An extemporaneous talk to the First Grade 11:00 Sunday School class on23-Oct-1966 by Norman S. Ream. The class had just returned from a fire drill which took them outside for a few minutes. They seated themselves on the floor in front of Mr. Ream and the classroom teacher. Comments by the classroom teacher are in parenthesis.
It doesn't matter what religion you belong to, Christianity, Buddhism, orJudaism -- every religion practices some kind of prayer where they try to get close toGod and feel God' s presence. Sometime we mistakenly think that prayer means thatyou shut your eyes and begin to ask God for things, and thanking God, but this is onlya very small part of prayer. The important part of prayer is just being awarethat you are in the presence of God; to thank God for every good thing that you have.
As you came in the room this morning I was thinking of something that we all ought to be thankful for this morning. What are some of the things you think we should be thankful for this morning? What are you thankful for? (child answered). Yes, we should be thankful for our homes; lots of people in the world don't have nice homeslike we do. Every wonderful and lovely thing comes from God. We should thank Himfor everything we have, our food and "Yes, Karen, our church." I was thinking as youcame in that I was thankful we didn't have a real fire in our church this morning, justa fire drill. We have a beautiful church in which we worship and we can all be thankfulit wasn't on fire. We should be thankful for this lovely weather, this beautiful day andthat when we went out for the fire drill it wasn't snowing. (laughter by children). Maybe you like snow. Sometimes we are thankful for that. We should thank God for allthose things that we appreciate. I knew a little boy who was your age, who alwaysthanked God when he said grace at the table, for the dandelions -- he like them andthought they were beautiful. I don't particularly like dandelions, so I wasn't thankingGod for them. If you like them, you should thank God.
This morning I want to talk a little more about prayer and this matter of beingthankful. If you can never think of anything to say in your prayers, you can alwaysthank Him for the good things He gives us. You should thank Him all the time.
The other part of prayer I want to talk about is just the idea of closing oureyes, forgetting about all the other things that are on our mind and just, in silence,thinking about the fact that God loves us and that God is with us all the time. Now I would like us to practice this at this time and I would like all of us to be comfortable,to fold our hands and close our eyes. Then I would like us all to keep saying toourselves over and over again, "God loves me - God loves me". You keep saying that toyourself - God really does love you, each one of you. Are you saying that toyourself. (Children nod and say, "Yes") God loves me! Then you can say to yourself, "Godis with me". Now you can't see God or feel Him or touch Him in the ordinary way. We close our eyes and think about all the wonderful things God has given us and wecan be sure that God is in this room with us -- God is with us, God loves us --justthink about that. The God who made us and made the world we live in loves us somuch that He is with each one of us every morning. So you just keep thinking aboutthat -- "God loves me. God is with me". Are you thinking that? (Children's eyes are still tightly closed and they appear to be concentrating deeply, saying thesethoughts in an almost inaudible whisper, as children at this age find it almostimpossible to "think thoughts" without moving their lips). This is one of the best waysof praying. If everyone of you will do that a few minutes every day for the restof your life, maybe a little in the morning and a little in the evening, just close youreyes and think, "God loves me, God is with me", you will be a stronger, a betterand a happier person the rest of your life just because you think of that and remindyourself that God does love you and God is with you.
Now you sometimes may find it a little hard to realize that God is with you and you may not think that God is with you. The reason is usually that you and I are not with God. God is always with us but we are not always with Him, and we thinkabout other things, forgetting about God; forgetting about the fact that He has beenso good to us, forgetting to be thankful. We shut the door on God.
When I was a boy about your age, I went to a church in Salt Lake City. Ialways looked up at this one big stained glass window in this church and there was apicture of Jesus holding a lantern in his hand. He was knocking at a door. This is the picture that comes out of the Bible where, in the Book of Revelation, the last bookof the Bible, the author has Jesus say, "Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyman open I will come in and sup with him and he with me". What that represents isthe fact that God is trying to come in and make Himself real in our lives. If we open the door, He will come in.
That window is from a famous painting by Holman Hunt and when he got it all finished somebody came and looked at this painting one day and said, "You have madea mistake in that painting". The author said, "What do you mean, I made a mistake?". He said, "Well, you have painted that door but there is no handle on the door". On the stained glass window in the church where I grew up there is no handle on that door. The author said, "No, I didn't make a mistake. I meant it that way. That is the doorto the human heart and can only be opened from the inside. "You can't open upsomebody else's heart and mind and force your way in, can you? That person has toopen his own heart and mind and let you in just the same way God stands at the doorof our hearts and minds and wants to come into our lives, but sometimes we won'tlet Him in.
This kind of prayer I am talking about this morning where you just close youreyes and become more aware of God and see that God loves us, God is with us. That is the way you open up the door and let God in your lives and so you are neveralone. And more strength, more happiness and more power will be there to help you the rest ofyour lives if you remember to pray that way. And also, to thank Him for the good thingsHe has already given us.
Do you have any questions about that? Eric? (Eric said, as he is knockingon his heart with his fist, "He just opened my heart!")
Sometimes we all get busy playing and forget about God. Most of us can'treally be praying like this every single minute of the day because it is hard to do twothings at once, isn't it? We can't be building a model airplane or something and whilewe are doing that, concentrate on thinking about God all the time, but we all ought totake sometime in the morning, in the evening, or when we get up or before we go tobed and pray like that; and thank God for everything, and think about God and how muchHe loves us and how much He has given us. Will you try to do that? You will be realglad you did!