Helping Children Understand Prayer and Why God Doesn’t Always Say Yes

Patti Maguire Armstrong shares tips and resources for parents whose children struggle with questions about unanswered prayers.

God loves you. He always hears your prayers. 

The seeds of faith are planted in our children with such messages. I planted them and it warms my heart when those messages are spoken to my grandchildren. 

Prayer can answer our petitions, and sometimes result in miracles. But not always. During difficult moments, I’ve heard even adults ask where God was or why he didn’t answer their prayers. After all, why would an all-powerful God choose to let us suffer?  

 The feeling of our prayers being wasted comes from not understanding prayer to be about relationship and accompaniment and not simply asking for things. Deepening our understanding of prayer forms it into a divine lifeblood in good times and bad and in all times. 

Father Jacques Phillippe explains in Thirsting for Prayer that prayer about a relationship with God.

Faithfulness to prayer is a path of freedom ... God invites us, to pray simply to spend time with him, to make him first in our lives, to receive his love and love in return. Through communicating with God, we develop a relationship with him….  If we persevere in prayer, we taste from time to time an inexpressible happiness: a degree of peace and fulfillment that are a real foretaste of paradise.  

“Prayer is essential to know the living and true God, who has a personal and unique love for each one of his children,” Father Phillippe explains. This knowledge of God, he said, gives us access to know ourselves. “We have access to our deepest identity only in the light of God, as we appear in the eyes of our heavenly Father.” 

Even if we don’t get what we want, prayer should continue because it’s about relationship and not just asking for things. Dr. Briege McKenna, in her book Miracles Do Happen: God Can Do the Impossible, tells the story of a family who had a miraculous healing for the baby, but it did not happen until after a year of praying. When asked why God took so long, Sr. Briege asked if by waiting, did they spend more time praying then they would have had the healing happened right away? Praying opens us up to what God has to give us in relationship, not necessarily always what we are asking for.  

When there is suffering that is not lifted despite our prayers, a priest in our diocese calls that our “holy place.” We cannot control the situation, we call out to God, and in the end, we surrender. We ask God for help and turn to him for consolation. When life burdens us and we keep a lifeline of communication open with God, he is with us through the pain, and we are blessed in unexpected ways and grow in faith and wisdom. 

In the book Amazing Grace for Survivors, people shared stories of difficulties  in which they ultimately—not always at first—turned to God. They ended up more in love with him than before the trial. That seems illogical, but that is the grace of God.  

Jesus saved us through suffering. We see it around us and in our own lives. Our final home is heaven, where there will be no suffering. The suffering on earth helps to form us and bring us to holiness and union with God.  Jesus’ followers initially saw defeat in the crucifixion, but God allowed it for salvation. We don’t understand every single reason for every single trial, but through our faith in Jesus, we can know that God always loves us and always hears our prayers. And no matter what we are going through, if we stay in touch with Jesus, He will help carry us through. 

We can share with our children how our own faith has helped us through difficult moments and helped us to encounter Christ in a deeper way. Praying together, including conversation with God as we lift up our hearts and minds, models to our children that there is an ongoing relationship regardless of the situation. And during times of disappointment, we can help our children experience those feeling with God during prayer, asking for comfort and guidance knowing that our Lord is with us always even when we didn’t get what we had hoped and even when we don’t feel very grateful.  

By doing this, we can also help our children develop gratitude to our Lord, thanking him in every circumstance and situation and asking him to help us wait with patience and hope, and with trust in his plan for us.  

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Praying together models to our children that there is an ongoing relationship regardless of the situation. #CatholicMom

Books on prayer 

For Parents  

Father Jacques Phillipe has written many books on prayer. 

The Art of Praying. Practical ways to improve your prayers with insights from the saints, a reflection on spontaneous and formal prayers, and how to improve family prayers. 

The Handy Little Guide to Prayer is a pocket-size introduction to who, what, where, when, why, and how to pray, with extra advice for anyone who’s experiencing obstacles in their prayer life. 

For Children: 

Inspiration mixes with humor and adventure in my two children's books, as the main characters learn lessons of surrender and a relationship with God through prayer. 

Prayer Prompt Cards Based on the Daily Examen of Saint Ignatius, each card encourages children with a guided preparation of your day and review at its end with specific prompts for Lent, Easter, Advent/Christmas, and Ordinary Time. 

Best-Loved Catholic Prayers and Prayers of the Mass: Glory Stories audio stories and Blessed Carlos Acutis: The Amazing Discovery of a Teenager in Heaven, a biography full of photographs offering a vivid model of a modern-day saint who stayed close to God despite suffering. 

Copyright 2023 Patti Maguire Armstrong
Images: copyright 2023 Patti Maguire Armstrong, all rights reserved.