I'm on the last point of our family parenting philosophy:
A growing love for God and life of pursuing Him. We hope that our children will grow to love God with all their heart, soul, and mind. We hope to instill spiritual disciplines in them that will develop their relationship with our Father. We hope that what they learn from us grows into a life of pursuing God and growing in grace, that their time under our roof may just be the beginning.
The toughest part of raising our kids to know Jesus, is that ultimately it is out of our hands whether they believe and follow or not. Our faith has to be in God who works in their hearts. He hears our hearts prayers and aches for our children and He uses us to show His ways. As I strive to share the grace of God to my boys, I trust God to do the hard work of transforming their hearts. I don't want them to "be a Christian" because of who Mom and Dad are. I hope they love Jesus because of their understanding of who He is and what He has done.
My children are still young, but I can already see God working in my 3 year old. For several months we have been reading every morning as we eat breakfast. Andrew wakes up looking forward to this time and always asks what we will read today. Lately we have been reading My ABC Bible Verses: Hiding God's Word in Little Hearts
. As we read I thought the stories might be a little over his head, but it's awesome to see God at work. For each letter of the alphabet, there's a Bible verse with a story and questions of application. We read one a day and review the entire list every day. As we were reviewing recently, he started saying some of the verses from memory. WOW! So cool how he can remember so easily. Now, with the verses that we have been reading together, he has God's Word in his heart and I can talk to him about it during teachable moments throughout the day. What an honor to be used by God in the shaping of this little guy and to watch as God is the strength behind all of the work.
2 comments:
So awesome! Love how children learn God's word so quickly. And such a great book too.
Keep installing in them the word of God. I loved these sentences:
The toughest part of raising our kids to know Jesus, is that ultimately it is out of our hands whether they believe and follow or not. Our faith has to be in God who works in their hearts
Right now I have two twenty year old sons who doing their own thing. It hurts me yet I know there is very little I would do different as my goal in life was to raise them from birth to seek after God's heart. Now I just have to live by faith that He will make our faith their own and come to love Him with their own hearts.
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