Besides being a wife, mom, and the writer for Cravings {The Devotional} I work outside of the home as a Family Life Director for Radiant Church in Surprise, Arizona.

I have been in full time church ministry for 16 years and while it is not an easy choice to work I still have a call on life to be in this job. My primary responsibility is in our curriculum, writing and developing what all the young minds will learn and know about God and Christ. I take my job very seriously and know that parents trust us with their little people.

One of your greatest fears when this is your “job” is that your own kids won’t “get it” or will be sick of church because they too naturally spend a lot of time there. And over the last month or two I have watched one of my fears become a bit of a reality. My three year old, soon to be four, has not wanted to pray before meals. When it is time to pray he will flat our refuse. At first we were “demanding” that he pray with us but I quickly realized this approach wasn’t going to cultivate a love of prayer. So I got creative.

I took a box I had, covered it in brown paper, and covered the sides in our initials (the extra sides have a random shape on them). When it came to prayer time I introduced our prayer cube. He rolls the cube and whatever initial lands up is the person who gets to pray for the food. If it lands on one of the shapes he gets to roll again. I have to tell you it is a hit!!! The first time we tried it he wanted to keep rolling and rolling and rolling until his “R” came up. We have used it for a full solid week and each meal he has come to the table excited to pray.

Of course my hope and prayer is that he will develop a joy of giving thanks without the prayer cube but if he needed a fun and creative nudge in the right direction I was going to provide that for him. Do you have a spiritual disciple that seems to be a struggle for your kids? I would love to hear about it and brainstorm ideas that could help.

Any cube shaped box

Wrapping Paper

Letters that represent your family initials

Glue

Tape

Wrap the cube and glue on your initials. Easy as pie!

*** One thing I learned after the fact is that I put my real name initial “C” on the cube. When it came up my son wondered who the “C” was for since he thinks of my name as Mommy. In hindsight I would do an “M” and “D” for Daddy.