Have you ever wondered what a typical day was like for the Savior? We get a glimpse in Mark 1: He cast out devils, cleansed a leper, and taught in synagogues. He faced challenges from every direction and was still surrounded by those in need of His help.
But before the demands of the day began, Jesus started His day this way: “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.”
Our days may not include healing lepers or casting out devils. But like Jesus, we, as parents, face the challenge of having many people depend on us. Our daily demands may make us feel that our lives are impossibly full.
Prayer helped the Savior meet the demands of His days. Jesus “went about doing good” because His Father was with Him. This connection helped Jesus with the challenges He faced. Our prayers connect us to God and help us meet our parenting challenges. The Savior’s example of turning to His Father in prayer is a pattern we can follow.
Here are three things Jesus teaches us about prayer.
Praying to Align with God’s Will
First, prayer can change us when we stop treating it as a means of controlling outcomes and begin to view it as a way to draw nearer to God.
It is easy to wish that Heavenly Father would grant our wishes for smooth parenting on demand. But while that doesn’t usually happen, He does listen, soften our hearts, ease our burdens, give us comfort, help us learn, and inspire us to find solutions.
It is easy to wish that Heavenly Father would grant our wishes for smooth parenting.
If we are new to prayer or going through a particularly trying time, our view of what prayer can accomplish may be limited. But by being persistent and patient, we can gain a testimony that when we share our burdens, questions, and gratitude with God, He enters our story and the lives of our loved ones.
One young mother named Kenna changed her prayers, and her prayers changed her. When Kenna’s third child was suffering from ear infections and allergies, he had difficulty sleeping through the night. On the rare occasions that he would sleep through the night, the older two kids would often awake.
Kenna was totally exhausted. She kept praying desperately for her children to simply sleep through the night. But that never happened. She wrote:
I would just walk out of the room after rocking the baby back to sleep, lie down, and hear his cries start again. “Heavenly Father,” I cried out in my heart, “I know that you have the power to heal, to raise people from the dead, to cause sleep to come over a person or an entire city of Lamanites. Why can’t you make my one little baby sleep? I am trying to do Thy work, and it’s hard enough with a good night’s rest, let alone without! Can you please help me get some sleep?”
Over time, Kenna’s prayers shifted from a “grant me my wish” kind of prayer to one of acceptance of God’s will. She shared:
After some time of these increasingly frantic and repetitive pleas, I realized that I needed to change my prayer. “Please help him sleep, but if not, help me figure out what he needs. Help me get a nap tomorrow, or help me have enough energy to take care of the kids and get my things done at work.”
Once I changed my prayers, I was certainly less disappointed. I could also see that the Lord was helping me with all the other things I was praying for. I learned that He doesn’t always take our trials away. But He will help us through them when we change our request from “please take this away” to “but if not, help me handle it.”
How many of us have had desperate, agonizing, long nights like those she described? Kenna felt less disappointed with the outcome of her prayers when she recognized that her sleep challenge would likely continue, but God would help her in other ways.
Kenna also demonstrated the importance of learning to pray “but if not.” Using this phrase—and meaning it—in our own prayers to Heavenly Father shows our willingness to submit to Him. Although He may not remove our parenting trials, He will help us through them in His wisdom. He looks at the potential for our overall growth, not just our short-term comfort. We can still ask for what we desire, but if He has something else in mind for us, we can humbly accept it and know that He hears and loves us still. Kenna’s prayers changed her, and our prayers can change us when we are humble enough to align our will to His.
Praying for Children by Name
Jesus prayed often throughout His mortal ministry. The way He prayed can help us more effectively pray for help as parents.
We see glimpses of Jesus’ prayers in the scriptures. Jesus prayed for comfort and to give comfort to others. He prayed when He blessed and healed others. He expressed gratitude to His Father when His heart was full of joy and turned to Him when His heart was full of sorrow. We, too, can turn our hearts to God through prayer throughout our day, following Christ’s pattern.
Prayer can be a part of that pause between stimulus and response.
A few years back, I relied on prayer to get over a hurt caused by my daughter. She said something unkind, and though I tried to act like it didn’t bother me, it hurt. It wasn’t until I took this hurt to the Lord in prayer that my feelings began to change.
As I said her name while praying, I could feel my heart softening toward her. Involving God helped me see her efforts and stay kind. The Book of Mormon prophet Alma taught that we should “cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.” Elder David A. Bednar has taught that when we have a prayer always in our hearts, we can experience the following:
We notice during this particular day that there are occasions where normally we would have a tendency to speak harshly, and we do not; or we might be inclined to anger, but we are not. We discern heavenly help and strength and humbly recognize answers to our prayers. Even in that moment of recognition, we offer a silent prayer of gratitude.
