Prayer Cube
Besides being a wife, mom, and the writer for Cravings {The
Devotional} I work outside of the home as a Family Life Director for Radiant
Church in Surprise, Arizona.
I have been in full time church ministry for 16
years and while it is not an easy choice to work I still have a call on life to
be in this job. My primary responsibility is in our curriculum, writing and
developing what all the young minds will learn and know about God and Christ. I
take my job very seriously and know that parents trust us with their little
people.
One of your greatest fears when this is your “job” is that
your own kids won’t “get it” or will be sick of church because they too
naturally spend a lot of time there. And over the last month or two I have
watched one of my fears become a bit of a reality. My three year old, soon to
be four, has not wanted to pray before meals. When it is time to pray he will
flat our refuse. At first we were “demanding” that he pray with us but I
quickly realized this approach wasn’t going to cultivate a love of prayer. So I
got creative.
I took a box I had, covered it in brown paper, and covered
the sides in our initials (the extra sides have a random shape on them). When
it came to prayer time I introduced our prayer cube. He rolls the cube and
whatever initial lands up is the person who gets to pray for the food. If it
lands on one of the shapes he gets to roll again. I have to tell you it is a
hit!!! The first time we tried it he wanted to keep rolling and rolling and
rolling until his “R” came up. We have used it for a full solid week and each
meal he has come to the table excited to pray.
Of course my hope and prayer is that he will develop a joy
of giving thanks without the prayer cube but if he needed a fun and creative
nudge in the right direction I was going to provide that for him. Do you have a
spiritual disciple that seems to be a struggle for your kids? I would love to
hear about it and brainstorm ideas that could help.
Prayer Cube Supplies:
Any cube
shaped box
Wrapping
Paper
Letters that
represent your family initials
Glue
Tape
Directions
Wrap the
cube and glue on your initials. Easy as pie!
*** One
thing I learned after the fact is that I put my real name initial “C” on the
cube. When it came up my son wondered who the “C” was for since he thinks of my
name as Mommy. In hindsight I would do an “M” and “D” for Daddy.
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