Emma’s Prayers

Today, Nikki and the kids called me while I was at the office.

They were getting ready to start their school day and asked if I would pray with them. As I listened through the phone, Emma began to pray and I couldn’t help but smile.

Emma loves to pray.

And I love that about her.

But I think what I love most is the way she prays.

Emma doesn’t always close her eyes. She doesn’t always bow her head. She doesn’t worry about finding the right words or making her prayer sound a certain way.

She just starts talking.

She talks to God as if He is sitting right there in front of her.

Sometimes she giggles while she tells God something about one of her siblings. She thanks Him for her Mommy and Daddy. She thanks Him for Bubby Caleb and Bubby Asher. She thanks Him for Elsa.

She prays that everyone will feel good.

And she always prays that Mommy will get better.

All the while, she may be looking around the room, smiling, or thinking about what she wants to say next.

She’s simply talking to her Heavenly Father.

And as I listened to her today, I thought about how complicated we sometimes make prayer.

We convince ourselves that we don’t know how to pray.

We think we need the right words.

We think our prayers need to sound a certain way.

Or sometimes we listen to the lies that whisper:

You’ve messed up too much.

You don’t have your life together.

You haven’t been walking closely enough with God.

Why would God want to hear from you?

And so we don’t pray.

But then I listen to Emma.

She isn’t worried about any of that. She knows who she is talking to.

Her Father.

Jesus taught His disciples to approach God this way when He said:

“Our Father in heaven…” - Matthew 6:9

Those first two words are easy to rush past.

“Our Father”.

Prayer isn’t a performance. It isn’t about impressing God with the right words. It is the privilege of a child coming to a Father who already knows them, already sees them, and loves them.

And prayer isn’t meant to be only a one-way conversation.

Yes, our Heavenly Father wants to hear from us. He invites us to bring Him our worries, our needs, our gratitude, our questions, and even the things that might seem insignificant.

But we also need to slow down long enough to listen, to open His Word and allow Him to speak truth into our lives.

Maybe that’s one of the lessons we can learn from a child.

We don’t have to make prayer so complicated.

For Emma, prayer is simply talking to her Heavenly Father.

Her Creator.

The One she trusts.

And maybe sometimes our prayer life needs to look a little more like hers.

Less performance.

Less worrying about saying everything perfectly.

More talking.

More listening.

More trusting.

More simply coming to our Father.

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace…” - Hebrews 4:16

Today, listening to my little girl pray reminded me of something I never want to forget:

God isn’t waiting for a perfectly worded prayer. He wants His children to come to Him.

I pray that as Emma grows older, she never loses the simplicity she has when she talks to God today.

And I pray the rest of us can learn to pray a little more like Emma.

Faith • Family • Around the Table