From Draw the Circle, "there comes a moment when you must quit talking to God about the mountain in your life and start talking to the mountain about your God."
As a group on Sunday we drew from the text, Mark 11:15-26 to learn and pray in 3 sessions:
Pray for faith - see also Mark 9:24, "I believe, help me in my unbelief."
Pray for forgiveness - that we would forgive anyone we have anything against (Mk 11:25)
Pray for mountains to be thrown into seas, Mark 11:23
There are aspects of prayer that will always be mysterious to us. We can share that with our children. Though there are not proven formulas or magical words, there are thematic truths that we can learn from Scripture about prayer and this passage contains some of them.
God wants us to believe and God wants us to forgive others. The last couple of weeks have had a lot of focus on prayer and faith. Let's spend some time this week teaching our children about anger, grudges, and forgiveness.
Think through the lesson first on your own and prayerfully consider how you can teach these things to your children this week.
Here are some ideas we came up with:
Find something with weight, a sack of potatoes, or a large bag of sugar or 10 lb dumbell. Label it "anger" or "grudge." Have the family take turns carrying it around to identify that when we do not forgive, we are the person who suffers the most.
Along those same lines, here is a 5-minute video about an angry bee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aEUjlxOK-Y
Here is another short video on "How forgiveness works." https://www.pursuegodkids.org/how-forgiveness-works/ scroll down for a discussion guide.
Here are a handful of neat object lessons and craft ideas (not from a Christian perspective but on point). A good variety for you to choose something that'll work for you and your kids.
Don't forget to tie these ideas about forgiveness into the 6-week prayer challenge we've been doing...
If you are not praying as a family - get going on that. Many have found mealtimes and bedtimes to be easiest to work family prayer into the daily schedule - how about you?