Prayer - We can listen to God

 Hello and welcome back to our Christchurch Kids blog, We hope you've had a great week.

Recently, we've been looking at prayer and the sorts of things that we can talk to God about. The thing about prayer is that it's not just talking to God but listening to Him as well. Prayer helps us be close to God. Can you imagine having a friend who only ever talked to you but never listened to a word you said? That would be a bit strange. God wants us to listen to Him as well as talk to him - He's got things he wants to tell us. 

Let's listen to a story from the Bible about a boy called Samuel who became really good at listening to God, but it wasn't always like that...

Have you seen people praying when they just sit in silence? Sometimes they are thinking of what to say, or talking to God in their heads but sometimes they are listening. It's good to pray and ask God to help us listen to Him. 

Here is a story from the Little Shoots, Deep Roots blog about a time when this mum's two sons listened to God...

Giggling, my boys scurried into their beds. One up the ladder to the top bunk, the other underneath. Damp hair curled around their ears, smelling fresh from the bath. 

It was time to listen to God.  I asked them to repeat these words:

“Jesus, please help me to listen to you. Help my heart and mind to be quiet so I can hear you. Jesus, what would you like to say to me today?”

Then I reminded them that it was time to be quiet and wait for Jesus to respond, something that is very hard for small boys to do. 

But within a minute, my younger son said “I think he wants to say ‘I love you.’”

The older boy was discouraged because he hadn’t heard any whispers in his heart; he said his brain was too noisy. I encouraged him to ask God to help his brain be quiet.

His quiet whispers traveled from the top bunk to my ears, and straight to God’s heart: “God please help my brain to be quiet so I can hear what you have to say to me.”

Only a few seconds had passed when I saw his face poking out over the top of the bunk. With a smile that simultaneously held surprise, joy, and bashfulness, he told me what God had spoken to him.

“God said ‘I love you, Cubbie.'”

Both boys had an experience with God that evening but I believe it was the most meaningful to Cubbie, my 7 year old. He knows what it’s like to have an incredibly busy brain, one that is constantly coming up with ideas and plans. But in one simple heart-whisper, his heart and mind were brought to peace.

Isn't that a great story. It's even better that we get to share that story and be encouraged to listen to God as well.  God can talk to us if we listen just like He did for those boys.

There are lots of ways that God can talk to us:

• Through the Bible.
• Sometimes it's a whisper in our heart, like in the story above.
• It might be in a special dream or a picture that pops into your head.
• God might tell us things by giving a message for us to someone who we know and trust.
• Sometimes it can be the words to a Bible verse or a song remembered at just the right time.

If you think that God has spoken to you, talk it through with a grown-up you trust, just like Samuel did in our story today.  Eli helped Samuel to hear God's voice.  

A Game to play

We've been doing a lot of talking about listening so here's a game where we can practice our listening skills

Can you guess what animal is making the sound?

Colouring

God speaks to us through the Bible and so the better we know the Bible, the easier it is to hear God.

We've got some colouring pages that we have collected over the past year on our blog with lots of different Bible verses. Have a look through them. Is there one that that jumps out at you? Maybe that is what God wants to say to you today?

Click here for our colouring pages

Prayer

We can take a moment to be still and quiet and pray the prayer that the boys prayed in the story above. 

Jesus, please help me to listen to you. Help my heart and mind to be quiet so I can hear you. Jesus, what would you like to say to me today?

We've got a song to finish today which is great to help us get moving again after we've been sitting still and quiet. We can sing and dance and praise God that He is the only one we want to follow...

 We'll be back here next week with F@CT Online but you can also join us in church for our F@CT service. You don't need to book a space anymore so you can just pop along on Sunday morning at 10am to join in with F@CT . We'll be hearing a story, doing actions to songs, trying out prayers, making crafts and having fun learning more about God.