Bearing Fruit in Your Home(school)Sýnishorn

The Farm and The Home

Knowing that the Lord is our Gardener and the One who grows our children and us, we may wonder: what can we do to help cultivate their growth? Let us again travel, this time to a farm, to gain some practical insights for our homeschool.

A farmer cannot control or force his crops to grow but what he does is vitally important to cultivate their growth. In other words, his job is to ensure the right growing conditions.

Similarly, we cannot control or force our children to grow in their relationship with the Lord, nor can we force them to bear fruit. However, we can actively cultivate our homes’ environment to provide the proper growing conditions.

There are various ways we can prepare our homes and schedules to help cultivate growth in our children. The below list is a reminder of some practical ways in which we can make an eternal impact within our homes as we trust the Lord to accomplish the work.

1. Prayer -The most important thing we can do is pray for our children. While we know this, it is probably the one thing we would all agree that we don’t do enough! May we pray for our children that their hearts would be the “good soil” that Jesus spoke of, that they would receive the Word of God readily, and that the Word would be deeply planted within their hearts.

Just as Paul prayed for the Ephesians, we can pray that our children’s roots would go down deep into the soil of God’s love.

2. Plant - As a farmer plants the seed of that which he desires to grow, we too must plant the seed we want to see grow. So plant the seeds, and point to the Scriptures, regardless of what you “see” at the moment! Something is being planted, even now. What is it? What seeds are we sowing (or allowing to be sown) into our children’s hearts, minds, and lives?

At times, it may seem “easier” to go on with our day without spending time in the Word with our children. Perhaps it was just in my house, but the moment I gathered my young children together to read from His Word, things seemed to go haywire! Sometimes I would dread opening up the Bible to read to my kids because I knew the toddler would begin screaming, and the kids would start fighting. There were times I questioned if it was worth it. But what was the lesson from the farmer? If we don’t plant the seed, that particular fruit won’t grow. The farmer might prefer to take time off from planting – it would make his life easier (in that moment) for sure – but then he would not have a crop to harvest later. In the difficult moments, remember the growth we hope to see in our children: what we want to grow is what we will be willing to sow, even when it is hard.

(To be continued in tomorrow’s devotion.)