Why Children Should Pray Often in Church

The new year brought me a new class of children to teach at church. I traded in the rambunctious 5-6 year-olds (you may remember such comments as "Are you in marriage with him? He looks like a Chinese man" from the loquacious and affectionate Clara, or "I can karate you in half from head to toe" from freckle-faced Gideon) for an angelic little troupe of 4-5 year-olds (five girls, one boy). They are beyond adorable.

Every Sunday offers several of those delightful, artless, and brilliant conversation pieces that only imaginative children are capable of delivering. The winner for this week came during the closing prayer, given by the most precocious and heart-meltingly verbal four-year old I have ever encountered (that fact that she is quarter-Japanese may also warm my heart towards her). She has an articulate, pronounced little voice that belies her tender years, and began her prayer with the endearing but customary petitions for everyone to be nice to each other, and thanking the Lord for the nice day at church. And then came this jewel:

"Please bless us that we will not be eaten by foxes, and that we will not go into the woods without our parents."

Not only was the initial "bless us that we will not be eaten" a shocker, but to be followed up by "foxes"?! Too wonderful. The best part may have been that no other child in the class blinked a figurative eye at this. This is why children are so marvelous. They perfectly understand the sincere desire in one of their peers to not get eaten by foxes, even when sequestered inside a sterile church-building in suburban northern Virginia, and do not think such a wish in any way out of place with "thank you that we learned about Jesus today" or "bless us to be nice." Who knows how many of them were feeling slightly nervous about the trip home from church, and if foxes might be encountered along the way.

Adults could not similarly impress children because most of our fear-driven petitions would either sound boring ("Please bless our 401K to be fruitful and our tax return to be mighty") or totally irrelevant ("Please bless me to not get skin cancer from all those times I should have worn sunscreen") compared to possible dismemberment and consumption by foxes.