Jesus Calls Me Friend: Creating Space for Your Children to Encounter GodSample

I grew up in a Christian home, and from a young age, I knew in my head that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. God saved me by grace, but I rarely read my Bible. My faith was superficial at best. In graduate school, my faith was tested in a way I'd never experienced before when a relationship suddenly ended without explanation.

I found myself no longer able to lean on my familial faith to push me through the hardship. I needed to know personally that God was real and His plan for me was good. Thankfully, God put people in my life to speak truth over me, and I came out of that hard season stronger than ever before.

Now that I'm a mother to three precious children, I often think about how to build my children's faith and provide opportunities for them to experience the love of Christ for themselves. Kids tend to believe what their parents believe, but at some point in their journey, they must turn their inherited faith into their own.

Memorizing Scripture is good, and teaching our children Bible stories is worthwhile, but we don't want our kids to have only a head knowledge of who God is. They need to know His goodness deep in their hearts and that He wants a relationship with them.

It's important to note that we cannot force our children to follow Jesus. God gave us free will, which means we can choose what we believe about God and our universe. We can't choose this for our kids. Serving God is a choice our kids must decide on their own. But we can provide opportunities and environments for them to encounter and experience God even at a young age.

And remember, we miss a massive part of the transformation process if we focus solely on teaching our kids how to behave like Christians. Instead, our desire should be to see God penetrate the hearts of our children and for the Lord to become their friend. When their hearts align with God, and they trust God’s goodness, their behavior, actions, and reactions naturally shift to being more like Him.

Reflect: God calls us His friend (John 15:15), and He desires to have an intimate relationship with each one of us.

What are we doing to share this truth with our children?