Pray without ceasing

Charles Hodge is well-known for what he did as an adult. He was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary for fifty-six years and wrote numerous books, including his famous three-volume Systematic Theology. 

His father died when Hodge and his older brother were very young. So where did his preparation for his life work begin? He tells us in his own record of how this happened.

 

‘Our early training was religious. Our mother was a Christian. She took us regularly to church, and carefully drilled us in the Westminster Catechism. There has never been anything remarkable in my religious experience, unless it be that it began very early. I think that in my childhood I came nearer to conforming to the apostle’s injunction: “Pray without ceasing,” than in any other period of my life. As far as I can remember, I had the habit of thanking God for everything that I received, and of asking him for everything that I wanted. I thought of God as an everywhere present being, full of kindness and love, who would not be offended if children talked to Him.’

 

Would anyone watching him as a child imagine where he would end up in God’s providence? Of course not. But his mother knew what the best preparation for his unknown future was. So she taught him to pray simply and often to his heavenly Father. 

 

Which prayers will God choose to answer during this time of pandemic? Hopefully, all that are sent to him and that he will answer them in his own time. Yet it may be the case that he will answer the prayers of children. I wonder what the young Charles Hodge would have prayed if he had been living today. We should certainly encourage children to pray at organised times, but also whenever they wish. After all, God may have given to them the desire to do so.