Prayer Jars: Asking and Thanking

I was homeschooled when I was a child and we had morning devotions with my mother every day. After we read the Proverb of the day, we had a Prayer Jar that we passed around from which each of us drew 2-3 prayer requests. The requests included names of people we wanted to pray for each day like the president, our pastor, each family member, as well as prayer needs that our family had been made aware of. As a family, we saw many answers to prayer. We also saw that some prayers that were not answered the way we had hoped. The times when the prayers seemed to go unanswered gave us an opportunity to talk about God and His sovereignty. I hope this set of Prayer Jars will help your family to…

•  Constantly watch for needs that God can meet.
• Grow in compassion for others as you bring their needs to God.
• Become more confident in prayer.
• Strengthen your faith as you watch God answer prayers, large and small.
• Develop a grateful heart and express your thankfulness to God.
• Deepen your love and trust in God.

What to do:

1.  Decorate two Jars. One says “Prayer Jar: Asking” the other says “Prayer Jar: Thanking”
2. Make strips of paper and put them with some pens where everyone can find them.
3. Write each prayer need or name and the date on a single strip of paper and add them to the Asking Jar.
4. Pass the Asking Jar at any family meal, devotions, or maybe at bed time. Everyone can draw two or three to pray for each time. (Or pray for all of them every time if you choose) Then put the paper back in the Asking Jar for the next time.
5. When God answers, shout Hallelujah and thank Him for His goodness as earnestly as you asked for it.
6. Write the date on the back of the strip of paper and put it in the Thanking Jar.

“Christian brothers, keep your minds thinking about whatever is true, whatever is respected, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever can be loved, and whatever is well thought of. If there is anything good and worth giving thanks for, think about these things. Keep on doing all the things you learned and received and heard from me. Do the things you saw me do. Then the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:8-9 (NLV)

The God of peace…I love this promise and I have SEEN HIM SHOW UP in my life so many times!

I grew up with five brothers and sisters of which I’m number two, the oldest girl. My mother homeschooled us and my father was a pastor and also held any other job he could find to support us. We lived in a small lumber town and the economy was brutal. I remember there was a lot of concern about how the needs would be met.

I’m not suggesting you share all the weighty details of your family trials with your children, wisdom would say that they need to be sheltered from too heavy a load, but I am grateful that we knew some of it and that my parents let us walk through it with them, hand in hand with Jesus.

During this time, my mother decided to begin to keep track of everything the Lord did and all that He provided for us. She found a small calendar and each day, sometimes at dinner, would ask the children to name everything we could think of that the Lord had done for us that day and she would write it down. Nothing was too small or, in the case of a giant zucchini placed on our door step, too large! It was amazing how our faith grew as we watched the Lord provide for each family member. Often He answered prayers that we hadn’t even prayed, but rather were heart’s desires.

As parents, we are so used to thinking that WE are the ones our children should be able to look to for all their needs. We try to come to their aid when there is injustice or pain, real or imagined. We pull out the credit card if there is no other way.  It might be time we bow out gracefully and let our children idolize a new Hero, One who has a perfect timing for all things and wants to lavishly bless in the midst of it all. They need to see God’s footprints walking right through their lives every day. This calendar did that for my family.

As my mother wrote in it over several years, she began to notice something amazing, something that she never would have known if we had not been keeping track of the blessings. It seemed that every time a difficult situation came along in our life, there appeared mountains of blessings surrounding it. It was as if the Lord was causing the mountains to fill in the valleys.  The result was an even greater attitude of thanksgiving for all that the Lord was doing for us.

Who knew how very much I would need to know the Lord in this way? I have battled kidney failure my entire life, and more recently, cancer. The little girl whose mother kept a Blessings Calendar needed to know that God would take care of everything her parents couldn’t, and that mountains of blessing would surround the valley of the shadow of death. My mother’s faith in God became my faith because our family trials were opportunities to “Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in Him” (Psalm 34:8)