When You Lie Down and When You Rise

In our family, we normally tell our eldest no to her fun and silly songs on Sunday mornings driving to church. The familiar refrain of "Why?" launched Husband and I into a discussion on teaching our children spiritual truths. How early is too early? How much is too much? If they won't understand it, should we even try to teach it yet?

My gut answer was: Yes. Now. All of it.

I kept thinking back to what I know of the Israelites and how they taught their children.

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord our God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." Deuteronomy 6.4-9

My understanding of the Israelites, limited though it is, is that they were always telling. Telling stories of God and what He did and who He is and who we are in Him and how that means we should live.

I think their children probably had the same intellectual capabilities that my children do. Their children probably didn't understand the things they told them. But they still learned the stories, and the reasons, and the guidelines for life. And then they grew up.And all the things they already knew in their heads, they began to understand in their hearts as well.

Yes. That's what I want for my kids.

So Husband turned around in his seat and did his best to explain to a 3-year-old how we are created by God and need to fear God and sometimes that means not listening to children's songs on the way to church because of respect and preparing our hearts....

And then the world shifted for me. She believed. The things her daddy told her, she simply believed. No objections or arguments or need for it to even make sense. This is what it means to have the faith of a child.

And although Daddy was doing his admirable best, it was coming out jagged and unpolished. He was trying to explain God ideas in the words of a child. He was forced to take God out of the adult box we had put him in and simply tell about Him. Learn about Him.

What a great teacher our daughter had become! What a great idea God had: Us, telling our kids God things. Us, learning even more than them.

"Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise."