His Treasure Seekers

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 10

“It is a deliberate choice you make to ensure your children grow up valuing the Bible as God’s revealed Word, not just consuming it like another Christian product” (page 186).

As I read through this chapter I was struck by this idea.  We have tried hard to make this choice for our family.  Both of our older boys received ESV Bibles with their names imprinted on the covers when they turned four.  They read from them every night during our family Bible time as well as using them during school and whenever they want to read on their own.  They take them to church on Sundays and share them with the kids in the 5th grade class where Eric and I teach.  (We want to worship together as a family on Sundays, so we bring all our kids in with us.)

I overheard Elijah telling Arianna the other day, “When you turn four, you’ll get a real Bible too!”  I love that he knows it’s a milestone in our family, and that he sees the difference between Bible storybooks (of which Arianna has plenty!) and the “real” Bible.  It’s important to learn the stories, and with little ones Bible storybooks can be a great tool, but there’s nothing like the inspired Word of God.

This chapter brought to mind three two areas I want to focus on for improvement in teaching my children to value Scripture:

• I want to be more intentional about pointing out to my children that when we read, God is speaking to us. I want them to know that this is different than all the other times throughout the day when Mommy reads out loud (which happens a lot the way we choose to teach them.)

“When you read and study the Bible with your children, remind them you are carrying on a conversation with the God of the universe.  When you open the Bible to read God’s words, remind them to open their hearts to hear God’s voice.  Remind them often that the Bible is not just an inspired curriculum about God and the Christian life, nor is it just a heavenly storybook, but it is God speaking to the world and to them through his revealed Word” (page 186).

• I want to be sure I’m reading the Bible on my own in front of my children.  I tend to try to wait until I am alone to spend time in the Word, but while that time is definitely important, it doesn’t help model for my children the importance of the Scriptures in my life.

• This probably needs to wait until after I’m more established on my second goal, but I want to start encouraging at least Ian to have a personal devotion time.  Right now I require all my children to lie down in their beds during “nap time,” even my 6-year old.  He often does sleep, but I think I could use the first part of those two hours to help him develop a devotional habit.  (After all, that’s often when I have my own devotions.)  I’ll have to consider this some more, but I want to keep it in mind and start heading in that direction.

Edited: After posting this I was praying about this last goal and felt God saying to wait, not just until my children see me reading my Bible more often, but until they really start expressing their own faith.  More specifically, I felt He wanted me to wait until after they have expressed a desire to be baptized.  Ian could probably tell someone what it means to have faith in Jesus and have our sins forgiven, and one time he asked me when he would be baptized, but he’s never said he wanted to do so or really expressed his own faith.  I think if I were to encourage devotions at this point it would be more of a religious exercise rather than time spent listening to God.  So I’ll just keep this in mind for later.  🙂

 

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson), so my Monday posts are all being sparked by things I’m reading in this fabulous book!