Teach them to your children ...

This sweet boy...

Reading through our devotions and retelling the stories about the life of Jesus has been a powerful thing for me. There is something so special about teaching the Word of God to your children that really makes you think about it in a whole new way. I remember when I first became a believer in college and by His grace, God placed such a hunger for the Word in my heart ... there were some nights that I would stay awake nearly all night devouring scripture and knowing I had no choice but to obey. As I have added more years in the faith, I still read to apply it to my life, but sometimes I know that I read it just to read it.

There is something so profound about teaching the Word to your children. You teach it in a way that you hope and pray will instill the seeds of the same desires to honor and obey God ... shaping these little lives and their world views and the way they think about the Lord and themselves is amazing and intense and such a privilege. It's like I desire so strongly for them to grow up with their own genuine faith that it is an actual, physical feeling coming straight from my heart.

I love the clear instruction that the Lord gives us in Deuteronomy 11:19 about how we are to teach our children throughout the day and at all times:

18 "So commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. 19 Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 20 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 so that as long as the sky remains above the earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors.

Being home with my kiddos 6 out of 7 days has given me such a tremendous amount of time to teach them about the Lord. Literally, all day long we weave biblical truths into and throughout our conversations. I am so grateful for the QUANTITY of time I have with these little lambs (as sad as it sounds, I think whoever thought that pushing the idea of QUALITY time over quantity as an acceptable substitute for busy parents who were unable to spend enough time with their kids was fooling themselves ...).

My latest favorite Jared quote happens several times a day now (and this is no joke) ... we'll be driving and he says, "Look! A Cross!!" and I'll say, ""What does that remind you of?" and he'll say, "That reminds me that Jesus died on the cross for my sins so that I can go to heaven." I am so proud of this smart boy and so grateful to the Lord for his ability to learn and his desire to know more about Jesus ...

The other morning we were reading about Jesus teaching people through parables and we read the parable of the Good Samaritan. He loved hearing about how the Good Samaritan dressed the mans wounds and helped him - he had me read it to him several days in a row. We talked about how Jesus cares about people that no one else cares about and that he wants us to love and pray and care for others, no matter who they are. Jared stops and makes me turn the page back to where the man was lying, wounded by the side of the road. He says, "Mommy, can we pray for this man?"

And that is just what we did.