My 2 year old is obsessed with praying right now.
It’s actually super cute.
Anytime he sits down at the table, no matter what time of day it is or what he’s doing at the table, he insists that we all say a prayer.
Or if he catches me folding my arms in any casual situations, he insists that we stop and say a prayer.
Of course, I can’t say no to a prayer, so we are saying a lot of short and sweet prayers nowadays.
But my 4 year old is starting to get to the point where she doesn’t just do things because mom and dad tell her to.
She wants to know WHY we are doing them.
And so as we’ve worked to develop our family habits of praying and reading the scriptures together, I’ve started trying to be more conscious in how I talk about these habits.
Instead of: “It’s time to read and pray before we go to bed.”
I’ve been trying to do more of: “It’s time to read scriptures so that we can learn more about Jesus!”
I was actually pleasantly surprised to see how explicitly the Lord tries to teach this to the Israelites, too!
After He taught them about repeating the Passover ordinance each year, He says in Exodus 12:26-27:
“And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses.”
The Lord wanted the people to not just celebrate the Passover each year after this first initial miracle–
He wanted His people to teach their children WHY they were repeating this Passover ordinance and celebration.
It can be so easy to get caught up in just trying to get our kids to cooperate in saying prayers, in staying quiet at church, in paying tithing, in setting goals, in serving and showing kindness…
But the Lord wants us to also teach the WHY.
Why do YOU try to be reverent at church? Why do YOU say prayers, and pay tithing, and attend the temple?
When we can share our own testimonies and our own “why”s with our kids, we are sharing our hearts and truly teaching our values in authentic ways.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
