From the time my husband and I were engaged we worried about having children. What if they reject Christ? Maybe we should not have any children, then we don’t have to worry about that at all.
We even asked couples that we knew whose children all seemed to still be following the Lord into their adult years what they did for their kids to turn out that way because this was something we really wanted to do right. Most parents do, but let’s face it: God is the perfect parent, and His kids rebelled, so there is always that risk.
But that doesn’t mean that we give up. Despite our fears, my husband and I did have children—two girls, and I’ve had to learn and unlearn a lot of things along the way in parenting them.
With my oldest daughter, like most first-time mothers, I read the books and tried to do what they all said, for the first few months, at least–because the problem was that my daughter just didn’t do what the books said. She didn’t nap when she was supposed to or just settle down after “crying it out” in the night time…on it goes.
God taught me then that our children are not a scientific formula that we have to just plug the right numbers into so that we get the expected and predictable output; our children are persons. They are unique, and though we have God’s Word to guide us there is no magic formula to follow that will guarantee faith in our children, and they all have unique personalities that need to be nurtured in accordance with those differences.
Further, it isn’t as simple as doing devotions with them every night and simply teaching them to obey you in everything—important as both of those things surely are to feeding faith in our children. After over eighteen years of being a parent, I still have a lot to learn; the journey of parenting is never really over; it merely changes.
As I was reading C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity in the past year something he said about faith provided me with a good principle for parenting that is also mirrored in Scripture. First the quote, then the Scripture.
Lewis says, “We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed” (Mere Christianity, Book III, chapter 11).
Just like we have to eat three times a day to stay nourished, our souls and the souls of our children need to be continually nourished. As babies they are totally helpless to feed themselves; we do it for them. Gradually we release the responsibility of feeding to them, and that’s how they keep growing.
The same concept applies spiritually. If we are going to feed faith in them, they need variety in their spiritual diet, just like they need variety in the foods they eat. And…they need someone else to feed them until they are able to feed themselves.
Unlike with eating physical food, however, the release of responsibility comes a lot later with spiritual food; and the bottom line is, we must be intentional about feeding our kids in the faith constantly.
Here is where the Scripture comes in. In Deuteronomy 6:4 & 5 we find the famous Shema passage—the words memorized and learned by all Hebrews from the time they could speak: “Hear, oh Israel, the LORD our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”.
It doesn’t stop there, though. The next few verses charge parents to talk about the law of God as they are going about their everyday life. They were to put this passage in the phylacteries on the doorpost, and they were touched every time they went in and out as a reminder.
However, the Word was not just there in the box; parents were supposed to be living out the Word and intentionally talking about God and faith and how it applied to every facet of life: “teach them diligently” (Deuteronomy 6:7a). This was an intentional feeding, a constant commitment to bringing everything in life back to God and His Word.
Not only was it to be done intentionally and diligently, but it was to be done all the time: as they sat in their house or walked along the way to somewhere else; when they laid down to sleep and when they rose up.
Does this mean we should get out our Bibles and read it with our kids every morning and every night and as we walk and as we’re sitting? Well, yes! The Word is living and active; God’s truth applies to all areas of life, and this is not so much about pulling out our Bible at each of these routine moments so that we feel like we’ve done our parental duty, but it’s about showing our children that our faith affects everything we do at all times, whether our physical Bible is in our hand at the moment or not. We can talk about God’s Word and show how it applies all the time.
So…if I do all these things, can I guarantee that my kids will follow the Lord all their days? Only God can guarantee that, of course. My girls are still young; I have no way of knowing their future or if they will continue on for the Lord.
What I do know is that I’ve entrusted them to Him and we’ve sought to feed faith in them all their lives. God’s Word—it won’t return void but will always accomplish the purpose for which it is sent (Isaiah 55: 10&11).
That’s guarantee enough for me.
Taking it Further:
How do you keep the Word of God living and active with your children?