Seeking One's Garden: Building Blocks of Faith

Q: How do you teach your children to pray in faith?

"LORD, because You are Good, I trust You to..."
"I know You are Sovereign and Omnipotent; it would be an easy thing for you to..."
"You are Omniscient, and You know what will be the best in the end. So, if my will is not in agreement with Yours, LORD, I ask You to change my desires."
"You are Just; so let Your truth, righteousness, and justice be revealed in this situation..."
"We place ourselves entirely at Your mercy; because we know You to be Merciful, Long-suffering, and Gracious..."

A: One way, is to teach them the ATTRIBUTES of GOD and incorporating them into your prayers.

Where it All Began

In Beth Moore's study, Believing God, she said, "God is who He says He is." and "I'm believing God." In response, I asked, "Who did God say He is?", and I began this a list. 30 attributes, one for each day, and on the 31st of the month, we review them all.

For a printable chart/calendar of Attributes see: Pack Away Thanksgiving

Each week, we place an "ATTRIBUTE of GOD BLOCK" on the mantle as a reminder of who God is throughout the week.

To See Original Post about "CHARACTER BLOCKS" (with link to PDF of Character Qualities, verses, and definitions) see: Building Character (with blocks)

Here is our list of ATTRIBUTES:

God is ...

Holy
Good
Gracious
Loving
Long-suffering
Merciful
Truthful
Wrathfully
Wise
Righteous
Faithful
Forgiving
Jealous
Just
Omniscient
Omnipresent
Omnipotent
One
Infinite
Incomprehensible
Immanent
Immutable
Self-existent
Self-sufficient
Sovereign
Eternal
Transcendent
Absolute
Unique

Again, if some of these words are unfamiliar, you can read a simple description/definition on the calendar at this post: Pack Away Thanksgiving

12", 6", and 4" Blocks

The Character Traits are written on 6" building blocks cut from standard 2x4s.
The Attributes of God are on the 12" blocks (15 blocks, 30 attributes on front and back).

And, letters are written on the 4" blocks to spell words like "faith", "grace", "hope", etc.

(I put dots on the side of the small blocks; so the kids could sort them and know which letters went together. With capitals on the front and lower-case on the back, each set can make two words. If the word on front was longer than on the back, I drew a symbol on the extra block.)

When I need a little reminder, sometimes I take one set of letters and place that word on the bathroom counter, above the kitchen cabinets, or on top of someone's dresser.

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From Our "Classroom"

As an up-date to the previous post on "CHARACTER BLOCKS", here are a few additional pictures to show how we use the Character Qualities to start our homeschool week...

One quality is highlighted (introduced or reviewed) on Monday of each week. The laminated page is clipped to the fridge. Additional CHARACTER BLOCKS are chosen to place on the mantel if we are playing one of the games mentioned in the original post.