Your Secret Weapon Prayer!

Did you know that you have a secret weapon? Hey kids, welcome to Big Camp 2021. We're back at family worship again, and we're talking about Tell Somebody. I want you to tell somebody that you have a secret weapon. They have a secret weapon. Anyone who believes in God has a secret weapon. Let's have a look at this secret weapon. When my kids were little, we lived in Tasmania. And we thought that it would be fun one day to go to a place called Zootoo. We hadn't been there before, but lots of people had told us that Zootoo was lots of fun. Basically, you would go to this place, you'd get on a little bus that had an open roof, and you would drive through this park where these people had— it was a zoo, but it was open. It was kind of like Werribee Zoo if you're from the Melbourne area and you've been to Werribee Zoo, but much smaller. And as you would drive through this zoo, you could see the animals and you could even reach out of the bus and touch them. It was just one thing that the tour guide said before we left. He said, there's one animal that you mustn't touch. Don't even try to touch them because they will bite you. They're normally kind and gentle when they're by themselves, but when they get in a group, they get really territorial and vicious, and you do not want to touch these. So I was thinking, hmm, lions? Maybe it's the lions, or maybe it's, I don't know, something, something else like scary. And then he said, and does anyone want to guess what that animal is? And so people in the bus had different guesses, and I think I guessed lion, and my kids were talking to each other about what it might be. And he said, "It's the ponies." They had a whole collection of what's called Shetland ponies. They look like horses, but they're tiny. "Do not try to touch the Shetland ponies," he said. "They're beautiful, they're cute, and they just look like they'd be so soft and fun to have a cuddle with. But if you get your hand near their face, some of them, not all of them, but some of them will bite you. So please don't try to touch the ponies." So then we started on our journey, and we're going through enclosure after enclosure, and we're going through the different animals. And we saw kangaroos, and we saw different Australian animals. And then he said, okay, this next one is a bit of fun. He said, we have some camels here, and we're going to feed the camels when we go in here with the camels. And so he stepped out at a little booth before he went through the big electric gates and got a bucket full of camel food, whatever it is that they eat, and got back in and put the food, the bucket, next to him in the front of the bus and started driving. And as we were driving, we came to this— well, camel came to us. We were driving slow and this camel starts walking towards us, and it gets closer and closer to us. And there was this one lady who evidently she'd come to Zulu even though she did not like animals. Well, She at least didn't like camels because she stood up because the camel was coming towards the man driving the bus because he knew where the bucket of food was. And so he's coming towards that man, and this woman stands up because she's in the front row when she sees the camel, and she runs all the way to the back of the bus, and she sits down in the back seat of the bus. So the man parks the van, he stops it, he stands up, and he walks to the back of the bus. Carrying the bucket of food. And as he gets to the back of the bus, he says— he takes the bucket of food and he says, 'Oh, could you hold this for me for just a moment?' And he puts it on the lap of the lady who'd run to the back of the bus. And then he turns around and starts to talk to us. Well, the camel, of course, has come around the bus, and he sticks his head over from behind the lady and his head into the bucket. And she I don't know how she did it, but she managed to get out from underneath that bucket without spilling it and kind of slide out like, like a drop of water. And she was up in the middle of the bus and running to the front of the bus. And now the bucket was sitting by itself on the seat. And the man said, oh, there he is. And so he had had a bit of fun with her and the poor lady, she's like, oh, oh. And so we had gone all the way around this park and we'd seen all the animals. And as we got to the end, it was a lot of fun. There was something at the end that we didn't even know about. He said, make sure before you leave that you go to the horse races. And we said, you have horse races? He said, it's very cute. All the Shetland ponies, they take them in and they have the race once in the morning and once in the afternoon. And they put little monkeys, stuffed monkeys on their backs and they strap the monkeys to the Shetland ponies. And they have a little racetrack inside the shed over there with all of the the entry shed, and it also has a little store there, but the rest of the shed is a racetrack. So we thought that would be a bit of fun. So we went in in time to see the race. And as we were all there lined up along the side of the racetrack, and there were the 6 little Shetland ponies with the 6 little stuffed monkeys on their backs, and they were lined up and ready to start. And the guy gets on the microphone, it sounded just like a real horse. