Today is the 16th installment of 30 days of resources for your family to use to grow together. Each of our daily activities will have the following pieces:
- PLAY TOGETHER: An opportunity to have fun and do something together instead of watching Netflix.
- TALK TOGETHER: Around the dinner table or just two of you sitting on the back porch, take turns asking these questions to learn more about the other.
- ORIENT TOGETHER: In time of need we have an opportunity to renew our vision for Jesus, and pray for His work in our life and world.
We hope these resources are helpful to you as a family. Feel free to share with others as well!
Spoons: This game is played with a deck of cards and spoons. You will need one less spoon than there are participants. Each player starts with 4 cards in their hands. The goal is for you to get 4 cards of the same kind. As the deck of cards is passed around the circle one card at a time, your goal is to get 4 cards of the same suit. Once you get 4 cards of the same kind, discreetly get a spoon from the middle. When other players notice that a spoon is missing from the the middle, they all must attempt to grab a spoon as quickly as possible in order to not be the only one left without one. The rest of the players don’t need to have all four of a kind once someone grabs a spoon. If you are left without a spoon, you are out.
- What is prayer?
- What motivates you to pray?
- What do pray about?
- Has there been a time in your life that you truly enjoyed praying?
Read Matthew 6: 5-15
Prayer is simply meeting with God. Our goal in prayer is not what we can get from God. Our goal in prayer should be God Himself.
I think at times is hard for us to pray because our minds just keep going on to the next thing. But here in Matthew, Jesus says that you should “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father” (v. 6). He is not grounding us by sending us to our room to pray. He is inviting us to have an appointed time and a place to talk to Him and meet with our Father.
Maybe you just don’t know what to say when you pray, so then you just don’t do it. But again, here in Matthew, Jesus gives us a model of how to pray. When I do not know what to say, I go back to Scripture. I find the Psalms to be helpful when I pray. Also, I use the acronym “ACTS.” It stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. This acronym helpful to have some “structure” in my prayers.
And because my minds goes to 10 different places when I begin praying, I pray outside my head. What do I mean by this? I journal. Some of you might thing that journaling is a girly thing. But I find it helpful because it allows me to keep focused. So you might want to give journaling a chance.
I hope that during this time of stillness and quietness, you take the opportunity to pray. Pray outside your head. Maybe start journaling, or praying out loud. Pray alone, or as a family. Do not miss an opportunity to meet with you Father!
To finish, I want to share this quote from Martin Luther. It is one of my favorite quotes about prayer. He says, “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”
Are you still alive? Then keep praying!
Today’s Family Resource for Growing Together is written by Gaby Gonzales Hackett, a youth worker in Lexington, SC.
MODGNIK 