Mr. McFarland
speaker
52 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Oct 2024
last heard Oct 2024
Mr. McFarland’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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And that's how we got the Lord's Prayer in the first place, not something we were to recite all the time, but it was a model to demonstrate how to pray, how prayer should progress. And it begins with the most important first petition, that we would treat the name of God as holy. Hallowed be thy name. And so I was thinking that this has been so helpful to me, and it's been so helpful to adults,
Why not for children? Why not children learning this method early on in their lives so that they can build on it as they get older and older? Because there's no end to praying through the Ten Commandments or the Lord's Prayer or the Apostles' Creed as a structure to trigger our thinking and the focus of our meditation. Because our prayers should be more and more and more focused on adoration.
and on the praise of God, and less and less and less on our own interceding for our wants and our needs, you know, where sometimes we bring a laundry list or a Christmas list and think that God is a heavenly Santa Claus. No. The real depth of prayer comes when we are adoring God.
I think that the parents should teach the kids how to do it, just like Luther taught his barber. It's not hard. I mean, children can learn things quickly, and they can memorize it with amazing speed and accuracy. It's nothing for children to learn to memorize the Lord's Prayer or the Ten Commandments. I mean, just about every child in church at some point has memorized the Ten Commandments.
But if you give the adults in the church now a little quiz and say, please name the Ten Commandments in order, not one in ten is able to do that. But if you're praying through the Ten Commandments all the time and focusing your mind and your thinking on it and your meditation on it, then the very law of God takes deep root in your mind and in your heart.
And this is something that will be with you your entire life.
Well, you know, in the Old Testament, the watershed moments of God's redemptive activity, such as the Exodus, was recalled every year at the Passover feast, and it was the custom of the parents to teach the children what God had done and what had taken place. I often say to people, I'm a Protestant who knows what he's protesting. But most Protestants don't. And they have forgotten.
the awakening that took place in the 16th century when the gospel was brought out of the darkness and into the light. That's a watershed moment in church history, a watershed moment for the people of God. Our children need to know about the heroes of the 16th century and the price that was paid to recover the gospel for the churches. What about posture?
Well, you know, Calvin thought that the best way to pray was standing up with your eyes open and looking up to the heavens with your arms uplifted. Other people feel more comfortable on their knees. I love to get down on my stomach, on the ground, on the rug. I think it's important to get comfortable.
So that you're not thinking about how your body's feeling, but your entire focus is given to the exercise of prayer itself. But the good thing about bowing down, which is a classical method, is you're adopting a posture of adoration while you're involved in prayer.
Well, I think the most important thing that they can teach their children is to learn these three things that are in this story. Learn to memorize the Apostles' Creed, to memorize the Ten Commandments, to memorize the Lord's Prayer, and then demonstrate for them examples of how you focus on the different petitions or the different parts of the prayer itself.
Oh, it's my privilege, and I'm delighted with these little children's stories, and I think so many times they're more helpful for the parents than they are for the children, because every parent can be greatly blessed by learning this simple way to pray for their own prayer life.
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