One morning when my oldest child was three years old, he trudged down the stairs. From my perch at the kitchen island, I knew something was wrong because toddlers don’t trudge. They leap. They bound. They come crashing down.
Then I heard it. He had the sniffles. You know what that sounds like. In fact, kids like to prove it to you. They take pride in demonstrating their symptoms. He planted his little body in front of me and poked his nose high into the air like a hound catching the scent of a fox.
“See,” he said. “I have a cold.” His nose was red and crusty. It was stuffy and drippy. “You want to hear it?” he asked. (Of course I did. What mother wouldn’t want to hear congestion?)
“Yes,” I said, as I mustered an early morning enthusiasm. “Let me hear your sniffles.”
He lifted his shoulders to his ears in a seeming attempt to suck in all of the air in the kitchen. But the enemy known as “Stuffiness” blocked it. Stuffiness battled the airflow and beat it back. The cold was in control.
“See, I can’t bweathe,” he murmured.
Then the little guy spoke again and I’ll never forget what he said: “God didn’t hear my prayer last night.”
“He didn’t?” I asked.
“No. I asked him to take away my sniffles and He didn’t do it. He didn’t hear me. Why didn’t He hear me?”
My red-cheeked, heavy-eyed preschooler was disappointed in God, and he was looking to me for answers.
Give Us This Day 14
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Don’t Just Leave It to Sunday School
Despite years of formal theological training, I had no idea how to respond to the heartfelt question of my own son. I gave a clumsy answer and then I dwelled on it for the next 48 hours. I felt defeated. Had I floundered and maybe even failed in teaching him the faith?
What about you? Maybe you gave a clumsy answer to a heartfelt question or you questioned a clumsy but heartfelt answer. You had the wrong answer or no answer at all.
In those moments, perhaps you’ve been tempted to believe that parents should leave it to the religious experts—the pastors, preachers, and Sunday school teachers.
But God has involved parents in teaching the faith since the time of Moses.
God has involved parents in teaching the faith since the time of Moses.
Before the nation entered the Promised Land, Moses spoke to the assembly. He reminded the people of God’s commandments and laws. He said: “These commandments that I am giving you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children” (Deuteronomy 6:6–7).
Upon entering the Promised Land, parents would be responsible for the religious education of their children.
I imagine many mothers and fathers felt a weight of responsibility bearing down on them. Impress God’s commandments on their children? How would they do that? For starters, there were 613 commandments, laws, and regulations! Where would they begin?
The word “impressed”, too, implied skill and depth. This word is used of the Ten Commandments, which were engraved on stone tablets. Impressions aren’t made overnight. They’re chiseled by an experienced craftsman, bit by bit, in order to make a deep and lasting impression. As these mothers and fathers entered a new land, they were given a new educational mandate: Teach your children about God.
But parents today live under grace, not law. And that makes all the difference. We are not engraving a long list of rules and regulations on our children; we are engraving a love for God in response to His grace.
We’re Not Alone
As Christian parents living in the twenty-first century, we have the responsibility to share our faith with our kids. In his book, Our Father Abraham, Marvin Wilson says:
For various reasons—ignorance, convenience, or default of responsibility—the Church has often taken the place of the family. But the Church was never intended to be a substitute for the home. Nothing in God’s plan has ever replaced the home as bearing primary responsibility for imparting Christian values and insuring godly nourishment and growth for each family member.
Parents might easily feel overwhelmed and unprepared for this task of teaching their children about God. But there’s hope for parents! We do not carry this weight of responsibility alone. The Holy Spirit guides us and encourages us every step of the way.
Parents, we are not alone in the task of raising our kids. The Spirit is not some distant, faraway force. God’s Spirit lives inside us.
In God’s grace and mercy, He designed teaching and learning to follow the natural rhythms of everyday life, empowered and guided by the presence of the Spirit.
What does the Holy Spirit do in our lives? The Spirit guides us, intercedes for us, comforts us, and teaches us (John 14:26; Romans 8:14; Romans 8:26).
Parents, we are not alone in the task of raising our kids. The Spirit is not some distant, faraway force. God’s Spirit lives inside us, and we can rely on that power to produce in us everything we need, to be the parents God wants us to be.
Impressing Real Faith on Our Kids
While we don’t need a seminary education to impress God on our kids, what we do need is to be a person on whom God has been impressed.
Scripture and the good news of Christ must first and foremost be upon our hearts. We can’t impress something on someone else that hasn’t first been engraved in us. Sure, we can fake it for a while. But our kids will find us out, and sooner than we think.
Our kids will respect our genuine faith. Not perfect faith, but real faith. And real faith falters, but clings to the cross.
While we don’t need a seminary education to impress God on our kids, what we do need is to be a person on whom God has been impressed.
When God is upon our hearts as parents, it will pour over to our children.
When my son asked me why God didn’t answer his prayer and heal his cold, I was tongue-tied. I was disappointed in myself. How would I raise my kids in the faith when I couldn’t answer a question about a cold?
Then I realised that my son had prayed to God on his own! This three-year-old went to God in prayer and asked God for help. Where did he learn to do that? From me. An imperfect parent—but a parent on whom God and our need for Him had been impressed.
And when God is upon your heart, your kids will learn from you.
Extracted and adapted from Heart, Soul, and Mind: Raising Kids to Know and Love God, a Discovery Series booklet by Our Daily Bread Ministries © 2022 Our Daily Bread Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Visit discoveryseries.org to download the full book.
