Kids: Praying at McDonalds

Yeah, so if we can have some kids up the front, we'll probably sit you down in this area here. So kids, if you want to make your way up here, come on up.

There's something right here in the front row. They're ready.

Yeah, really, really top-notch story.

How do you have your lizard? You got him here with you? Oh, look at that! He found a little bearded dragon, um, in at the campground. It's only like that long. It's cute. It's in a bowl up here. It's not what the story is about, but it's a good prop. This morning he came into our— what's your name? Caleb came into our unit and he said, "Mikey, Mikey, look at this!" And he had the little bearded dragon on his hand. And I was scared. I'm scared of anything that looks slimy. So I climbed up on the top bunk and waited till he left. No, I didn't. Okay guys, I want to tell you a story this morning about one of my kids. Now, um, he's with me this morning, and so I'm going to talk about him. Where's he disappeared to? Where are you, Mike? There he is. Um, when we lived in Tasmania, before we started working at Signs where I work now, we lived in Tasmania. And one day I was driving the kids to school, and before I'd driven them to school, I said, hey guys, let's not have breakfast at home. I'll take you to school. Dads get to do this kind of stuff, and it makes moms go, "Oh, you always get to have all the fun." But I said, "I'll take you to McDonald's for breakfast." And so we got in the car, and because I was responsible for breakfast that morning, that's how I do breakfast. So I drove the kids to McDonald's, and we parked the car, and we got out of the car, and we walked in, and we ordered our food for breakfast. And you know, all the hotcakes and everything, so yummy. And so we got the plates of hotcakes. How many of your parents "Cut the hotcakes into little pieces for you, or rip them up." Yep. Well, Mikey and Rachel and Cyrus all wanted their hotcakes ripped up, so I ripped them all up and made them, or cut them up, I can't remember, but got them all ready. And then just as we were about to start eating and we drizzled the syrup on them all, I asked the kids a question. But before I tell you what the question was, I've got to show you how Mikey sits. He's actually sitting almost like this right now. He always folds his legs underneath himself, just like that. But sometimes— Mikey, show them how you do it. Sometimes he's actually on his feet even though he's like that. So put your feet so you're Dave Edgren, put your feet flat on the floor. And then, yep, and now sit like that. And he sits and he didn't change his height at all. And so unless you look at his knees, especially when there's a table there, you can't tell that he's sitting like that. He looks like he's just sitting. And so, but he's got a lot of energy. So anyway, I said to the kids, okay kids, I said it nice and quiet like this. I said, okay kids, just before we have breakfast, we should say prayer. Who would like to say prayer? And Mikey jumped straight up in the air, because he was already on his feet, and he yelled— McDonald's is full of people, right? And he yells, "I will pray!" And everyone in McDonald's turns and looks at him. Now, if his mom had been there, she would have gone, "Whup-poom-poom!" and pulled him down and said, "You—" But she wasn't there. And being a preacher and seeing a great sermon illustration coming up, I said to Mikey, "Thank you, son. Go ahead." And so standing on his bench there at McDonald's with— and we were in the middle of it, in the middle— he prayed over everybody's food in McDonald's. He said, "Dear Jesus, thank you for this food. Please bless it to our bodies. Amen." And he sat down and we ate. And it was funny to listen. What kind of things do you think I heard other people saying at other tables around the McDonald's? What do you think? Yes? Yes, lots of people saying, "So cute." Anything else? What do you think people were saying at the tables? Yep? Caleb? Yeah? They were saying all kinds of just little things to each other, and you couldn't hear many of them, but everyone was kind of Yeah, just amazed that this little boy just stood up and prayed for everyone. How many grown-ups would go into McDonald's thinking to themselves, you know what, probably most of the people here haven't prayed for their food. I'll just do it for everyone. Do you think many grown-ups would do that and say to everyone in the room, shall we bow our heads as we pray for the meal? No, nobody would. Most adults wouldn't. But kids, you guys do things that make us adults sometimes think to ourselves, "Hmm, I wish I could be more like that." Mikey believes in Jesus, and Mikey prays for his food. And so when he's about to eat, he prays. And he's willing to just pray loud enough for everyone to hear. And I learned something from Mikey that day. I learned that I wanted to be more bold in the way that I live my Christian life. I don't want to hide it when I'm around other people, but I want to be able to say, "I believe in Jesus!" And I still haven't got the courage up in McDonald's to say, "Shall we pray?" But I have remembered it every time I was at McDonald's. Do you know Jesus said something about you guys? He said to all of us guys, the big people, "If you want to get to heaven, you have to be like these kids." And you know why he said that? 'Cause you know you're going there, don't you? How many of you believe you're going to heaven? Yep. And how many of you are willing to tell somebody about it if they say, "What's heaven like?" Yeah, you would be too. And that's what we need to learn to be like as adults, is we need to remember what it means to have faith as a child. Thank you for listening so well. Next time you go to McDonald's, you know what to do.