let's start really praying for each other when that is exactly what we said we would do.