Prayer is an interesting thing. Many people pray a little bit, but few realise what prayer is really all about. I expect you will have at some point in your life been in a situation where you've felt the need to offer up a prayer of some sort. But when you did it's quite likely that you weren't really sure if anyone was listening to you, or if they were whether anything would happen.

It's sad that this is the experience of so many when it comes to prayer.

God loves you, and delights to be with you. Prayer is the act of spending time with Him. It's not about shouting words into thin air, but sitting down with a Father who loves you and wants to hear what's on your heart. What surprises many people though is that prayer is a two way experience. As much as we can tell God about the things we would like Him to do something about, God also has stuff he's really like to tell us too. Prayer is about listening, in fact when you get into it you will find that prayer is often mostly about listening to what God would like to tell you today. 

Of courseif you don't really believe in God, or believe that He cares about you enough to talk to you, then this will sound very far fetched indeed, but if you do believe in a real live and kicking God then the fact that he wants to speak to you today should come as no surprise at all.

So when we ask you to say that you are going to pray for your child we are not really asking if you're going to shoot up the occassional arrow prayer to God. What we're really understanding by your commitment to pray for your child is that you are going to find time each day to spend with God, to tell Him what's on your heart and then to listen to Him about what's on His heart for you, your family and your child. It's not a bad thing to agree to do - after all - every parent finds they need help from a wise parent, and since God's had billions of children and has been around for a bit it is perhaps fair to say there's no one who knows more about raising kids, and no one who understand you and your fmaily better than He does!