Pointing Children to God: Tribute to my Parents – Part 1

I have had a request to share what things my parents did to point me to God. It would be a delight to share!

It is a joyful blessing to have been raised by godly Christian parents. What a treasure and honor it is indeed! I come from a broken extended family…with divorced unsaved grandparents, who were pretty much not involved in our lives at all. I rejoice that my children will have godly grandparents to treasure them and play with them!
What did my parents do that helped point us to God?

Family Devotions

This is the first and most significant step my parents took in investing in my spiritual journey. They purposed to have “Wisdom Search” as we called it, early each morning. We were to rise early and study the truth together, looking for nuggets of wisdom in the book of Proverbs most of the time, although we delved into many other books of the Bible through my youth.

We would each take a turn to read five verses and share a comment. This was a challenge at times for the younger ones, but my parents faithfully encouraged them to just share one thing from one verse, never making fun or discouraging the simplicity of this. I strongly value their faithfulness and diligent efforts in this way. It gave my father opportunity to lead and direct our minds in the truth. We were not always consistent, nor did we kids really love it all the time (honestly, we hated it some times!), until the new birth took place in our lives to transform our desires. This discipline is one of the main things that I attribute my salvation to.

My parents encouraged us from a young age to begin our own personal devotions prior to family devotions. It was not something that was forced, but something that they encouraged us in. Early on it begin with The Picture Bible (the Bible in comic version form), and we all received our own copy of this book to read, or just look through before we were able to read. When we were old enough, we were encouraged to set our alarms and get up early and have our own personal devotions with the Lord. This encouragement helped me get into the discipline at a young age.

Nighty Night Tuck In’s

I am so thankful to my Daddy’s faithfulness in tucking me in every night before we went to bed. He did this faithfully up to the night before I got married. When he tucked us in, this was a time to talk about the day and what the Lord was doing in our lives. He would always be there to listen to my struggles, give his encouragement and advice, and pray for me.

I loved hearing my Dad pray. These were means that the Lord used to plant and grow the seeds of the gospel in my life. This really taught me to communicate well with my parents as well, a trait that was essential as I transfered my submission to my husband. I grew to love my daddy through these times and treasure and miss them to this day. Thank you Papa!

I am delighted to have these ideas and tools to implement in the raising and discipling of our children as well!

Part 2 to come…