Prayer Topics

Sometime this last April, I noticed that my oldest child, then four, was getting very repetitive in his prayers. I reminded him of the purpose of prayer and that we are supposed to offer sincere prayers.

"You shouldn't says the exact same thing at every prayer," I reminded him.

"Well, you and Daddy do!" He replied.

Oops.

Apparently, the entire family could use a Family Home Evening lesson on prayer.

As I studied my Gospel Principles book (the book being used by Priesthood and Relief Society this year), I happened to be reading the lesson on Prayer, chapter 8. Funny how that works out, right? I found it to be an excellent lesson guide for our Family Home Evening lesson. You can prayerfully read that and pull out what you think would be best for your family.

I wanted to share an idea I had while reading this. I had the idea to create a prayer paper for our family. Since my children are all young and don't really read yet, I did pictures. On this paper, I put pictures of things we should pray about. Here is a list from the manual:

• Strength to resist temptations
• Confess sins
• Ask for forgiveness
• Our families
• Our friends
• Our neighbors
• Our crops
• Our animals
• Our daily work
• Other activities
• Protection
• Express love
• Feel closer to Him
• Thank Him
• Strength to live gospel
• Keep on strait and narrow path
• Be righteous in thoughts, words, and actions
• Blessing on food
• Pray before meetings that we may worship in a manner that pleases Him
• Not in manual, but for our prophet

I didn't do a picture for everything here. I put a picture of our immediate family and our extended families. I put pictures of friends and neighbors. I put a picture of our garden and a picture of our dogs. I put a picture of our son playing soccer. I put a picture of a heart for love and a picture of Christ.

We don't look at this before every prayer we ever say. We try to remember to say it before family prayer at night. That way, once a day, our children (ahem--and their parents) are reminded of the things we are to pray about and we can hopefully avoid repetitious prayers.

Another idea for you if you have only younger children is you could make a page of how we should look when we pray. With our young toddlers, we teach them to close their eyes, fold their arms, and bow their heads. Then of course for some prayers you also kneel.

This was a great lesson to read to teach our family about prayer.

Prayer Topics