I liked the title of today’s study. Blackaby called it “Joining God’s Activity in Your Child’s Life”. I like the reminder that, whether we are aware of it or not, God is working in our children’s lives already. All we’re doing is joining Him in that and helping our kids to recognize how He is working in our lives. I basically found myself underlining the whole chapter (at which point underlining loses it’s effectiveness, I guess) because I loved what He has to say.

How to “teach” our kids about God has really been on my heart lately, especially as Aedan gets older. I’ve been struggling in some regards to know what to say and do—and with how to make it not just a bunch of fluff, yet still age appropriate.

I felt like today’s lesson kind of flipped my thinking around. My job is not to teach my kids all about God. I don’t want them to know about Him—I want them to know Him. And those two things are vastly different.

Blackaby says,

“Not everyone will be married or have children. For those to whom God entrusts them, children are a special assignment, as well as a reward from Him. Wise parents understand that God has a special purpose for each child He gives to them, and they should watch carefully to see where God is at work in their lives.”

I loved that reminder. My kids are not mine. They are God’s. He entrusted them to us for a short time, to raise them and point them to Him. He is the one who created them though, and He is the one who has a special purpose already laid out for them. Our job is to help them to experience God and see what He has purposed for them.

Beyond that, His eternal purpose for them, and for all of us, is to be conformed to the image of Christ.

He ends the chapter with 3 things we can intentionally do to join in God’s activity in their lives.

1. Pray for and with our kids. Blackaby reminds us that prayer is not just a time to petiton God, but a time for us to adjust our lives so God can use us in our children’s lives. We don’t always know what they are dealing with and we don’t always know what is best for them, but God does.
2. Talk with your children about God’s activity. We already pray with our kids and for our kids daily, so that was just a good reminder for me. But this one was something I desperately needed to hear. I talk to our kids all day long, about anything and everything, but nothing is as important to talk to them about as disucssing God’s activity in our lives. I’ve done this a tiny bit since we started the study, but was super convicted that I need to be doing a lot more of it. I think I assume our kids are too young to get it, but I know Aedan hears and understands way more than I often give him credit for.
3. Minister with your children. Yes. This has so been on my/our heart lately. We’ve done some. We’re trying to find places that you can bring a 3 year old and a 7 month old. But this is something that I really feel like God is telling me to do, in big ways and small. I feel like He’s saying to serve Him as we go about our day and bring our kids along to join in. I want them to grow up knowing that this is just what we do.

I think the thing that I most loved in this chapter was a paragraph he wrote where he gave some examples of things he would say to his kids as they were growing up. I’m in this place of struggling to find language to tell Aedan the things I want to communicate to him, so actual phrases and questions are so helpful right now.

He says that, as he kids were growing up, they would constantly talk about God’s activity in their lives. When God answered a prayer, they gave God the praise in front of their kids. When they prayed, they helped their kids see the connection between when they prayed and what happened next. The result was that walking with God became a natural part of their lives. And that is what I want so badly for our kids.

He also said something that hit me hard. He said that he wanted his kids to learn to put their trust in God, not in their parents. I love that. He talks about how he would ask them God-centered questions, to help foster this in them.

For example, instead of asking something like, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, he’d ask “What do you sense God wants you to do?”.

When they asked him a question, he’s ask “What do you think God wants you to do?”

To start conversations, he’d ask “What has God taught you lately?”

I love those questions, because it puts everything in the framework of God and not us. I’m thankful for today’s lesson. It challenged me, as I’m learning to trust God more and pursue a deeper relationship with Him, to let that carry over into what and how I teach my kids about God.