Kids & Parenting
Every Christian parent struggles with the same questions: when should I begin teaching my child about God, how much would they be able to retain and is it important for our children to be ready to defend their faith and walk strong in an unbelieving culture at an early age. Is it two, three, kindergarten, first grade…when?
As to the question, at what age can they retain spiritual concepts; I would like to tell you a little story about our daughter, Kara, when she was about three-years-old. My wife and I tried to do devotions with our daughter every night before bedtime prayers. We had no idea how much was sticking but we figured that it would at least develop consistency for the future. We tried to keep the concepts simple. However, some of these concepts have to be delivered as they are presented. Two such concepts were sin and Satan. We decided to teach about Satan rather than “the devil” because there are too many cartoons with devils in our culture; not to mention all the little “devils” running around during Halloween.
So we took a deep breath and plunged in; doing our best to explain: “Satan was once one of God’s favorite angels but then he started thinking he was better than all the other angels. After a while, he began thinking he was probably just as good as God. Finally, he convinced himself that he was better than God and would do a much better job at running the universe. One thing Satan really hated about God was how much He loved us. Satan didn’t think we were that important and certainly not worthy of God’s attention and love. And He definitely believed there was no way we should be considered His children and get to share in heaven. When he became God he was definitely going to change all that. So he convinced some other angels to go along with him and they made war on God and His angels. But God won and threw them out of heaven. And because Satan knows how much God loves us; ever since that time he has been trying to get us to ignore God, disobey Him and do all kinds of bad and mean things. And that’s called sin. Sadly, lots of people listened to Satan instead of God and ended up doing all kinds of terrible things. But God loved people so much that He sent His Son Jesus to earth to teach people how to listen to God again. Then Jesus allowed Himself to be killed and die so He could come back to life again and prove that He was God’s Son. Now we know that He will always be alive and nothing can ever make Him die. So whenever we’re in trouble or forget to listen to God and end up doing bad things; we can call to Jesus and He will hear us and help us listen to God again.”
That was the lesson we gave her and then wondered if we had tried too hard and gave her more than she could understand. We looked to Jesus to sow it into her heart and then moved on. We continued our devotions but never heard a thing from Kara about sin or Satan.
One night Kara was taking a bath. She hated bath time and dragged her feet, pouted, complained and basically made life miserable for my wife (she wisely refrained from that behavior when I was in charge of the bath). The only part of it she liked was at the end when she got to run around naked before we finally caught her as she giggled and squirmed until we finally got her clothed. On this particular night I had warned her not to give her mother a hard time. “If you do,” I warned, “you’ll be disobeying me and I’ll have to punish you.” As I worked in the study, I began to hear the faint beginnings of a struggle. In a few short minutes it grew in volume and intensity until finally I heard my wife yell, “That’s it! You’re driving me crazy! Your Father can deal with you!” I had heard enough. I headed up the stairs for the inevitable confrontation; pounding my booted footstep on each stair for dramatic effect. But what was I going to do? I hated punishing her. And I really hated spanking her but here she was defying me. I asked the Lord for wisdom as I approached the bathroom door. As I flung open the bathroom door preparing to light into her she completely outmaneuvered me. Standing there in the tub completely naked and dripping wet with her elbows tucked at her side and her fists tucked under her chin; she looked up at me crying and blurted out, “I hate Satan! He made me not listen to God and disobey you and make mommy mad. I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!” And in a single second, nay, a nano-second; all the anger drained out of my body and with it any thought of punishment. Instead, it took all my strength and will not to burst out laughing. I couldn’t believe it; not only had she heard and retained my lesson on sin; she had understood and believed it. Because looking in her eyes, I was convinced that she truly believed every word she had said and was not just maneuvering for a light sentence with a “the devil made me do it” defense. We still had to have a “chat” and there were a few privileges that were missing the next day, but secretly I was kind of proud of her. One thing was for sure: no need to water down devotions in the future. I figured if she ever went missing in the future, I would look first to see if she was arguing theology with the elders in the temple.
