Teach Them to Pray

This last weekend I took my two oldest children skiing.  When it was finally too cold for them (we were night skiing), we left and headed down the mountain.  It was about 20 degrees outside, and I quickly realized that the road was very slick with a small layer of snow/ice on it.  Right after leaving the ski resort we found a car that had slid into a snowbank.  I realized that even at going only 10 mph, I was having trouble stopping.  I expressed my concern about making the trip down the mountain safely, and I had my daughter say a prayer for us.  We slowly made our way down, and after about twenty minutes covering only a few miles, the road cleared of the ice and we were okay.  My seven-year-old son told me about that point that he had been praying that whole time for us and saying the same words over and over in his mind for our safety.  This made the somewhat frightening experience all worth it.  We have struggled to get him to be sincere in his prayers, and so to have him really pray for help to the Lord was a small miracle for me in its own right. 

            This experience has led me to think about the need I have as a parent to teach my children to pray.  As my children get older I realize more the obvious fact that I won’t always be around to help them or guide their choices or protect them from the countless dangers—physical and spiritual—that they will face.  But I can do my best to arm them with the one thing that can help them in every situation they could ever face: prayer.  Modern-day scripture states of parents, “They shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord” (Doctrine and Covenants 68:28).  Of all of the good things that we as parents can teach our children, surely helping them gain the ability and faith to pray to our Father in Heaven is one of the very best.  Prayer is one of the first things that the Lord taught to his children, Adam and Eve, when they started their mortal journey.  The angel brought this message to them, “Thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore” (Moses 5:8).  They were to call upon God, to pray with all their hearts, forevermore.  That was one of the great guiding lights that He gave to them, and it is an immeasurable gift that we can give our own children to help them successfully navigate this difficult life.  This seems to be what made such a big impact on Enos—he knew how to pray when he went into the woods that day because he had seen and heard his father pray over and over again.  He recorded, “I, Enos, knowing my father that he was a just man—for he taught me in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”  Surely part of that “language” of his father was the language of prayer, and as Enos pondered “the words which [he] had often heard [his] father speak concerning eternal life” he was led to kneel down before God in mighty prayer (Enos 1:1-3).  The words of Enos tells us that Jacob did not teach his son about the gospel and the pattern of prayer in a single instance, but rather over time as Enos heard the prayers of faith of his father and learned that this was indeed the way for him to communion with God.  We need to help our children, and ourselves, develop the attitude about prayer that Moses had, "I will not cease to call upon God, I have other things to inquire of him" (Moses 1:18).