Impress Your Kids with God
"These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children." (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)
Have you ever felt like you’ve floundered or even failed when it comes to teaching your kids the faith?
When my oldest child was three years old he trudged down the stairs one morning. From my perch at the kitchen island, I knew something was wrong because toddlers don’t trudge. They leap. They bound. They come crashing down. Then I heard it. He had the sniffles. You know what that sounds like. In fact, kids like to prove it to you. They take pride in demonstrating their symptoms. He planted his little body of 36 inches in front of me and poked his nose high into the air like a hound catching the scent of a fox. “See,” he said. “I have a cold.” His nose was red and crusty. It was stuffy and drippy. “You want to hear it?” he asked. Of course I did. What mother wouldn’t want to hear congestion?
“Yes,” I said as I mustered an early morning enthusiasm. “Let me hear your sniffles.”
He lifted his shoulders to his ears in a seeming attempt to suck in all of the air in the kitchen. But the enemy known as ‘Stuffiness’ blocked it. Stuffiness battled the airflow and beat it back. The cold was in control.
“See, I can’t bweathe,” he murmered.
Then the little guy spoke again and I’ll never forget what he said: “God didn’t hear my prayer last night.”
“He didn’t?” I asked.
“No. I asked him to take away my sniffles and he didn’t do it. He didn’t hear me. Why didn’t He hear me?”
This red-cheeked, heavy-eyed preschooler was disappointed in God and he was looking to me for answers. That’s when I gave my secret ‘mom look’ to God. I crinkled my forehead and turned my eyes heavenward. I pursed my lips ever so slightly. As I sighed, I released a silent, rapid rant to God: You couldn’t have healed his cold? Or even improved it? I’ve been trying to teach Him about you. Work with me here! It’s so simple: He prays to you. You heal the cold. He gives you the glory and he learns that you’re real and you care. But since you didn’t do it my way, God, now I’m stuck trying to answer a deep theological question from a stuffy three-year old! We could have done this the easy way, God!
Completely unaware of my internal temper tantrum, my drippy little boy stared up at me, patiently waiting for an answer.
In my sin, I had treated God like a child.
Now, I’ve had formal theological training, but I had no idea how to respond to the heartfelt question of my own son. I gave a clumsy answer and then I dwelled on it for the next 48 hours. I felt defeated. Had I floundered and maybe even failed in teaching him the faith?
Then I realized something. I realized something important. My three-year old prayed to God on his own! He knew enough to talk to God about his sniffles. He didn't get the answer he wanted, but he had a relationship with the God of the universe! How did he learn to pray? By watching mom and dad. I don't have all of the answers, but I may be teaching more than I realize. You may be too. And we can learn from this toddler to talk to God about everything--our sniffles and our parenting insecurities.