As parents who love God and love our children, our greatest desire is that our home be a house of prayer. To be honest, sometimes our desire to achieve is so strong that we impose our own ideas and structures instead of trusting God to lead us. That was something that happened to us, as parents, and we had to repent for trying to put God in a box, thinking that the methods we developed were perhaps the only ones or the correct ones; and that they were the only way to have a family prayer time.
The Lord had to start working in me and my husband’s lives first, breaking all preconceived ideas and selfish desires and, as a result, we were able to begin to see what God wanted to do in the lives of our children, not just what we wanted for them.
A word that specifically speaks of the importance that Jesus gives to children is in Matthew 19:14, “But Jesus said, ‘Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.’”
Many times we have heard, and probably even taught, this passage, without realising something very important. Jesus was not speaking to the Pharisees, but specifically to His disciples; He was saying to them, “Let the children come to me.”
Today Jesus is still saying these words to us as parents! “Let your children come to Me and do not hinder them!”
Sometimes we must begin by repenting of our religiosity, of wanting to over-structure our family prayer times and surrender all control to Him. We need to trust Jesus and let Him attract our children to Himself through His loving invitation instead of our religious enforcement.