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the race today. We've got number 6 and number 5 and number 4 and number 3 and number 2 and number 1. Who will be the winner today? And one of the workers came around with a bucket full of pieces of paper. And it said, "Please take one, please take one." And every single, just the kids, just the kids took a piece of paper. On the paper was a number. It was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. And the man with the microphone explained, "All right, you each have a piece of paper. If your horse wins today, take that piece of paper to the store. In the store, there are some delicious chocolates and you can offer that number. We will know then which horses won the race, and you show your number and you can choose a free chocolate. And then the race started. And he said, and we're off! And the gates open up and the horses start running. And they didn't really run like a horse race, they kind of just started in there. Once one of them started picking up speed, the other one's like, oh, we better catch up with him. And so the man was calling out, oh, number 5 is in the lead, number 5, number 5, number 4, number 4. And as the numbers had come out, I was looking over the shoulders of my 3 kids, and I saw that I had a number 3 in Rachel's hand, a number 2 in Michael's hand, and number 5 in Cyrus's hand. And we watch the races coming around the horses. Number 3, number 3, number 3, number 2 is coming up double the side. Number 5, number 5, number 1, number 5, number 5, number 2, number 2 is overtaking on the outside. Number 2, number 2 is in the lead. And number 2 ran across the line. Number 2 is our winner! Thank you everyone for coming to the horse race today, and thank you for coming to Zootoo. Have a nice afternoon. And it was over. And Mikey, he had the number 2. His horse had won the race. And normally Mikey is like crazy fun, and he would be like, "Woo! I won! I won!" But he didn't do that. He took that piece of paper and he looked at it and he put it in his pocket. And then we started walking out. And when we got to the shop, the other kids were looking around and looking at the different things you could get. And Mikey was not going up to the front to turn in his piece of paper and get a free chocolate. And I went up to him and I whispered in his ear, I said, Mikey, you know, you could go and get a free chocolate. Your horse won. He's like, yeah, I know. I said, well, don't you want the free chocolate? He's like, yeah. Well, let's go up together. And I thought maybe he was feeling shy, which is not normal for Mikey. But we walked up to the front and I said, okay, give her your number. So Mikey reached in, he pulled out the piece of paper and he gave it to the lady. She said, oh, we've got a winner here. Would you like a Freddo Frog, a Caramello Koala? What would you like? And he said, Um, Fredo Frog, thanks. And so she got a Fredo Frog and handed it to him, and he took that and he put it in his pocket. We walked out and we got in the van to go home. And as we were driving, I'm looking in the back and I see the 3 kids sitting in a row next to each other, and they're all quietly just looking out the window or just, just doing normal stuff. But Mikey is not eating his chocolate. And so I said, Mikey, you know, you can eat your chocolate. You won that. You're— you can eat it. And he said, Oh, okay, I will. And so he got out his chocolate, and then his brother and sister look, ooh, can we have some? And so he gave them each a little bit of it, and he ate his chocolate and shared his chocolate. And that night when I was putting Mikey to bed, I've been thinking about it for the rest of the day. I'm like, what's going on with Mikey? Because he's normally such a happy kid, and normally he would have rubbed it in their face a little bit that he won and they didn't. And I thought, maybe he's growing up. Maybe I'm going to tell him how proud I am of him. So as I was tucking him into bed, I said, Mikey, I'm so proud of you for how you acted today. And he said, what do you mean? And I said, well, the way that you didn't gloat and make fun of your brother and sister and didn't show off because your horse won. It was just really nice of you to be so kind to your brother and sister. And I mean to your two brothers. I'm sorry, no, Mikey has a brother and a sister, Cyrus and Rachel. And he said, well, it wasn't really that. I said, wasn't really what? He said, Well, I didn't do it because I was being nice. And I said, well, you didn't turn your ticket in until I told you. You didn't eat your chocolate till I told you. Why? Why? Why did you, um, act like that? He said, well, I— and he almost started to cry. He said, I cheated. And I thought to myself, how could you cheat? Like, he didn't take more numbers than one. He didn't make the horse win. And I said, Mikey, how did you cheat? I prayed and asked Jesus to let my horse win. And I smiled such a big smile because I thought, well, I guess to a little kid who believes that God will answer their prayer and then they say a prayer, they, they think that's cheating. Well, Mikey did. And I said, oh Mikey, prayer isn't cheating. Prayer is our secret weapon. God gives us a secret weapon that we can talk to him whenever we want and we can ask him for help. And sometimes when he thinks that the thing that we've asked for is good for us, he says yes. And he said yes to you. So your prayer wasn't cheating. Your prayer was beautiful. You were talking to Jesus about what was happening in your life, and he was listening. And I said, so you did the right thing by praying, not the wrong thing. Prayer is never cheating. Prayer is our secret weapon. And Mikey said, okay. 'Can I pray now?' And I said, 'Sure.' So Mikey said a little prayer and thanked Jesus for the day and asked him to help him sleep, and then he went to bed. Do you know you should tell somebody? Tell somebody that they have a secret weapon. If they believe in Jesus, if they believe that God is in heaven, then they can talk to him. And if you talk to God, it's your secret weapon. So tell somebody. Tell somebody about your secret weapon. About the God who loves, listens, and cares for you. Let us pray. Dear Lord, we thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk to you. Thank you for prayer. Thank you for the amazing fact that you are always listening. Help us to always know that you don't see prayer as a waste of time or as something that we shouldn't do because we're cheating, like Mikey thought, but instead that prayer is talking to Jesus. And you want to hear from us and you want to help us. Please be with us as we go through our day today and help us to remember to pray. In your name, amen.