It was Johann Pestalozzi who wrote that; The best way for a child to learn about God is to know a real Christian. The best way for them to discover the power of prayer is to live with parents who pray. I can attest to the veracity of this statement by the way children minister to us parents when we at times become too distracted with life's worries to know what we must immediately do.

A few days ago, I was in the house with my two children; my son Tayo, 7 and girl of 13, Joy who lives with us. They were playing a game of ludo and I was worrying about my job that was being axed as Zain Nigeria outsourced its technical operations. My mind was polluted with the thoughts of how to get another job, how to pay the bills and so on. My wife was away work on night shift. She works at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja as Flight Announcer and for five years now she has been a casual staff, like me, earning peanuts.

My phone rang. It was Yemisi my kid sister asking me for directions. She was on the road travelling to Abuja from Ibadan. The call came in at 7:30 p.m. in the night and yet she still had over 400Km of bandit infested road to cover. She still had two stops to make that night to get to the Airport village where we lived and it was also raining. My worries escalated. My children noticed this and tried talking me out of it but to no avail. They did not quite understand the complexity of my thoughts.

After a while, they ended the ludo game and began to play church. The boy was the instrumentalist, playing imaginary keyboards on a table and at the same time beating drums with his mouth. Joy was the vocalist and her special number was What a friend we have in Jesus a Christian hymn originally written by Joseph M. Scriven as a poem in 1855. She had it written down in her singing practice exercise book and that afforded me the privilege of hearing all the stanzas. The words that the Lord used to call me back to back to my senses were; "O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer." I felt ashamed of myself. I stole a glance at them to know if they deliberately played church because of my sorrowful state, but they hardly noticed I was around again. They were in their own world singing with gusto. Oh how pure their joy was.

I heeded the counsel. Without standing up lest I distract them, I simply closed my eyes where I was and talked to God. I thanked him for making me a Christian when he saved me from my sins. I thanked Him for sending the needed Spiritual nourishment through the children at that hour. I appreciated Him for the grace He gave us to raise the children as Christians. Then I thanked Him for my sister's journey and just asked Him to bring her to the house safely bearing her on His wings. Peace returned to my heart and I became strong again. Daddy, will you play ludo? asked my son. That was when I realized they had stopped playing church and were already arguing over some nonsense. Yes sure, let's all play together. The three of us played and we were still on it when my phone rang again around 11pm. Yemisi was at the door. God had born her in His wings and brought her safely to the house.

This is one of the blessings of being a Christian. All your children shall be taught by the Lord and great shall be the peace of your children. (Isaiah 54:13)

Learn more about this author, Adelani Aderemi.
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