I am a mother to two young children aged three and one.
Every day, I ask God to help me take each day as an opportunity to help my children grow in the knowledge of the Lord. My experience as a parent might be limited due to the short time that I have been a mother. However, by the grace of God, I come from a family of strong believers – parents who raised me in the fear of the Lord. Being raised by a prayerful mother and a father who lived out his faith, I know a thing or two about how they planted and nurtured the seeds of faith in our hearts long before we became adults. Today, I consider it a privilege to be entrusted by God with the souls of my children. It has become our lifestyle to talk about Jesus as though He is the ever-present, unseen member of the family.
Joseph, my firstborn, turned three this June. Last week, he stood quietly beside me as he observed me making oatmeal for breakfast. Curiosity piqued, he offered to help. I politely refused. Quite confidently Joseph declared, “Jesus says I must cook!” I was a bit taken aback. But I smiled at his impassioned conviction. I handed him the spoon and he stirred under my watchful eye. After all, Jesus had entered the conversation. Who was I to disagree? Will I bend to Joseph’s whims every time he says “Jesus said so”? No. Will I teach him how to listen to God’s voice? Yes. Will we continue to include God in everything we say and do? Absolutely.
Fast forward to today.
The aforementioned Joseph has a surprising love for dinosaurs. For some reason, their sheer size and strength never fail to fascinate him. The same can be said for his fascination with Goliath the giant but that’s a story for a different day.
Having been invited to his first birthday party, Joseph was very much looking forward to spending the afternoon eating cake and blowing bubbles in our neighbor’s garden. Once there, all his bashfulness dissipated the moment he set eyes on a small, rather fierce-looking dinosaur. He pounced on the little figurine before anyone could stake their claim on it and came running back to me looking pretty pleased with himself. The owner of the toy in question didn’t seem to mind, so I let Joseph be.
After spending the whole afternoon multi-tasking (dinosaur in one hand, doing everything else with the other), Joseph was ready to go home – with the dinosaur.
I took Joseph aside and explained to him that the toy didn’t belong to him but Lukas. Needless to say, Joseph didn’t take the news very well. He wasn’t very pleased when he found he had to leave his plastic pal behind. I spent five minutes reasoning with him before I was reminded that there was a better way to handle the situation.
I asked Joseph if he would like to pray with me.
He agreed.
Together we bowed our heads on our neighbor’s lawn and spoke to God. I prayed and Joseph repeated my words. Before we could have a chance to finish our prayer, Joseph was ready to hand the toy over to Lukas and come home with a smile.
Small incidents such as this, interspersed throughout our day, remind me of the value of guiding the hearts of my children towards the Lord. It is enormously rewarding when Joseph understands that He cannot do certain things even behind my back because he knows that “Jesus is watching” or when he breaks into a Sunday School song in the middle of playing with his blocks. As God-fearing parents, we have the responsibility to start children off on the way they should go, so that even when they are old they will not turn from it (Proverbs 22:6).
The best way to do that is to lead by example so that our children see what being a disciple of Christ is all about.
When I am constantly aware that my life is the first Bible that my children will ever read, I cannot make thoughtless decisions in my day-to-day life. I owe it to God to live a life that they can emulate long before they are capable of reading His Word. More often than not, that involves some serious “dying to self” – I do not seek to operate in a way that pleases my flesh but rather strive to live in a way that manifests Christ. This can translate into different things for each of us. For some of us, it might mean spending more time in prayer. For others, it might be limiting screen time and being fully present with their children. For still others, it could be the way they respond to conflict and criticism.
No matter what the case may be, we can be assured that when we begin to desire to walk the path of discipleship in order to honor God in everything we do, it sets an example to our children in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and purity (1 Timothy 4:12). It prepares the hearts of our children to always want to imitate Christ in everything they do.
That’s a solid foundation to build upon.
4 comments
A very beautiful and thoughtful Narration embellished by your soothing voice and enticing words.Keep up the good work…❤️❤️❤️❤️
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Aww that was a perfect way to soothe Joseph! Will try this ! Beautiful ka! Keep posting👍🏻
Yes totally agree the first bible our children will ever read is our lives and it can be the only bible our neighbours may ever read .
2 Corinthians 3:3
clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
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