Praying Between a Stimulus and a Response
Prayer can also help us respond better to the stressors of our day by creating space between when something happens and when we respond. Children fight over toys and cry when they don’t get their way, toast burns, socks are lost, and all before eight o’clock in the morning! With so many stimuli coming at us so fast, noticing the space between a trigger and our response can make a significant difference.
A stimulus is what psychologists such as B. F. Skinner call an object or event that elicits a response. The scriptures might refer to these objects or events as “enticements,” and today, we often call them “triggers.” To me, a trigger is anything that irritates me and could cause me to respond in an angry, combative, or harsh way. Our reactions to triggers may feel instantaneous and out of our control, but in reality, we choose how we respond.
In his foreword to the book Prisoners of Our Thoughts by Alex Pattakos, Stephen R. Covey quotes an unidentified author: “Between stimulus and response there is a space, in that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.” Prayer can be a part of that pause between stimulus and response. It doesn’t have to be a long prayer, and usually it won’t be. But the act of calling upon God for aid or picturing the Savior in that space can help us slow down to avoid reacting to stimuli without thought.
This can be hard! It is often more natural to react without thinking. Someone says or does something to us, and we reflexively respond. But we are still responsible for our actions, even if we don’t put thought into them. As Elder Lynn G. Robbins taught, Satan would like us to “believe that we are victims of an emotion that we cannot control.” When we say something like “You make me so mad,” it can sound as if we are not responsible for our actions. Our kids may make a huge mess, and our conditioned response may be to yell. But our children didn’t “make” us yell at them, and the mess didn’t “make” us yell about it. We chose to yell. This power to choose allows us to take control of our responses and find freedom from both external and internal forces that try to rob us of our agency.
I know that through Christ I am more in control of my emotions than I used to be.
When the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery to Jesus, He remained calm despite the harsh words they hurled. Jesus didn’t answer them right away. He wrote in the dirt and waited until they were quiet before He responded.
The scriptures don’t tell us why Jesus wrote on the ground, but His pause before responding stands out. It may have been to give Him time to think about how He wanted to act. Jesus lengthened His response time. When He did respond, He was in control of His emotions.
We can also lengthen our response time. When children are upset, and the tension in the air makes us feel like our response needs to be immediate, we can slow it down by taking a deep breath, saying a quick prayer, and then trusting that the Lord will help us respond in a calm, positive way.
We can practice lengthening our response time in simple moments. A while back, I asked my teen daughter to wash the dishes. She was not happy and exclaimed, “I’m not washing the dishes!”
I could have responded immediately with, “Oh, yes, you are!” Instead, I took a breath, prayed for patience, and said, “I’m glad you know what your job is.”
She reminded me how busy she was and that she didn’t have time, and I said, “I know you’re busy. Thanks for washing the dishes.”
She huffed, and I ignored it. I simply put rubber gloves by the sink and smiled sympathetically as I walked out. I could hear her noisily getting ready to wash the dishes, but she was washing the dishes.
Later that night, I thanked her for getting the job done, and she said, “Sorry, I overreacted. It didn’t take me that long.” I smiled and hugged her. It felt good to lengthen the space before I responded by letting Jesus in with a quick prayer.
Through simple experiences like these with my children, I have learned that it feels good to lengthen the space before responding by letting Jesus in with a quick prayer. It may take time for this to feel natural, but by being patient and prayerful, Christ will help us lengthen the time between a trigger and our response, so we respond as He would.
Making Prayer Part of Our Parenting Solution
Jesus often took time to pray, reflect, and center Himself. He didn’t wait for a problem to arise before He decided to be calm. He had likely made that decision during the time He spent with His Father. He acted rather than reacted to His challenges. His example can help us change our response to difficult situations.
I still make mistakes and occasionally yell when things catch me off guard, but I know that through Christ I am more in control of my emotions than I used to be. When we make prayer a bigger part of our parenting, we can receive help with our responses, feel peace, and align our will with the Father’s. Jesus loves us, knows our hearts, and wants us to counsel with our Heavenly Father about creating space to act. And perhaps, as we follow the Savior’s example, our typical days can become something extraordinary, filled with His peace and joy.
This article is adapted from the author’s book Christ-Centered, Intentional Parenting, published by Cedar Fort Publishing & Media.
