Good Shepherd Lutheran church

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Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Family devotional time

As discussed on Thursday, there's a good chance that you're not as good at this as you want to be. 

Sure, you have in mind the same thing that the rest of us do, which is to have a pious family, raised right, with a full knowledge of scripture on their minds and hearts, but the world seems to get in the way, right? In all the hustle and bustle, with everything else that needs to happen, the world tends to get in the way of what we want to do.  The issue of family devotional time tends to fall apart on two key issues:

1 - No time

2 - I wouldn't even know where to start / I don't know enough myself.

Great, let's solve both those problems one after another.

First of all the time concern.  Yes, this means that you're not always going to get to do a full sort of devotion, because it takes time.  By its very nature.  A lot of things that you do with your family take time, and a great many of them you've become adept at doing quickly if you have to.  If it's already past bedtime, it's going to be a quick snack, not a full on cereal festival.  If you've only got five minutes before the bus shows up, then brushing the teeth won't take as long as it would otherwise; you may not be as thorough as you'd like.  But the point is, that if something's important, then you find a way to fit it in where you have time.  If it isn't then you find things to fill up that time instead.

For most of us, we're often running short on time, but because devotional time isn't something that we actually make into a routine, then it becomes the first thing to go.  If you can trim back anywhere, then that's where you can trim back.  And if your family is anything like mine, then if you don't make something into a routine, into a priority, if you don't set time aside for it, then it isn't going to happen.  There are enough demands on our time to ensure that.

So wat do?  Set aside that time.  When?  Well, there are a great many other things that we do with our evenings that we have to do, and that we find time for.  In our house, supper is really the beginning of this, where we sit down for supper together, and then after that, the boys go and play, we do something together as a family for a while, and then we move on to the bedtime routine.  Bath, snack, brushing teeth, storytime, and lights out.  In there, in that brief moment of time, there is time for devotion as a thing that you do.  If you have it as part of the routine, then there's a good chance that amongst the stories, you'll find time and space to engage in some time of prayer and stories.  This doesn't mean that you'll always have time to do it well, but like many of us have found with saying grace, if we forget that part of the routine, there's a good chance our children will remind us.

Problem number two.  Where to start?  Good question.  It's a very good question.  How can we start to teach our children about this stuff when we don't know much ourselves!  Well, something you need to know, which you've learned by raising your children so far, is that your parents didn't know what they were doing either.  They certainly seemed to know what they were doing all the time, Father always seemed to know best, Mother had it all together, and yet we feel as though we're imposters these days when we raise our children.  And this knowledge (or lack thereof) spills over to matters spiritual as well!  There's a real good possibility that we don't know more than our parents did at our age.  And if they knew more than we did, that's all the more reason to get started now. 

If you have a kid's Bible (like this one), they're usually a good starting point to get your kids familiar
with the stories, and also for you to get familiar with the stories too!  If they're not stories that you know, that's okay, because your kids will enjoy just getting familiar with the characters, with the stories, and with what it says about God. Possibly one of the most important things you get out of family devotional time is that you see in the Bible stories a story of how God relates to families.  You see God dealing with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, their children, the family of Israel right the way down through the ages, and when Jesus was born, he was born into a family himself! 

So as you read the story, whichever one you choose, think about how God relates to the families of earth, and how he is still speaking to your family today.  After the story, (or instead of the story, if you're running late), it's always good to ask your kids who they'd like to pray for tonight.  They're going to ask to pray for you, for their friends, grandparents, aunts and uncles, whoever is feeling sick, or not too well, that kind of thing.  If they can't think of anyone, then I'm reasonably certain that you can think of someone who needs your prayers. If you're comfortable praying off the cuff, please do so!  If not, then there's a good chance that you grew up with a bedtime prayer yourself.  If not that either, then there are multitude of apps and websites that can provide.  I would suggest some, but I don't want to colour things for your family.

Now, this is perhaps the most neglected yet most important part for you as a parent.  This is a time of growth for you spiritually too!  If you're reading through the Bible story, and it's one you don't know well or don't remember, then take a few moment to look it up!  Read it for yourself, and learn as your children learn, and grow as they grow.  As you do, take a few minutes to thank God for your family, to pray for your children and your spouse, and to talk to God about what is going on in your life as well.  We don't want to be like the blind leading the blind, and having them both fall into a pit!  The conventional wisdom on airplanes is to make sure that your own mask is secure before assisting someone else.  If you're planning on leading devotional time with your children, then it's always a good idea to start a devotion of your own as well.  Nothing too taxing, but the best place to start is with the grown up version of the story you just read with your own children.  Then ask yourself, as you may do, what is it that God is trying to say?  Let the words of Samuel, the child from the books of Samuel, be your words:

Speak Lord, your servant is listening.

Letting your children, or your parents, or your spouse or your pastor know that you're praying for them is good, and is more glue to help bind your family together.  And as always, if there's anything that you don't know, or don't understand, or don't feel comfortable talking about, that's okay!  Everyone would much rather you started, without having it all figured out, than never got going.  And feel free to let your kids explore what they like in the scriptures, let them dictate what they want to read, which stories they like to hear, who they want to pray for, and be prepared for them to come up with the same things over and over again, and that's a good thing.  Children like what they like, and want to hear what they want to hear.

Any more questions, don't hestitate to let me know.  That's what I'm here fore.

PJ.