Permanent Markers: A Hands-on Family Devotional of Spiritual Life SkillsSample

Prayer: Listening Up

Play:

We’re going to play charades but with something that happened to you today. You pick the event, and we’ll try to figure out what went on.

After each person’s turn, have them explain what happened and how they felt.

After we saw you act out the event, why did we still have you explain what happened?

Talk It Out:

Communication is about more than facts. A lot goes on inside us that actions don’t tell. And we want to know someone rather than just knowing about someone—like reading a book about someone isn’t the same as being friends.

In fact, God and Jesus ask questions in the Bible when they already know the answer. And God already knows what we need (Matthew 6:8).

Why pray if God already knows what we’re going to say?

Prayer is our chance to connect with God: to know and love Him, and invite Him to love us back. If prayer is just about making sure we ask God for things, that makes God more like an Alexa or Google or Siri - someone’s digital assistant!

When we don’t talk with God about what’s really on our minds—if prayer is more like ordering on a really good device—we don’t come away connected.

What would it be like to have a friend who always talked, always asked you to do things for them, but never listened to you or talked about things that really mattered?

Of course, God wants to know what we want and hear us tell Him about our days. But are we chatting about deeper things? Listening to Him in our hearts? …Or does prayer feel more like we’re reading a holy grocery list?

Prayer is like a conversation you’d have with a close friend throughout the day, hearing and responding. We keep our hearts open to what God might be trying to say back to us about our world and choosing to follow and be with Him all day. Just like He’s right next to us.

When do you most like to talk with God? When do you feel close to God? When do you feel far away from Him?

The great news? God doesn’t need to guess about what’s going on in your life. But He does want to hear about it—and talk about it, too.