David's Daily Diversions

The Sinner's Prayer

It will hearten all the Evangelicals out there to know that last night Aidan prayed the sinner's prayer. Okay, it wasn't some sort of recent version developed during the Second Great Awakening or the Jesus Movement, requiring the mention of various elements of the "Roman Road". He learned the original, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner."

Actually, I was trying to teach him the Lord's Prayer, because it is that with which we open our evening meal prayers, but after one run through realised that it was too much for him. We were working on it during our time together while Mummy was getting her 3-stone sticker (and her usual "Slimmer of the Week" sticker) at Fat Club. I decided that developing Scripture memory and tools for a rule of prayer deserved equal footing with our usual Wednesday night fare of "doing countries".

Now you may think that something like Jesus Prayer might be lost on a child 12 days away from his third birthday. You would be wrong. The only definition we had to learn was that of a sinner. He knows about prayer. He knows who Jesus is. (He can even explain the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.) And he knows about sin, even if he didn't know to call it that. He knows we he does something bad, like disobeying Mummy or Daddy, it makes Jesus sad. Whenever he apologises to whomever he has offended on earth, he knows to go to the icon of our Lord and say, "Sorry, Jesus". (If it is the little icon he can reach, he automatically picks it up and kisses it as well, though he was never told to do this.) He also knows that if he doesn't take it seriously, he has to repeated it until he respects the gravity of his actions. He even knows he's not supposed to do it again.