How Old Do You Have To Be??

"Father God, thank you for this day, for the whole world you created....." as he finished his prayer, the pastor looked up and said, "Ah, I am amazed that he can pray!"
We were shocked at the amazement of the pastor who is the father of five children. This small scenario sparked a fire of questions that began to ring in my head and as the days passed the curiosity increased.
I began to ask our national friends at what age they began to pray on their own. Their answers not only shocked me, but infuriated me and drove me to want to do something about it. The average age that they began to pray on their own was 13 years old.
I thought that maybe it was just the bush where children were not taught how to call upon the Lord in the good and bad times. I asked a friend of mine that is a missionary in Lusaka (the capital city) and she told me that when children there are asked to pray outloud they always pray the Lord's Prayer. I am not saying that praying the Lord's Prayer is bad but it is rhetorical sometimes and that is the prayer that is prayed.
I have a mission now. I want to use each opportunity that I have with children, either one on one or in a large group, to teach them how to pray. Out of all of the people that I asked, Zeria was the only person that was taught to pray when she was a young child.
Teaching our children to pray is so important even though their prayers may be elementary to begin, we all have to start somewhere and grow in our walk and our prayers of petition, intercession, confession, praise, and thanksgiving. As I continued to be baffled about this issue Kendall said something that hit home with me. He said, "Children do what they see. If they see their parents pray, they will learn. If they don't see their parents pray then they don't know how to pray or that it is important." DING! The lightbulb went off in my head. So at the meeting last week, the last thing that I taught was the Prayer Hand and the five forms of prayer: Confession, Petition, Intercession, Thanksgiving, and Praise. It was awesome to see the faces of young women and older women light up at this teaching. They held their hands high in the air as I taught them how each finger represents a type of prayer and they were excited! I will never take for granted my godly parents, Sunday School teachers, and other influential adults who took the time to teach me how to pray. It is something that none of us will fully understand nor perfect, but it is a powerful and amazing blessing given to us by our Heavenly Father!
My prayer is like that of Paul for the Ephesians:

"For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power in the inner man through His Spirit, and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

 Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us— to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. "    Ephesians 3:14-21