“And you must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, as you lie down, and as you get up”. Deuteronomy 6:7.
Sarah will you like to have some mocha fudge. “No mummy” she said. Okay I will have it all to myself. Sarah sat and watched as I devoured my mocha fudge while listening to my slurps. The look she saw on my face and the interesting sound of my voice while savouring my ice cream instigated in her a desire to want to taste it.
Modeling God’s love to our children is one of the best ways to inspire them to love God. It implies demonstrating our love for him. This we can achieve by loving God ourselves because we can’t give away what we don’t have and spending time with our children when we are at it.
Modeling God’s love to our children involves:
Enthusiastically praying for and with our children: We can also encourage them to pray a word or more. Refrain from forcing them to do this.
Worshipping with them either in church or at home together: We can also use a variety of kid’s praise and worship tapes.
Role playing a Bible story: For instance, we can pretend to be Mother Mary carrying baby Jesus.
Apologizing for our wrongs and asking God for forgiveness
Eagerly obeying God
Showing love to our family members by being selfless with our resources.
Reading and studying the bible with our children and making it exciting for them. This we can do by getting a good bible geared for their age range for them. Children love owning their own bibles. Take them to the bookstore and let them choose their own bible. We can also make memorizing the scripture fun for them.
Serving God as a family together. This may include mission trips, feeding the poor or even in the church. Go to places that make God’s word come alive.
Be available to your children especially in crisis moments. These are great teaching moments for demonstrating God’s love and feeding spiritual hunger.
There are certain influences such as media or peers and experiences can spoil our children’s desire for God. So we need to avoid exposure to media, internet use, video games and any peer influence that may discourage them from serving God. By being proactive, we can help our children avoid the pitfalls of negative influence.
Resorting to intimidation and shame in order to motivate our children to seek God can only build resentment and undermine trust. We cannot make our children seek God we can only predispose them to trust him by being a model that reflects the love of God. By exerting so much pressure, we may be able to make our children conform to God’s standards but they may never desire God’s presence.
Written by Dr. Godwin & Blessing Ude.
