Should I be embarrassed to admit that prayer stickers work for me?
A few years ago, I started giving my Sunday school kids stickers at the start of the Lenten season. I encouraged them to put the stickers in places where they would be reminded to lift an extra prayer every day until Easter. I encouraged the youth at church to use them, and then I offered them to everyone, setting a basket of stickers at the rear of the sanctuary.
I have continued the tradition each year and I’ve mailed stickers to young friends who have moved on to college, or moved to other states.
We put stickers on our phones, our backpacks and our bathroom mirrors. Some have placed stickers on hair brushes or hair dryers. I’ve placed stickers on my TV remote, my refrigerator and my shower head.
The sticker that has endured is the one on my car radio, a green cross that has persisted for at least two years. I have no more loyal companion than my car radio. We are together every day. It is the only component of my car that asks nothing yet never fails. And now, when I look to my radio, I am reminded to pray.
I see the sticker and lift thanks to the places I’ve been, or I pray into the places I’m approaching. I pray for my children, my Sunday school kids, my youth group, my church family, my co-workers. I may pray for the stars above me or the sun setting in front of me. I sometimes turn the radio off to pray.
Should I be concerned that a sticker leads me to prayer? Shouldn’t my faith, my heart, my trust in Jesus, lead me to prayer without prompting from an aging, fading sticker?
The answer, as always, is in scripture, in Deuteronomy 6: “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts …Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your forehead. Write them on the doorfames of your houses and on your gates.”
I thought I was being innovative with my sticker ministry. In reality, I was addressing a need God addressed in the early days in the desert. He knew we would need symbols in places we will see them every day. He knew some of us would respond to stickers on our phones and backpacks and car radios. Bind them on your forehead? Yeah, Sunday school always put stickers on their foreheads. It’s part of the tradition.