Day 3: Teaching Our Children to Love the Lord

By Lisa Sharma

Pioneer Valley Church of Christ

Deuteronomy 6:4-7

Hear, O Israel:  The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  

These powerful verses are part of the “Shema”, a statement of faith that faithful Jews recite daily.  But just how do we impress on our children the command to love the Lord with all our heart, soul and strength?  

Part of our human nature is to talk about the things we love.  We can’t help it – when we are passionate about something, it spills out of our mouths!   We often don’t need to talk with someone for very long to find out what excites them, what makes their eyes light up.  Is it a new romance?  A new baby?  A favorite sports team?  A new book series?  A song they heard?  A hobby they love.  We could probably all name a person in our life and quickly name the one thing they talk about most often, their passion.  One of my friends loves chocolate.  My neighbor is crazy about dogs.  Another friend loves books.  And I love these parts of each of them!

Of course, it’s fine to have passions interests, and hobbies; God gave us these and they are a  part of what makes each of us unique and interesting!   But the one thing we are called to love more than anything else is the Lord our God!  When we love Him with all our hearts, we will find ourselves talking about Him all the time and seeing Him in everything.  Our children will hear this and we will be “impressing on them” the love for God that we have in our own hearts.  

When my children were young, I loved taking them on nature walks.  We would find birds eggs, snake skins, all kinds of plants and flowers and seeds.  These precious times were opportunities to talk about the God who created all of these wonders.  Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE flowers.  I talk about flowers a LOT!  They make me happy!  But my kids know that they make me happy because I see God’s handiwork and joy in creating all the different shapes and colors.  We would often stop and thank God for creating something so beautiful.  We talked about him “when we walked along the road.”  

As our kids entered the school-age years and started sports and other activities, driving in the car became our modern-day equivalent to “walking along the road”, and so we talked about God in the car!  One of my favorite conversations with my son was when he was about 7 years old and we were driving home.  He had recently seen a movie depicting a prince and he told me that he wanted to be a prince someday.  

Me: “Why do you want to be a prince?”

Son: “Because then I could have everything I want!”

Me: “What do you think that might do to your heart?”

Son: “Well…. It might make me greedy.”

Me: “Did you know that the Bible says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 

needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven?”  

Son: Wow!

Me: Do you still want to be a prince now that you know that?

Son: Nah…. I’d rather be a camel!

He may not have understood the deeper meanings of that scripture at such a young age, but that conversation did shift his thinking!  We took advantage of every conversation we could when we were “walking (or driving) along the road”!  

Although keeping God in mind was easier for me when I was walking in nature or driving the car, free from the distractions of home, the challenge in this scripture was talking about God “when I sat at home”.  I noticed that my conversations at home tended to be more geared around keeping the house neat, the kids’ rooms picked up, the shoes put away, the homework done.  There were days that, had you asked my children what I talked about that most, they probably would have said, “Picking up our socks!”.  My love for a clean home and successful children was competing with my love for Christ!  I needed to be more intentionally about talking about God more at home, and less about worldly concerns.  

To combat this, “Talking about God when we lie down and when we get up” became part of our routine.  Prayers at bedtime thanking God for the day, prayers in the morning for protection and strength, prayers at meal time thanking God for his blessings – these helped us to put this verse into practice and impress God’s providence and provision on our children.

Now, with both of our children in their late teenage years, our mornings and evenings don’t look quite the same, but we find opportunities to bring God into our conversations.  When we buy something online, or in the store (because teenage girls LOVE to shop!), my daughter and I stop and thank the God who provided for us so we could buy something we like without worrying from where our next meal will come.  This has created an understanding in her heart of how much God has taken care of us, and has instilled a generous spirit in her towards others as well.  

As moms, when we are loving God with all our heart, soul and strength, this will overflow in our conversations with our children – as we are walking, driving, sitting at home, waking up, or going to sleep.  This passion for God will be impressed on our children as we teach them, by our own example, to love the Lord our God.  They will each still need to make their own decision, in their own time, but raising children who love the Lord is the first step in planting a seed in their hearts, which God will make grow in His time.  

Questions for Reflection:

• What would your children say are your greatest passions?
• What do you discuss the most at home?  In the car?  When you wake up?  When you go to sleep?
• What small change could you make in your daily routine that would better impress your love for God on your children?

Prayer:

Father God, I thank you for the blessing of being a mother and the great responsibility of impressing your commands and my love for you onto my children.  Help me to love you more than any other passion in my life.  Help my children to see my love for you.  Bring to my attention any opportunity you are giving me to talk to my children about you, as we go about our day.  Give me wisdom and simple words to train them to love you and see your hand in everything.  Open their eyes to see you in this world, to know your love, and to love you in return.  In Jesus’ mighty name.  Amen.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this quiet time feel free to leave a comment below!

See all the quiet times from this series here: https://www.icocne.org/category/wisdom-for-moms/

Don’t have the app? Download it