This article is part of the Answering Kids’ Hardest Questions series.
God’s Character Testifies
How do I know God hears me when I pray? This is a question that your kid might ask, or something similar to it, and it’s a natural one. It’s one that we as grown-ups ask, particularly when we have been praying for something for a long time, or we’re praying for a good thing—praying for a restored relationship or the healing of a disease—that doesn’t happen. We believe God is good, so does he just not hear me when I pray?
One of the things that we need to remember as grown-ups is that the proof that our God hears is not found in our circumstances. It’s found in his character, and that can be really hard to believe sometimes. One of the best places that we can bring our children when they are asking these types of questions is to the stories of Scripture.
In this poignant picture book, Jane faces challenges when her seemingly perfect life takes a difficult turn. With the help of her parents, she learns how to lament and make her pain known to God.
We can tell them the story of Hagar and her son in the wilderness. We can pick any number of stories about the nation of Israel in the Old Testament and highlight the fact that our God hears. We can go to our child and say, Look, the God who heard their cries always hears you, and sometimes that’s hard to believe.
And if our kids are expressing uncertainty, we can pray with them, Lord, help us believe that you always hear us when we pray. It can be hard to navigate questions that our kids ask sometimes, but I just want to encourage you that there is always hope and truth found in the character of God and in his word for us and for our children.
Alyson Punzi is the author of He Always Hears: A Story of Loss and the Hope of Things Made New.
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