Family Affair

Our house is a ball of chaos. From 6AM until 7:30PM we are a whirlwind of little hands, feet, and stomachs. It can be hard, if not nearly impossible to get all of our teeth brushed much less study and apply the Word of God in our lives. We are not sitting down for long family devotions or gathering in our living room for discussions about Jesus. Our kids are 5, 4 and 16 months old. We're lucky we're alive some nights as we pour ourselves into bed and mutter goodnight to one another. 

Our season of life may be chaotic, we may not have devoted "God time" in our home, and our mealtime prayers may often be hurried and repetitive, but God is teaching us that through His Word our family can stay focused and centered on His truth and through memorization and meditation He is working His heart into our hearts. 

The beautiful thing about Bible memorization is that through planting God's Words in our hearts and minds we are able to see more of Him throughout the day. We have given up the Rockwellian ideal of sitting around the Big Bible in our home and have instead found freedom in slowly dissecting bits of scripture as a family. Whether in between bites at the dinner table, or at stoplights, or, my personal favorite, while pushing our kids through the supermarket, by memorizing His Words we get to communicate with and about God openly throughout our day.

One very helpful thing that helps keep me focused is to not only learn the scriptures myself, but to practice boiling each passage down to its pure essence to teach our kids. While I completely believe that our children are capable of memorizing large chunks of scripture I have found it helpful for them and for me to get to the root of the passage and dig into the true meaning. I think this is especially helpful for kids when applying what they are memorizing.

So here you have it. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 distilled into the hearts and minds of our children looks like this: "Choose joy, pray, be thankful! This is God's plan for you!" As they grow in wisdom we will revisit this truth. For now these are the things I want my kids to know and absorb into their hearts.

Here are some ways to start memorizing with your kids this week:

• Print and hang the picture above. More for you than for them!
• Any time you have down time in your day review the verse with them. A few of my favorites are: In the car, at the lunch table, while running errands, during cuddle-time or baths.
• Talk to them about what each piece of the verse means. What is joy? How do we pray? To whom and why are we thankful?
• Express what the verse means to you and how you have seen it in your own life.
• Work it into your discipline routine. "Let's 'choose joy' instead of whining". "I know your afraid, we should pray about that." "Let's thank God for a fun time with our buddies."

You'll be amazed how quickly your kids pick up verses. They have a great capacity for memorization and understanding. The thing I love best about memorizing scripture with our kids is that it releases me from a lot of heavy lifting. If I don't know what to say or do I can often recall a verse we've studied that applies to a situation. God longs to speak to each of our hearts and He does so through His Word. Why would our kids be any different? Truth calms, it soothes, it disciplines, and it heals. There is no greater truth than that of God's very own words.