Little Parenting Habits for Big Faith in Your KidsSample

Do I even have time for this?

When Moses first spoke the commands to the families of Israel and told them to repeat God’s commands to their children, he wasn’t speaking to a people with an easy life.

The families who first heard the words were busy—and nothing about their context made this kind of consistency easy. The Israelites were refugees, fleeing from generations of enslavement. They lived in a nomadic tent city in the desert. The women spent their days cooking, cleaning, caring for their children, and dumping sand out of every sandal (sound familiar, anyone?), and the men spent their days shepherding in the wilderness, caring for the tabernacle, and learning to be warriors. God didn’t ask the Israelites to add anything to their lives. These parents were to talk about God and His commandments whenever they were with their kids, whatever they were doing: baking bread, lambing, or trekking to the next campsite.

So, what does that mean for us?

Just like the ancient Israelites, we can intentionally build small moments into our days to help our kids connect back into God. In modern times, this might look like reading a short devotional at breakfast, praying a blessing over the kids when dropping them off at school, singing worship songs while bathing the toddler, or doing a prayer time while tucking each kid into bed. Approaching our child’s faith development as thirty-second moments tucked into the nooks and crannies of life (even just a couple of them) means we help our children see God not as an item on a to-do list but as part of the rhythm of our days.

When we intentionally weave in these small faith moments, we’ll also get spontaneous teachable moments—but those teachable moments will come a lot more naturally when we’ve already normalized consistently talking to God, reading the Bible, and talking about faith through our thirty-second moments.

It may not feel like much in the moment, but those thirty-second moments add up to a lifetime of faith conversations and, by God’s grace, a harvest of faith in our families.

PRAYER:

You are the faithful God who keeps Your covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love You and keep Your commands. Help me not to become weary in sharing Your love with my kids. I know that at the proper time I will reap a harvest, because of Your faithfulness, not mine. Help me to talk about You with my kids when we lie down, get up, sit at home and go along our ways. In Jesus’ name, Amen.