Did you get a chance to read my confession last month? I shared about feeling unprepared to raise my children with a Biblical foundation since I did not grow up in a Christian home. But by God’s grace, when I was a momma to toddlers, I was invited by a friend to sign up for a Bible study at church. Would you believe it that I showed up and she didn’t!
The “good girl” in me stuck with the commitment, and in spite of my less-than-pure motives, God unleashed a new desire to be in the Word.
The more time I invested in doing my Bible Study homework, the more I longed for longer and richer times with the Lord in His Word. Creating a quiet time habit was an overflow from a desire He put in me, and certainly not of my own doing. Of course, at the time, I patted myself on the back for finally acting like a grown up Christian. Years later, the Lord humbled my proud heart, revealing to me the magnitude of His grace at work and how He used those years to prepare me to teach my children diligently about the Scriptures.
What does it look like to teach them diligently?
If you would have told me years ago that God wanted me to teach my children diligently, I would have crumbled into a teary-eyed mess. How could I teach what I did not know? I wasn’t a biblical scholar. I was a saved-by-grace momma healing from a hardened heart.
Who was I to teach my kids about Jesus, when I felt like I hardly really knew who He was?
Is this how you feel? Do you struggle with thoughts of insecurity when it comes to teaching your children diligently about the things of God? Well, you’re not alone nor do you have to continue to feel inadequate. Here’s why:
- The only qualification you need for teaching your children diligently you already have: You’re their momma.
- The only thing you need to do in order to know what to teach your children is to become a student of the Word and let His truth overflow out of you and onto them.
Teaching our daughters diligently about God and the Truth, especially when they enter their tween and teens years, may look more like mentoring happening in the classroom of life. If mentor is someone that comes alongside a less experienced person and shows them the way, then as moms, we get to do everyday life with our daughters (and sons) as we capture the moments God gives us to teach them all about Him and how His Word applies to every day life.
“You shall love the LORD our God
with all your heart and with all our soul and with all our might.
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children
and shall talk of them when you sit in your house,
and when you walk by the way,
and when you lie,
and when you rise.”
The Lord already gives us a pattern for teaching our children diligently in Deuteronomy 6:5-7, which can look a lot like this in modern day terms:
:: When You {Are} at Home ::
God wants us to make use of our time at home together — or better said — to MAKE time at home together a priority. So the question is, do you spend time with your daughter at home? Is there time to sit together, over a cup of tea, and chat? Is there margin in your schedule to listen to her when she is ready to talk? Do you have time at home to work on a project or teach her a skill, in which you can share with her Biblical principles?
:: When You {Are} Going About Together ::
When you head out the door, what defines your time together? Are you rushing and hollering? Is she on her phone or listening to her own music? Do you need to cut something out of the schedule in order to make your time “on the go” more peaceful? How can you restructure your “chauffeuring” time into connecting time where you share God truth’s with her?
:: When You {Are} Ending Your Day ::
Bedtime offers a wonderful opportunity for you to be able to listen to the things buried in your daughter’s heart, and guide her in the habit of turning it over to the Lord. What if the bedtime routine with your daughter included talking, praying, and maybe reading Scripture or a memory verse? How can you make the last moments of her day an opportunity to empty her heart at the cross?
:: When You {Are} Rising Up Each Morning ::
I wonder if the Lord gives us the instruction to teach them when they rise in the morning last in this Deuteronomy passage because that’s when His mercies are new for all of us! As you consider your own morning traditions, what would it look like to have breakfast devos? If that’s impossible, can you greet one another with a Scripture verse? Or can you make it habit to pray for your daughter before she walks out the door or begins her work?
I urge you to turn to the Lord for wisdom on how to uniquely and purposefully respond to call to teach them diligently. Start first with giving the Lord your time and daily digging into the Word for yourself, so that the Holy Spirit may draw upon what you have stored up in your mind to overflow to your daughters. When you hear God whisper, “Hey, point this out. Do this with her. Ask her about…”, you’ll see that teaching them diligently is simply putting on a Biblical mentoring mindset as you impart the Truth into every day life and following God’s leading every step of the way.
:: If you’d like further help on learning how to mentor your daughters, grab a copy of Impact My Life: Biblical Mentoring Simplified and sign up for a mentoring course offered at More to Be. ::
