Becoming as a Child

In my church, I teach the 5 year old Sunday School class, and my daughter is one of the members of my class. This week we learned about prayer.  We learned about why we pray, to thank God for our blessings and to ask for his help. We learned how to pray, to close our eyes, fold our arms and bow our heads. We talked about the things we could pray about, like a sick family member or safety on a trip. I left them with a challenge. I asked them, in addition to their nightly prayers, to try to remember to say a prayer in the morning when they first woke up, so their thoughts could be with God that day.  They were excited to take the challenge and even came up with ways they could remember, like writing signs and putting them on their bedroom walls.  We also talked about how they couldn't rely on their parent's to remind them.

Sometime in the last week, my husband and I had lost the only key to one of our cars. The problem was that since I work at home we don't drive it very often so I had absolutely no idea where it could be.  We cleaned every room in the house, checked under the couch and in the cushions, emptied out drawers and checked the pockets of anything we own that has pockets. Eventually I started searching for how we could go about getting a new key.

Then, this morning, two things happened. First, as I passed by my daughter's room I could hear her talking. I assumed that she was singing in bed (most likely a song from Frozen) and I went in to wish her good morning. Instead, I hear her saying a prayer.  These are the moments in a Mom's life when she can let go of some of her insecurities and truly believe that she is doing something right!  Then later as my husband was leaving he said 'You should have Maddie say a prayer to find the keys."

She left with her Grandma for the zoo a few minutes later before I could ask her to say a prayer. Then as I sat at my computer searching for locksmiths on Google I had a thought. I should pray. My next thought was no, that is silly. Heavenly Father has way more important things to worry about than my lost keys. It is one thing for a child to pray about such things, but I am a grown up and I can find my own keys. It is my carelessness that lost them in the first place. 

But I do believe in prayer and I realized that anytime you think you shouldn't pray is exactly when you should because the only person who doesn't want you to pray is Satan. So I closed my eyes, folded my arms and bowed my head and prayed to find my lost keys.  A moment later I stood up and went into the kitchen. My eyes fell upon the wooden booth that makes up our table set, and I thought I haven't looked behind there. I didn't expect to find anything because I couldn't see how the keys could fall behind there. The booth is pushed up against the wall and there is no gap. But I pulled it away from  the wall and there on the floor... were my keys.

If I had not found my keys would the moral of this story be different? I don't think so, because the moral is not just that prayer will find lost things. The moral of this story is to be as a child, humble and meek and go to your Heavenly Father with your needs and your righteous desires. Because he is our father and he wants nothing more than to communicate with his children.

Matthew 18
 1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

 2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,

 3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

 4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven