Teaching Children to Praise God Through Nature and Prayer
All Creation is Praising God-but are we?
God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Genesis 1:3
This is the start of creation as written in the bible…
The beginning of the beautiful universe that He made to lavish upon us!
And in return for His humungous love for us we should be praising Him every second of the day…but- do I?
And as Catholics, do we pass on this awesomeness of creation onto our children? If we did this they can start to touch the awesome love that God has for them.
The image of the Earth above – our home for now! This is the home that God created for us so that we could learn to love Him back. To love Him back for all the ‘over-the top love’ that He sends you and me!
There are so many places in scripture where not only are men & women praising God but so also are the stars, the sun and the moon. It says so in Psalm 148:3. Please check out this short video about creation singing- I think it is p-r-e-t-t-y amazing! I got ‘Holy Spirit bumps’ when I saw this!
Children are Drawn to Nature
I think that all children can become fascinated by nature…and through nature they can be fascinated by their Creator – if we show them how!
Many kids love flowers, bugs, rabbits, fish, the moon, the stars -all sorts really. If we bring this up in conversation with them and help them to thank God for it…then this is surely the start of praise, right?
What struck me in nature – as a child
I can only speak from my own experience- As a child I was really drawn to Forget-Me-Not flowers that grow in England..I thought they looked like someone had drawn icing on them. Can you see it? They actually reminded me of the iced biscuits we had at some parties.
As I grew up, I became more blown away by dramatic and beautiful skies, by blossom on trees -by so many things. They all seemed to flow into my being as I looked at them and their beauty sort of filled me up- It was like I was drinking it in. Have you ever felt like that about anything?
As a Middle-aged Woman
Now as a middle-aged woman, I can see that I MUST praise God for all this beauty and love that He has lavished on us.
More importantly, we must nudge children to do this too. I think it’s harder to be this expressive if one comes from a traditional background.
This used to be me. But being involved in the Charismatic Renewal has really helped me see that that not praising God is contrary to how God wants us to live every day.
Bedtime Prayer
So, you could try as an experiment to ask your young kids to prepare for bedtime by gathering objects and pictures of things they love and find beautiful.
You could encourage them to thank God specifically for what they loved about these.
Then you could bring all their heartfelt thoughts -and yours- together in a song of praise.
This isn’t just an exercise and something fun to do…it reminds them, and us, that God is real and that He is really present with us -and that He hears our every prayer of thanksgiving and petition. He hears everything.
I still have to keep reminding myself of this too…that I am not alone trying to sort out my problems: God is there and willing to help – just ask!!
God sees our sincerity in trying to bring a bit of Heaven to earth and will He will surely reward us by touching our children’s hearts with His grace.
Ask and you shall receive..
Seek and you shall find..
Knock and the door shall be opened..
