Spending time as a family in the Word can be challenging. I love teaching our kids about the Bible. While I don’t do it perfectly all the time or enough, I long for my children to take hold of the depth and love God has for them. Often, I underestimate their ability to grasp big concepts found in the Word. Heck, I struggle sometimes to understand. Nonetheless, we read the stories, and process them paragraph-by-paragraph. It’s the living Bible because it transforms little and big people, alike.
Spend time in the word.
Okay, before I go any further, I feel responsible to disclose what ‘Bible study’ often looks like around our house. It’s not what you’re imagining, I promise. We aren’t perched around a table, sipping hot chocolate and eating scones. No… that’s rarely the case. More often than not, it looks like this…
I load all of our kiddos into the car. We race around doing pick up from school, driving to events, all while a loud little toddler shouts in an attempt to get all of the attention focused on her. It’s in these moments, I plug in my phone, put on the Bible app, and intentionally listen to scripture. I pause it every couple of sentences in order to make sure both my little and big kids are grasping what they’re hearing. And then I press play again… and then stop…and play again. You get the picture. We try not to read a bunch of stories at once, rather we take a week or so to process one story and soak in all it has for us. To be honest, some days everyone is rogue, and we try again the next day.
Why does this matter?
Last week while driving to pick one our kids up from Mt. Rose Ski Resort, about an hour drive from our house, we listened to all four chapters from the book of Jonah. Once we were done, I asked my eight-year old to summarize the story. His attention to detail blew me away. I told him that the stories we read will not return void and that I would be praying that God would make the words come alive in his own heart.
I believe the Bible is for big people and little people, alike.
Every night, I curl up with my little people in their bed’s and pray with them. Or as my three-year-old yells every… single… night… “Mom! Come pray to us!”
Quite frankly, some nights I’m rushed, annoyed and just want them to go to sleep. But, I also have the wisdom to recognize that these little people are growing older and need to know that Jesus hears their prayers and they matter to Him.
Each night I ask them how I can be praying for them. Most nights there’s no huge event or ‘big’ thing they request, but consistently for months, there’s been someone that we as a family have just been grieving. We miss everything about this person. The smile, the laugh, the silly—quirky things done, all of it. So, we pray. We ask God to show up in this person’s life in such a real way. We tearfully ask God to bring this person back to Him.
Some nights it’s a heartfelt emotional prayer and other nights, it’s simple… ‘God, tonight we ask that you protect and love (insert person’s name) and bring them back to you.
The Word transforms our hearts.
As soon as I sent our kiddos to bed, I had this sense that the conversation would require me to linger in our eight-year old’s bed just a few minutes longer. So, I finished all the things on my list so that I’d be fully present when I entered his room. As soon as I laid my head next to his, I saw the tears begin to flow down his cheeks. With a trembling voice he said, “Mom, all day at school I couldn’t help but think about… (person we love and have been praying for). He is like Jonah. He ran from God and is in the belly of the whale. But God didn’t leave him.” His words about took my breath away.
God sees us.
You guys, my heart raced. His little tears turned from small to enormous and his precious little face showed the heaviness of his heart. Anguish and pain spilled out as he continued, “If he’ll just repent, God will spit him out and give him another chance.” And with that, we cried… and cried… and yes, we cried some more. We thanked God for his mercy and love in our own lives.
Lord, help me trust you with a childlike faith.
Sometimes when I approach scripture, I overthink it. The Bible was true yesterday and it remains true today. Yes, even in-spite of our circumstances.
Jonah ran from God because he was being disobedient.
He also knew, ‘[God] you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity’ (Jonah 4:2).
Jonah knew something about the character of God that we can all learn from.
Jonah knew he was disobeying God and so did the people he was with—That’s why they threw him overboard. The storm of his disobedience was taking a huge toll of the people in his life. Jonah knew that God was calling him to something huge, yet he refused to act. God was about to do the impossible. He wanted to transform the hearts of even the hardest people. When we act [pray], and even speak hard truths; God relents and transforms the situation.
God relenting seemed unjust to Jonah, but to my eight-year-old, it’s the most loving thing a good-God could ever do.
Today, I don’t know where you find yourself. Perhaps you are in the boat enduring a horrific storm with someone who is actively disobeying God. Maybe you’ve already been thrown overboard, and you are waiting to be rescued. Or even still, you see your situation in the yucky belly of the whale. Hold fast to the truth found in Jonah. God sees them—He see’s you. Allow stories like Jonah’s and the Prodigal Son to wash over your family. Memorize passages and recite God’s truth with your kids. It really transforms their hearts—and yours!
Love you,
Nicole
