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As parents, we long for our children to follow God. But the process of getting them to the place where God is real to them and not just a figure in a story can feel incredibly daunting.
How do we make God real to our children -- to help them know Him? Many parents wonder, "Where do I even begin to start?"
We can begin with helping our children learn to recognize their Father's voice.
Throughout the pregnancy with our first child, Sarah, my husband would talk to her. He would place his hands on my stomach, get down on his knees, and say something like: "Sarah, it's Daddy. Can you hear me? I love you." Sometimes he would sing songs to her, and other times he would just share his day with her. He loved to try to make me laugh by tapping on my belly and saying, "Hello, hello, hello -- is anybody in there? Please knock if you can hear me!"
What's amazing is that each time he did this, she responded. She would begin kicking with her feet into my ribs as a sign that she had heard her father's voice.
The night Sarah was born, nothing went as expected. The idyllic birth experience I planned for turned into a long blur of pain. Then, after more than 18 hours into labor, in the midst of the final push, I vomited and was unable to immediately hold my new baby. Instead, while a nurse tried to care for me, another nurse took Sarah to get her cleaned up and weigh her. My tiny baby was in a stranger's arms, hearing a stranger's voice talking to her and trying to soothe her, but she only cried and cried. She did not recognize the stranger's voice.
My husband, who had gone silent as he watched his daughter's birth, stood there next to her overwhelmed. Our newborn daughter's tiny fist held tightly to his finger, but she had yet to hear him speak. The nurse encouraged him to talk to her. In almost a whisper he said: "Hello, Sarah. It's me, Daddy."
It is a moment that my husband and I will never forget. Sarah stopped mid-cry and turned towards her father's voice. She searched for his face; she searched for his voice. The nurse turned to my husband and said: "Someone has been talking to their baby. She knows her father's voice."
Fast forward 17 years. Each of our three children knows their father's voice.
They have never been fooled by someone pretending to be their dad because they know the absolute authenticity of their own father's voice. It is distinctive. They have heard it from the womb, and it has been carried with them into their young lives. My children have no trouble recognizing their dad, believing in their dad, or trusting their dad to take care of them. He has shown them, time and time again, evidence of his faithfulness.
But how does the story of my daughter's birth, or my children knowing the sound of their dad's voice, have anything to do with helping to make God real?
Simple.
All children have to be taught to recognize the voice of their Father -- their Father in heaven. They have to be taught to know it, to trust it, to discern it, and to not be fooled into following the voice of an imposter. Simple, yet still daunting. As parents, it may well be the most important work of our lives.
In what follows, I would like to share how you can help your children see God as real, living and as an integral part of their lives.
When Sarah was in utero, both David and I talked with her all the time. We would talk with her, sing to her, tell her how excited we were to meet her. Throughout these months, we grew to know her through her movements. She grew to know us through the sounds of our voices. When she was born, we already had a fledgling relationship.
She could not yet understand what we were saying, but she knew that she was loved. The foundation of a lasting relationship had already been laid.
Teaching our children to recognize the voice of their Heavenly Father is much the same. Before they can even talk or walk or crawl, we begin sharing the voice of their Heavenly Father with them. We do this by instilling God's Word into our children from their infancy.
In Deuteronomy 6:4-9 we read that ancient Israel was told the following: "Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates" (Christian Standard Bible, emphasis added).
Here we see the original multidisciplinary learning style of teaching -- those in ancient Israel were to imprint the Word of God on their children's hearts and minds. Rather than just a lecture series on keeping the commandments of God, this admonition was given to parents as a methodology for effective teaching. Their children were to hear, see, touch and feel the Word of God all around them every day.
The message to the physical nation of Israel in Deuteronomy 6 is a message of timelessness. Its message is every bit as relevant to God's spiritual nation of Israel today. It is relevant to you and me. God's Word is to be our everything. And our job as parents, even if we feel overwhelmed by it, is to help our children learn to love the Word of God and imprint it onto their own hearts so that it can become their everything too.
Psalm 119:105 tells us, "Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path" (CSB). From as far back as I can remember, I have read God's Word to our children. We've had several children's Bibles. There are things about them I have appreciated, but in the end I keep coming back to the Bible itself.
As I would read to my children from a particular storybook Bible, I would find myself thinking of all that had been left out. In a desire to fill in the blanks, I would grab my personal Bible and begin reading from it.
I would make an effort to use words they would understand at their developmental level, but I almost always found that they liked the stories from the Bible itself better than the stories from the storybook Bible. I might let them hold the storybook Bible and look at the pictures while I would read to them out of mine. It wasn't always for large chunks of time, but I would share story after story with them.
As the years went by and they grew, we would discuss what we read. We would talk about it, and they would be able to ask me questions. I haven't always had the answers, but I do know where to turn to find them.
