His Treasure Seekers

Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.  Proverbs 119:11 (NASB)

My number one goal in raising my children is to “make disciples.”  To accomplish this, I think the most important thing I can do while they’re little (aside from letting them see my own walk with God) is to build a foundation of knowing God’s Word, both stories and memory verses.  Hence the beginning of our homeschool journey.  Ian’s been enjoying our Bible story time each week, and he seems to be remembering the verses we’ve done, but I wasn’t sure until this morning. We had a sweet moment that showed me he really is understanding what I’m trying to share with him.

This week we’re learning about the Ten Commandments.  Yesterday at church I came across a little board book called The Story of the Ten Commandments that provided a good introduction for us.  (I’ve read a couple of books in this series.  For the most part I like them, but many of them talk about “school.”  Since I’m not planning to send my kids to school, I don’t want to confuse them or create an image in their minds of this wonderful place they won’t get to see.  So I edited the book a little as we read it, since following rules at school isn’t really an essential part of understanding the 10 Commandments.)

Anyway…

This morning I got our flannel board set and let Ian and Elijah play with the pieces for the week as I reviewed the story we talked about yesterday.  When I got to the part about God meeting the people at Mt. Sinai, I told them the Israelites were very scared. (“So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled.” Exodus 19:16)  Ian made all the people hide under the mountain and told me, “Sing ‘Keep me safe, my God…’,” which had been our memory verse during the week we talked about Noah’s ark.  I had chosen that verse, Psalm 16:1 “Keep me safe my God, for in you I take refuge,” because I figured a three-year old could relate to being scared, as Noah and his family must surely have felt.  I wanted him to have a verse in his heart that would comfort him in such moments.  I LOVE that he thought of it when I talked about the people being scared.

Okay, so the Israelites didn’t really hide under the mountain.  We’ll work on the details of the story throughout the week.  What’s important to me right now is that he’s applying what he’s already learned.  I loved those moments as a teacher, and it’s one of the main reasons I looked forward to homeschooling my own children.  I just love it when they “get” it!