The spiritual life of children

Since our children were young (or first adopted, if they weren't so young when they joined our family), we have talked with them about the goal of life. If you were to ask them what that goal is, they would all answer, "To love," or "To love God and other people." And truly, this is very often the motivation of their young hearts.

As our children get older, of course, we want them to "own" this goal even more. We are not satisfied that they grow up to be nice Christians, or good people. We want them to be zealous lovers of God--straight arrows in the hand of God, wholly committed to Christ and His Kingdom. But how does this happen?

Obviously, the Lover of Our Souls is the only One who can truly change each of our children from within. But, we can create an environment that says "no" to the values of this culture, and "yes" to the Kingdom.

When our children were very young, creating this environment meant exposing them to the things of God, teaching them obedience and loving on them as much as possible. As they get older, however, we know that they will need more. There are some things that we have been doing with our children (and I'll mention a few of them in a minute), but I'd LOVE to hear from YOU. Many of you have grown children. What have you done to create an environment of love in your home (especially as your children get older)? How have you spurred your children on to love the Lord with all of their hearts? I don't expect that anyone has perfect children, or that any one person has all of the answers, but I do know that all of you (whether you have grown children or not) have wisdom that I would love to hear!

So, here are some of the things that we have found to be helpful:

1) Time. We try to spend as much time with our children as we can, but here I am talking about focused, directional time with each child. David has had a pastoring time with each child, every other week, for years now. They talk about questions that they may have (spiritual or otherwise), things that they can do to grow in their love for God and others, prayer times, etc. This summer, I've started to have a time with each child once each week. We start our time talking about any questions or issues that they may want to discuss (again, spiritual or otherwise), and then we read a book together. It is a different book for each child, and they helped to pick it out. Each book addresses some spiritual need or question that they may have.

2) As we learn to trust the Lord more and more, we realize that He really is trustworthy!! We convey that to our children when we encourage them to ask the Lord to speak to them. We don't say, "Maybe He will." We say, "He will!!" God loves to speak to His children, so we trust that He really will speak to them. Then, when they have things to share that they think are from God, we take those things very seriously. Of course, there is a learning curve here. We all need time and help in learning how to discern God's voice. But, we want our children to know that God is real. He really loves us and having a relationship with Him means He really will speak to us.

3) We are trying to give our children real choices, where they can make mistakes in a safe environment. It is scary and discouraging when your children seem apathetic towards their faith, but we are realizing that if that happens, it does not help for us to get all worked up about it. For example, we have a family prayer time each day. The children used to have to join us for this prayer time. Now that they are older, they have a choice. They have to be ready to give their whole hearts in prayer, otherwise we ask that they read a book during that time instead. We don't get irritated with them, but we tell them that praying because you feel like you "have to" doesn't please the heart of God. We pray because we love God and long to be more like Him.

4) We try to help our children seek God's face first, and then to seek His gifts for the good of the Church. We absolutely want BOTH of those things for our children, but we want them in the right order. God wants to give spiritual gifts to everyone, but His first priority is a heart fully devoted to Him.

5) And, of course, we pray. Sometimes I can forget this simple thing. I love to pray. I love to praise and worship God. But sometimes I forget to pray for the hearts of my children. I was reminded of this when I asked a friend for some advice regarding one of my children. She reminded me that He alone, can truly change and form the inner workings of their hearts.

These are just a few of the things that we are doing. Again, I would really love to hear what you have done. What is the environment of your home like? How is Jesus glorified? I love reading some of your blogs, and I know that you have wisdom to share. May we all glorify God more and more!!