Praying Like a Child

The following meditation was written by Dr. Doug Hood’s son, Nathanael Hood, M.Div.

Once in a priory in Paris, there lived a monk. A clumsy but well-meaning fellow, he’d left behind the secular world in his twenties to join the Carmelites, a Catholic order devoted to poverty and prayer. His life before the order had been a difficult one—born an impoverished peasant, he’d fought as a soldier in the cataclysmic Thirty Years’ War which decimated central Europe in the early seventeenth century. He saw much fighting, was once almost hanged by enemy troops, and was left lame by his injuries. Unable to remain a soldier, he began his new life of prayer and contemplation in 1640, taking the religious name “Lawrence of the Resurrection.” Brother Lawrence’s first ten years as a monk were difficult ones which saw him battling feelings of guilt and unworthiness. But as the years crept by, he eventually surrendered himself to God’s mercy and became a model monk. He spent most of his life quietly toiling away in the priory’s kitchen, a job he initially disliked, only switching to a less strenuous one after one of his lame legs became ulcerated.1

Brother Lawrence died at the age of 80 in 1691 after a lifetime of service, but unlike most monks and nuns who live and die in historical anonymity, we remember his name and deeds over three centuries later. A collection of his letters and sayings were gathered together after his death by a cleric named Abbé Joseph de Beaufort and published as The Practice of the Presence of God, a remarkable little book that’s been published in countless editions in several languages. The book is suffused with the insight and wisdom of a man whose “principle endeavor [was] to stay as close as possible to God, doing, saying, and thinking nothing that might displease Him.”2 Indeed, it could be said he was a man who loved, worshiped, and prayed as a child.

But what does this mean, to love, pray, and worship as a child? For an answer we turn to the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus’ disciples come to Jesus with a question: who among them would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Jesus’ answer took everyone by surprise, explaining that the greatest among them would be those who were most like a child. Part of the shock of Jesus’ answer came from the lowly status children had in ancient Israel, but much of it came from the idea that adults should mimic children! Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Children are loud, emotional, demanding, and often smelly! How could children possibly be a model of faith and piety? For that, I would answer that anyone who has spent a good amount of time among children know that they don’t do things by half-measures. They love mightily, hate bitterly, feel deeply. To be like a child is to surrender oneself entirely and wholeheartedly.

The great preacher and writer Harry Emerson Fosdick once wrote that “to pray to God as though he were Santa Claus is childish; but a man may still be childlike in his faith and range up into another sort of praying.”3 Put simply, to pray selflessly is childlike; to pray selfishly is childish. God wants us to offer up our earnest needs and desires in prayer, yes, but it should be accompanied by our total surrender to the Almighty. Just as a child rushes into a parent’s arms, so must we rush into our Heavenly Father’s arms when we pray. Consider Brother Lawrence. He could have done nothing but pray for healing in his legs or a better job outside the hustle and bustle of the kitchen—but that would have been praying selfishly. Instead, he prayed to know God in his every waking moment, both at rest and at work, in his strength and in his weakness. May it be so for all of us every day.

Joy,

1Miller, Patricia. “Introduction.” Introduction. In Walking with the Father: Wisdom from Brother Lawrence. Ijamsville, MD: The Word Among Us Press, 1999, 7-11.

2Brother Lawrence. The Practice of the Presence of God. New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1982, 28.