Lessons from a child

When Luke got home from school today I sent him straight upstairs to clean and vacuum his room. I had cleaned the rest of the house today (except his room and his brothers room) and I decided I was not responsible for cleaning their rooms. Today was the day I was putting my foot down and letting them both know it was high time THEY cleaned their own rooms.

I walked upstairs to take a couple of shirts to Luke so he could hang them in his closet. As I made my way up the stairs I was preparing myself for the typical tweenager sigh that seems to accompany any request I have for him lately. Or maybe I'd get the "mom, would you PLEASE do it for me". Because you know it's impossible for a tweenage boy to hang up a shirt, but somehow he can find the time and dexterity to play hours on the PSP or Playstation. But anyway...

As I walked into his room I saw a sight that made me stop and almost break into tears. My 10 year old was on his knees praying. At first I was a little worried and concerned-had something happned at school to get him upset. Had someone been sick or hurt? Recently one of his classmates had lost his Father in a car accident. I was afraid something else had happened.

But then I saw that he had his "prayer bucket" in his hands. This past summer at VBS the kids made "Prayer Buckets". Just small craft buckets that they painted and then they took popsicle sticks and wrote things such as "dad", "mom", "aunt", "pastor", "friend", and "teachers" on them. They could pull a stick out and pray for whoever was listed on it.

I asked Luke if he'd been praying for someone on one of his sticks. He told me yes, that he'd pulled out several and then randomly picked one to pray for and it was his teachers. Then he told me he'd had two substitutes today- so he had prayed for all 4 of his teachers.

WOW- what an example! All he'd been sent up to do was clean his room but instead he had dusted off his "prayer bucket" and prayed for someone. Oh, to have the faith of a child- or to realize that I can and should stop throughout my day to pray for others. It was so easy for him, he just stopped what he was doing and prayed. No big event happened to cause him to pray. There was no utter chaos going on in his world- just a simple reminder as he saw the bucket that he should pray.

Precious God, thank you for using Luke to show me that I need to take the opportunity throughout my day to pray for others!!