How and when do we begin teaching our children about God?

It’s a question many parents ask, and I believe Moses spoke the answer when he tried to make the Israelites understand how they could live God-exalting lives day by day:

Memorize these laws and think about them. Write down copies and tie them to your wrists and your foreheads to help you obey them. Teach them to your children. Talk about them all the time, whether you're at home or walking along the road or going to bed at night, or getting up in the morning.

(Deuteronomy 11:18-19)

These verse give us two important steps to follow.

Step One: Make sure you know and love the God of the Bible.

An ineffective teacher is one who tries to teach what she does not know. If we are going to impart spiritual truths to our children, we must first know the Truth. Not just in our heads, but in our hearts.

There is absolutely no substitute for reading and meditating on the scriptures. I love KSBJ (God Listens!), our wonderful Christian radio station here in Houston. But listening to praise and worship songs all day is not a substitute for reading and understanding the Bible, because in the scriptures is where we encounter God Himself. That is our purpose as we read and study: to encounter the Living God of the Universe, who is revealed to us in Christ Jesus, The Living Word.

It is impossible to over-emphasize this: READ YOUR BIBLE. Study it. Think about it. Memorize it. Write down verses and tape them to the mirror, the refrigerator, and any other places you frequent during the day. Ask God to give you a hunger for His Word, so that you develop a love for Him that will consume your life.

As a mom, finding time for the Bible can seem impossible. But it’s only impossible if you’re not intentional. One thing is for certain: it won’t just happen. Our natural tendency is to find a million excuses and distractions that will keep us away from the scriptures, and the enemy of our souls will supply plenty of other temptations to do anything other than open our Bibles. That’s why it’s so important to ask God for the desire and discipline to read His Word. It takes a supernatural work that comes from God to get us in the right frame of mind and heart to make the Bible a priority.

If the Bible is going to be a priority, that means other things will have to be secondary. For some moms, that means extra sleep takes a back seat. Giving up a few moments before the rest of the family is awake or after they have gone to bed is a sacrifice that will pay huge dividends in your spiritual growth. But it will not happen unless an intentional decision is made to either wake up or stay up in order to read God’s Word. As a young mom, I looked forward to Wednesday afternoons, when my two preschoolers spent two hours at a supervised playtime. I remember struggling more than once before choosing to skip lunch dates with friends on those days so I could sit alone and read my Bible, reasoning that I was choosing a date with the Author of Life Himself.

For others, making the Bible a priority may require a change in reading habits. If the only extra time you have during the day is spent reading books or magazines, by all means toss them. No other reading material will change your life and enrich your relationships like the scriptures. Remember, we’re talking about being intentional. On an even more critical note, turn the television off if it competes with your time for Bible study. With gentleness and affection, I would point out that if you have time to watch television, you have time for the scriptures.

When the Bible is a priority in your life, the truth of the scriptures will begin to permeate your decisions, your desires, your behaviors, your relationships, and your plans. In short, God (through His Spirit) will use the scriptures to change your heart, and you will fall in love with Him and hunger for Him like you never have before.

Step Two: Teaching our Children

The more we begin to fall in love with the Author of the Bible, the more effortless it will become to teach the scriptures to our children.

I remember taking walks with my daughters and talking about God as we saw Him in His gifts we encountered along the way: the clouds, the trees, the bugs. As it became more and more of a desire of my own heart to please God, I spent more time encouraging my children to do the same thing. I was careful to never use God as a tool of manipulation (“God will not be happy if you don’t listen to Mommy”) but talked about what God was like and what pleased Him. I wanted them to know Him so they, too, would develop a love for Him.

As my children grew older, I tried very hard to make sure the rules I established in our home were God-ordained. I let them know we were choosing those rules so God would be honored and obeyed. Even when my daughters were teenagers, they understood the reason they were to dress modestly was because that is what honored and glorified God. We never argued in a store dressing room about what styles I did or did not like, because it had already been made clear to them that we would dress in a way that pleased God.

The battle for a child’s heart begins when he is two or three years old, when telling a lie becomes an opportunity to teach about the God of the Bible who loves us and has a better way for us to live. Children love to hear about God. As a young mom, some of my first introductions to people in the Bible came when I read a preschool edition of the Bible to my firstborn before she went to sleep at night. My son-in-law tells my two-year-old grandson stories about great hymn-writers and then sings the hymns before my grandson nods off to sleep.

When God is the supreme love of our lives, it will feel natural and right to share His truths with our children. If talking about Him does not feel comfortable, then I would encourage you to begin with Step One. Start by asking God to give you a love and a hunger for Him that would cause you to go out of your way to want to spend time with Him in His Word. Then, open your Bible and begin an adventure with God that will cause your children to want to get on board and join you in a lifelong quest of loving and glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ.