Dear God...
"Dear God,
How did you know you were God?
- Charlene"
"Dear God,
On Holloween I am going to wear a Devil's costume, is that all right with you?
- Marnie"
In Children's Letters to God, Stuart Hample and Eric Marshall give us a collection of prayers that little children offered up to the Lord. If I were asked to describe the book in one word I would use the word "hilarious!" Me and my wife both cracked up laughing many times while we skimmed through it. Children have a way of making normal things funny, and they do a wonderful job of making prayer humorous in this little book.
Even though I had a good laugh the book also reminded me of the importance of honest prayer. None of the children in this book had a thesaurus to make their prayers sound "deep," yet you can almost see the sincerity on every single page. That is something that we adults often miss. For some reason when we come to God in prayer we begin speaking King James, NRSV, or some 16th century language that our favorite fathers spoke. Not so with these children, they wanted to say something to God and they said it. It is something that I want to re-learn, for I find a tendency within myself to doctor up my prayers and make them sound good. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with great sounding prayers, because there isn't; but if prayer is talking to God and hearing from God then shouldn't we talk instead of making speeches? Sometimes God must think we are trying out for a part in a Shakespeare play when we are supposed to be talking to him. Surely God is supreme, and God deserves to be honored in prayer and not spoken to as if he were our "bro," but we can do that without soliloquizing our prayers. I am sure that God would rather hear a sincere prayer spoken by someone with a basic vocabulary than some elaborate sounding prayer that is spoken beautifully without any sincerity behind it.
Something else I noticed is how the children ask God anything. For example:
"Dear God,
Is reverend Coe a friend of yours, or do you just know him through business?
- Donny"
"Dear God,
I am Amearican what are you?
- Robert"
To be able to ask God whatever is on our hearts is a gift. In these quotes we see children who think of God as a Father rather than some ethereal being that can only be approached with important prayers. In the same way Jesus delighted to have children come to him, God delights when we come to him in prayer as a child does. Please understand that I am not asking people with a vast vocabulary to dumb down their prayers; but if in our endeavors to pray we find ourselves not being ourselves then we should remember these children, ask God for forgiveness and start again. My daughter often comes to me and asks obvious questions; I love it when that happens. God must feel the same way when we come to him just as ourselves, and simply speak to him.
"Dear God,
I bet it is very hard for you to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only 4 people in our family and I can never do it.
- Nan"
It is my prayer that these children will teach you like they taught me.
My Opinion