Reading God's Word to our children is just one of the ways of helping our children learn to recognize their Father's voice. It is perhaps the most fundamental level of making Him real in their lives. As the fabric of their earliest memories are laid, we weave His story into their own. Before they realize the alternative of not knowing Him, He is already there.
Through the great stories of the Bible, they begin to get to know God -- the great Creator, the Artist, the Redeemer, the Healer, the Sustainer. Through the stories we tell again and again, we teach them about the character of their Heavenly Father.
As adults, when someone asks us, "How do I grow closer to God?" we will often repeat the same advice again and again -- prayer and Bible study. It's good advice. It's true advice. But it can be ambiguous advice.
First, we point to the Bible. We encourage those asking to spend time reading the Scriptures and getting to know the Word of God. If they like checklists, reading the Word of God can seem like an easy box to check off. But when we get to the box on prayer, those asking will often hesitate to check the box. A look of panic or consternation will come into their faces as they ask: "But what do I say? Where do I start?"
Now, extend this down to teaching our children to pray. As one mom asked recently, "How do you even teach a kid to pray?"
Prayer is nothing more than an ongoing conversation with God. Only it's a conversation in which the Creator of the universe bends down to listen -- to us!
Teaching our children to talk with God as a part of an ongoing conversation that may have pauses and brief rests but never fully stops is another step in making God real to them.
We have done family prayer time with our children since they were toddlers. We began by having them get on their knees at bedtime to say goodnight to God. The prayers were often short, for little ones have short attention spans, but we would pray alongside them. As they became more verbal, we began guiding them through more developed prayers.
Often we would hear little voices asking, "Daddy, can I pray?" Daddy would give them permission to pray but tell them that he might "finish up" after them. It was a way that we got to hear their prayers, and they got to hear ours.
Hearing your child pray is a gift that has no measure. It is also a gift that comes with countless lessons. Teaching our children how to talk with God and share their highs and their lows with Him, their hopes and their struggles, their blessings and their trials, also teaches us how to pray better. Hearing the sincerity in those young voices can be the best facilitator for our own prayers. Our Heavenly Father wants to hear from us. He wants to hear from our children. As we teach them to recognize His voice, we also want to share their voice with Him.
One thing I want to stress is that there is no one right way to pray. Prayer can happen on our knees, in the shower, on a walk, driving in a car, pulling weeds. Prayer can happen anywhere at any time of day. It can be long and thorough or short and sweet. What we want to make sure of is that we teach our children to build the habit of talking with God throughout their day, every day. We want Him to recognize their voice.
God said he chose Abraham "so that he will direct his children and his family after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just" (Genesis 18:19, God's Word Translation). We have the same responsibility.
As parents we are always pointing out the direction our children need to go. It's part of our everyday lives. We point to the bed that needs to be made, the clothes that need to be picked up, the food that needs to be eaten, the school work that needs to be completed. Sometimes it may seem that our fingers are constantly pointing outward. So, while we are pointing things out to our children, point them to God.
Point out the amazing things He has done. We can definitely point out His amazing attributes in Scripture, but we should not stop there. Share with your children what God has done in your life. Share how He has answered your prayers. Share how He has been faithful in your life and in their life.
In August of 2020, on a family camping trip to Montana, I noticed that my daughter Grace's smile looked different. Like many parents, I tried to capture photos of all the important moments during the camping trip. Each time the kids would pose for a picture, I would tell Grace to "smile right." I thought she was putting her tongue inside her lower lip to be silly. It was the kind of thing she would do.
After getting home, I noticed that her smile still didn't "look right," so I asked to look inside her mouth. I saw something I knew shouldn't be there. Later that afternoon she was at our dentist's office. Within 24 hours she was having a biopsy. Within a week, we were told that she had an aggressive tumor and would need to have the better part of her lower jaw removed because there wasn't enough bone to save. We were told that our little girl would need years of reconstructive surgery. She was 10 years old.
For a parent, there is nothing that can prepare you for hearing that there is something wrong with your child. We were terrified, yet through it all we tried to point Grace to God and His pattern of faithfulness in our lives, in her life. We retold stories of how God had been with us up to that point and expressed that we knew He would be with us going forward.
The pediatric oncologist working with our family urged us to take Grace to the Mayo Clinic and wrote a letter of medical necessity. We were told that the appointment could be months out, but God opened the doors we could not. Within two weeks, we were at the Mayo Clinic, and Grace was having surgery to remove the tumor from her jaw by a surgeon who was at the top of his field. Her jaw was saved. The tumor was removed. Our little girl was going to be okay.
We all have stories to share with our children, stories of God's faithfulness in our lives. Share those stories. Point them to God each step of the way. Help them to both hear their Father's voice and see their Father's faithfulness.
These are some of the important principles I've learned for making God real to my children. We'll cover more key ways in the second part of this article next time!
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