I spend my Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons on the golf course. How lucky right? I am very lucky to do that but more importantly, it is who I am with. Accompanying me on the course are 11 junior high golfers. Some of these kids have never played golf before and some have been playing their whole lives and it shows.
After warming up on the putting green, the kids come over for their usual pep talk. This is when I get real nasty with them, tell them everything they do wrong, everything they need to work on and what’s going to happen if they don’t fix it. I wish I did that. It might spark a little fire under them. Instead we talk and joke around and just enjoy the company of each other. We then proceed to the tee box where I tell them who will be on who’s team. They love finding out who they get to play with and who they get to possibly beat that day.
Before we get going for the day of golf, I always ask one of the kids to pray. I wish you could be there to listen to some of their prayers. They are so innocent and to the point.
“Please don’t let us get struck by lightning today.”
“Please don’t let us get hit by a golf ball or a golf club.”
“Please don’t let us hit our balls in the water and let us play good.”
“Please don’t let us get mad if we don’t do good.”
My kids are great. When they say these prayers, they truly mean them. They say it with their whole heart knowing that they will be taken care of by God. Sometimes we pray things but don’t necessarily believe they will happen or ever come true. Or we pray and we aren’t specific with our prayers. Learn from my boys – be specific and believe because God does hear them and He will take care of it.
After warming up on the putting green, the kids come over for their usual pep talk. This is when I get real nasty with them, tell them everything they do wrong, everything they need to work on and what’s going to happen if they don’t fix it. I wish I did that. It might spark a little fire under them. Instead we talk and joke around and just enjoy the company of each other. We then proceed to the tee box where I tell them who will be on who’s team. They love finding out who they get to play with and who they get to possibly beat that day.
Before we get going for the day of golf, I always ask one of the kids to pray. I wish you could be there to listen to some of their prayers. They are so innocent and to the point.
“Please don’t let us get struck by lightning today.”
“Please don’t let us get hit by a golf ball or a golf club.”
“Please don’t let us hit our balls in the water and let us play good.”
“Please don’t let us get mad if we don’t do good.”
My kids are great. When they say these prayers, they truly mean them. They say it with their whole heart knowing that they will be taken care of by God. Sometimes we pray things but don’t necessarily believe they will happen or ever come true. Or we pray and we aren’t specific with our prayers. Learn from my boys – be specific and believe because God does hear them and He will take care of it.
2 comments:
Glad to see you took the "this blogger does not allow anonymous comments" off. How funny you write this, I just sat with my boss talking about a prayer her daughter so innocently said last night about a friend they recently lost to cancer. All I could think of was how much Jesus told us to mimic and protect these little ones. You're right, they pray specifically and genuinely, something us adults have such a hard time doing. Perhaps because we think we have some sort of control over lightning or if we suck that day or not. Nice post Mitch...not as good as mine, but I'll give you kudos any way ;)
Most kids anyways...when I was about 5, I tried to use reverse psychology on God so that He wouldn't "make" me a missionary. But yes, the rest of my prayers were pretty to the point and innocent :)
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