God Is Great, God Is Good…thank you for my VANS!

{originally published in 2011}   Several years ago, my youngest son, Tifton Jack (aka…Jackhammer), decided that he wanted to pray for the family meal. At this time Tifton was around 6 years old and he asked all of us to hold hands as he launched into “one of those prayers”. And it went something like this… “Jesus, I thank you for this food.” 2 minute pause… “I thank you for the grass.” Another 2 minute pause… “I thank you for my brother Cole and I thank you for my vans.” And as we are all sitting there with our eyes closed he gets up from the table and runs to his room… At this point my stomach is growling and I can’t image what he is doing.  So he runs back to the dinner table with his Bible, he opens it up and resumes his prayer position. And then he starts, I guess what you might call a “reading the Bible prayer”… “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” I am thinking, surely he’s not planning on “reading/praying” the Bible from start to finish.  So I immediately interrupted and said “Tifton, great job!”  And everyone said, “AMEN!”  And we dug into the grub! This is one of my all time favorite Team Sprad stories and I wanted to share it with you because I think so many of us limit our prayer time as a family to “dinner time prayers.” God is calling all parents to teach their kids about prayer and to teach them to live a bold and courageous prayer life! Team Sprad tries to live this out and every single morning on our way to school we ask God to whisper to our hearts and show us the people that need to be lifted up and encouraged.  This is not a casual, half- hearted prayer!  This is a BOLD prayer of faith and we believe that God will send those who need love our way. Once we started praying this prayer, my kiddos eyes began to open to the fact that God desired to speak to them and direct their daily steps.  God began sending the hurting, rejected, friendless, and unpopular kids to Team Sprad.  They found themselves praying for kids that were struggling, sitting with kids at lunch that were all alone, and they found out that God desires to use them as missionaries while they are at school. Parents…it is time to move beyond the “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for the food prayers” to bold, life changing, shake heaven and earth prayers!