A Really Good Book

Is there really anything more difficult than taking a tiny helpless infant and turning them into a healthy, kind, honest, responsible adult who walks with Jesus? If there is, I don’t know what it would be… unless perhaps it would be watching them flounder as adults and knowing that you failed to direct them to the Source of all success.

If you are in the process of raising kids, you are aware that it is much more complex than you once thought. It was so easy to advise others about all you could see them doing wrong with their kids until you became a parent. Am I right? Some weeks it is as if new perplexities arise daily and it’s difficult to determine if it is love and patients or truth and wisdom that you need most.

The thing that troubles me is that there is so much wisdom to be found in the Bible about raising children and that knowledge is so easily accessed, yet few parents avail themselves of this free wisdom. I think the reasons are varied. Some don’t think it is relevant. Some would rather read what a PhD has to say (rather than the One who created that person with the brain to gain that degree). And some are too busy being a worn out parent to find out how to be a great parent!

When we were raising our kids we went to church pretty much every time the doors were open. We taught, we served on boards, we sang and led worship, we volunteered for funeral dinners. You name it and our kids saw us doing it. Did that show them Jesus or the path to Him? Did that give them the desire to follow Him? Perhaps it showed them that following Jesus was a whole lot of work! When they were a little older I really began to dig into the Bible and find the truth and wisdom I needed to really get a grip on what it meant to be a follower of Christ. That is when I let go of the notion that staying busy doing things at church was a prerequisite for all followers.

It was when I determined that I needed more that I began to feed myself. I wasn’t learning anything I hadn’t heard all my life in the church. My faith was more following rules and routines than anything. I decided to read that whole Bible. I didn’t stop (like I had all the other times I vowed to read it through) until I had read it all.. and it took me over a year. I didn’t understand it all. Maybe not even half of it. The Middle Eastern customs that colored the pages of Biblical history were as much a mystery then as they are now.  The one thing that I did glean was a better grip on who this Master is that I claim to serve and follow. I found the God that had been more of a notion than a companion to me. And I discovered that He wanted me to know Him intimately so that I could begin to see His great love for me.

I do not think that it is possible to direct anyone, child or adult, to Jesus without first having a deep abiding relationship with Him. And I don’t believe that happens without first reading His Story for yourself. It is good to hear what the teachers and preachers have to say, but it is beautiful when you have a thirst for Him that must be quenched. It begins to be satisfied when you open the pages with the desire to know Him better and it never ever ends, because the more you know Him the more you want to know Him.

Don’t let your kids find a counterfeit God because you haven’t taken the time to know the real God. Start now because the sooner you start, the sooner the pieces begin to fall into place and you discover that, because you know Him better, you can unravel some of the mystery that once stumped you as you read through the pages of His Story.

An overstuffed Easter Basket is nothing compared to giving your kids a parent that is curling up with a Really Good Book!