Last week I was busy working on a new painting when the big boys came upstairs after their quiet reading time. Being the inquisitive children that they are they wanted to know what I was doing and what it was for. At the time they came up I had finished the background of the painting as well as the barren tree and was just starting on the wording of the verse. They couldn’t read it yet because I was just starting the outline but Parker took a guess at what I was doing.
“Oh, I get it. Those words are a bible verse and the tree is what we are like when we don’t spend time with Jesus!”
He gets it. Even though the verse and tree had nothing to do with not bearing fruit for the Lord he knew the symbolism that a barren tree often represents.
Sometimes I think we assume our children don’t absorb as much as we want them too. Or we dumb down our lessons because we figure they can’t grasp the metaphorical concepts and stories. That moment showed me just how much he is really grasping from our devotionals at home and his lessons during children’s church on Sundays.
God’s word is alive and working. @@The Holy Spirit can make the stories and lessons understandable for even the littlest of minds.@@ God doesn’t need us to sugar coat it or bring in little kid words for our children to understand. Read them the truth and let Him work. He tends to know what He’s doing 😉
I need to get out of my own way sometimes when trying to “train up my child” and let God’s word and the Holy Spirit work in a way that I can’t. I think if I continue reading the Bible to them and living in a way that lines up with God’s word that the seeds we want planted will be sown in rich soil and will produce fruit, sometimes even earlier than expected.
Have you ever been caught off guard by your child’s understanding of scripture? How do you sow the Word of God into their hearts?
