Does your children’s school have a Moment of Silence every morning before the school day begins? I hope so. If not you should make sure that their public school is hosting this moment if it is legal in your state.
“Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days” Ecclesiastes 5:6
Years ago I decided that on Sunday nights during our family devotion time, I would ask my girls to continue to pray over our featured topic during their Moment of Silence at school. My then High Schooler Kassie, looked at me and said with a sarcastic laugh, “Um, no, I am NOT going to be doing that.” I didn’t make a big fuss about it, but did continue to suggest the use of the Moment of Silence. After a couple of months, Kassie came up to me and said this, “I’ll just let you know, that I have been praying during the Moment of Silence. Your topic comes to my mind, and I think I should pray about it.” YES!!! I could tell that it did pain her just a little bit to tell me that, but I was glad for the affirmation. Today, she is a college graduate, wife, mother, and worship leader.
“The Moment of Silence was established in the stead of public led prayer in schools in 1962. Due to the establishment rule of the first amendment, the American Atheist convinced law makers that by teachers leading prayers in school that they were in essence establishing a religion that may not be the preferred religion of the students and parents. Therefore, they may be made to feel inferior to Christians. Bible reading and prayer evolved from the fact that the US is a Christian nation and many learned to read while reading from the Bible before there were text books. Although I understand that because of laws such as these, Americans are dangerously treading against God, I do feel that in the past Americans have relied too heavily on legalized religion to do the work that God set aside for Christians to do. Now, we have to clearly stand up and be counted. We must not take for granted the Moment of Silence, or we are no better than our parents who took prayer in schools for granted. It is disheartening to see Christians get upset about these laws that remove prayer from school, Bibles from the workplace and the Ten Commandments from the courthouses when we are so poor at living authentic personal Christian lives – it is the truest definition of hypocrisy. Our children need to know why we have a Moment of Silence and how to use it. The Moment of Silence is practiced in only a handful of states, including Tennessee and Kentucky.” Author, unknown.
Here are some topics I used for my teenage daughters and some others you might want to use:
– The value of human life (Pray for those whom are considering abortion)
– Respect for others (Pray for the bullied and the bullies)
– God’s Best (Pray for future spouses)
– Salvation (Pray for lost friends)
– The Orphaned (Pray for classmates whom are in foster homes)
– Child Abuse (Pray for those whom are in abusive homes)
– The Poor and Needy (Pray for those who have little)
Now, I am in no way suggesting that because I taught my girls these precepts that they modeled them perfectly, but I will tell you that they are deeply ingrained in their own individual worldviews, and as adults they clearly know right from wrong. As parents, this is all we can do – be authentic in our own walk of faith, and teach our children according to the scriptures.
Simply take the above recommended topics, search the scriptures and use them during your family devotion time discussions. I will say that both of my daughters have very strong convictions about their faith, and I do believe they came from our in-depth conversations and their prayers on these topics. Prayer moves the mind to God’s truth and our hearts to action.
“Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it” Proverbs 22:6 NLT