Now as far as being ready to defend your faith; my wife and I were convinced by the bathtub incident that we should make every effort to give her as much “armor” as we could before she started kindergarten. We wanted to make sure that she knew who Jesus was before some teacher tried to talk her out of it. We explained to her how He died and why He died. We told her that He was King in heaven and then gave all that up to come here and save us. And when he decided to die on the cross and take the place of every person who ever lived; He proved He was our King. I told her, “Don’t be sad that He died on the cross, honey. Because He was willing to suffer and die for us proved that He was our King and worthy to wear a King’s crown.” We told her, “He’s your King too, honey and He loves you. He will always stick up for you and you can show Him you love Him by always sticking up for Him” We gave her as much armor as we could and then placed her in Jesus’ hands.
We decided we would put her in the public schools. We were convinced that if we did our job she could be salt and light in a system that Christians were abandoning at an alarming rate. I don’t intend to debate the issue here; only to say that we kept her covered in prayer, did our job as parents involving ourselves in her education and school… volunteering for special events and in the classroom…and trusting in Jesus to watch over her. At any rate she was starting kindergarten and the adventure was about to begin. Both my wife and I volunteered in the classroom as often as we could. We got to know her teacher really well and had a pretty good handle on things.
Kara really seemed to be flourishing and everything was going along smoothly…and then we got the call: a meeting with the teacher. She sounded kind of serious on the phone; so we both felt we should get there as soon as possible. We sat together at one of the children’s tables as the teacher began to explain why we were there. She handed us a book called, “All Kinds of Homes” It was pictures of animals, reptiles, birds and insects on one side of a page and then when you turned the page you would see their home. “Kind of cute,” I thought. Then she began her tale:
“After I read the story to the children I gave each child a piece of paper and some crayons. Then I told them to draw some animal they liked or a bird or an insect or even somebody they loved and draw them inside their home. And then I told them to write on the paper what they drew. For instance, a cave is a home for a bat or a tree is a home for a squirrel. All the children were working very hard as I walked around looking to see how they were doing. That is when I came to Kara. I tried to tell her that what she was drawing wasn’t what I had asked for. But she insisted it was somebody she loved and it was a home. I gave her several different ideas but she was adamant and refused to change her drawing. This is what she drew and I thought you should know.” Then she handed us a picture. It was a crudely drawn cross with a man drawn against the top half with his arms outstretched. Hovering above his head was a golden crown. It took me a while to read her writing; but as I realized what she had written my eyes began to water up. If there was another father some where in the world that was prouder than I was at that moment, I would have been shocked. The caption written below the man on the cross with the hovering crown was this: “A cross is a home for a crown.” In one simple picture and one simple sentence she had captured the essence of Jesus’ sacrifice; profound beyond anything we had ever taught her. And then, when confronted, she stuck up for Him and herself!
I was never again afraid of her having her faith stolen from her. Nor was I afraid she would ever fear ridicule. That confidence proved true all the way through her later school years…from the time she was the only one who stood in her health class when asked, “Who believes you should only have sex if you are married?” and then proudly and confidently defended her position…to the time she proudly prayed at “See You at the Flagpole” with only one other child while dozens of students stood around and heckled her. I couldn’t have been prouder of the little girl she was and I am even prouder of the woman she has become. I sang Christian lullabies to her from the time she was one week old. I began telling her the Good News when she was two-years-old. She first asked Jesus into her heart when she was three-years-old. I prepared her to defend her faith when she was five-years-old.
So, when do you start? The picture she drew in kindergarten still hangs next to my desk after twenty-five years. Every time I look at it I am reminded of those three questions: When do you start? How much will they retain? Is it important for a child to be able to defend their faith at an early age? And the answers?
Sooner than you think. More than you know. Abso-posi-lutely!!!
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You are good parents. It is good to know there are still parents who teach true values. God bless.
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