What you need: Some coloured paper, felt or card (if you don’t have coloured paper, don’t worry, you can just colour in plain paper!), scissors, blue tack or something else to stick these up with.
Seeing as we’ve had such a strange variety of weather recently, I thought we’d make and set up some weather forecast prayer prompts!
First, make these shapes out of your card, felt or paper:
Clouds, the sun, a raindrop, a snowflake, lightning, a rainbow, wind.
Then find something to put them on. This could be a blue background, it could be a cork board or a fridge – wherever you like!
It would be nice to choose somewhere that you look at every day to remind you to change the forecast around and pray again.
When you are ready to pray, choose some of the shapes and symbols and place them on your weather forecast.
You could do this to reflect how you’re feeling (the sun to represent feeling good or wind to represent confusion for example) or you could just choose at random.
Then take some time to pray depending on the shapes you have chosen. Each shape represents a different type of prayer:
Sun – A thank you prayer.
God makes the sun shine on everyone – giving the warmth they need every day. Why not use the sun to help you thank God for something in your life.
Cloud – A question prayer.
The sky isn’t always clear – sometimes it is full of clouds. You could ask God to help you see a situation more clearly, or ask for His help in understanding something about Him that you haven’t realised before.
Raindrop – A care prayer.
When we cry, our tears look like raindrops. For this symbol, why not pray for someone who is feeling sad at the moment and need’s God’s comfort.
Wind – A worry prayer.
When you feel worried, it can feel like things have been whipped up by the wind and are swirling all around you. Use this prayer to talk to God about something that is worrying you and ask Him to help you to have peace.
Snowflake – A sorry prayer.
Like a snowflake melts and is gone, God promises to take away the wrong things we have done if we ask Him for forgiveness. Use this prayer to talk to God about something you are sorry about and ask Him to give you a fresh start.
Rainbow – A hope prayer.
In the Bible, rainbows remind us that God keeps His promises – so we always have hope! Use this prayer prompt to help you ask God to bring hope to a difficult situation around the world.
Lightning – A help prayer.
When you are finding things hard, it can feel like you’re in a thunderstorm with lightning flashing above you. We can always ask God for help! Use this prayer to talk to God about something you need His help with.
You can print out a reminder sheet to go along with your weather symbols, you can download it here: Weather forecast prayer prompts
I hope that this activity can help to inspire you to pray in different ways. You can use this forecast every day to help you spend some time with God – you can do it alone or with the people you live with. You could put it in a family place for everyone to be able to use, or if you like, you can put it in a quiet place to help you with your own quiet times.
There are lots of different ways that you can use this activity, so have fun and enjoy exploring prayer!