"Let the Little Children Come." Jesus (How we as parents teach them this)

Boys will be boys! I thank God for the adventure of boys :)

As some of you know I sent out a question about requests for subjects to blog about AND I got some replies, yay! So on behalf of those responses I will start with the first one I got.

How to teach your children about God and to come into His Presence.

One of my FAVORITE subjects!!!

This has been the cry of my heart since the day I found out I was pregnant with my first son Daniel! Thirteen years forward and three children added to our clan, I am STILL learning this wonderful concept, of teaching my kids this very thing.

One thing that comes to mind is understanding that we don't have to TEACH them in order for them to understand that God is the right choice, but so that they can MEET Him and find out themselves that there is nothing greater!  I believe God's goodness and love is so intense and so fulfilling that even our children cannot deny the incredible power of His love.  I used to feel the pressure was all on me to "cover all the bases" of Christianity, and God's ways etc...and that pressure was horrible!  I always felt like I was coming up short.  I felt this constant nagging, of "not enough! not good enough! not enough." As I got that revelation suddenly my focus began to change.  

"You mean all I need to do is encounter you more so that I can bring them in with me, Lord?"

I used to feel that I needed to have prayer every morning and read the Bible and have prayer with them, because that was how we were raised and so that must be what I need to do to.  But every time I tried so hard to make it happen, the worse the prayer time would be.  I had such an expectation they could all feel it, so they would immediately be reacting out of rebellion against my "law" and I would get so angry that no one was interested in God, supposedly ;).  Sometimes, even my husband could feel my pressure, and I felt that He wasn't even supporting me in this (he just didn't want to do it religiously, as I didn't recognize I was doing).  Ruslan would join us and be there but I could feel his lack of participation, and I just couldn't understand why, until later.  I had an extremely high expectation on him too because of knowing how important it was for the kids to see that "Papa" also loved God and put Him first, and I was afraid if they saw any kind of lack of interest from their dad then they too would lack interest (I had a lot of rules in my head of how things should be).

I remember one hard morning when I decided I AM NOT GONNA BE RELIGIOUS, I just want us to see what God wants to do or to show us, we will just have a good ol time.  Well for some reason the boys decided to be completely rambunctious and not quiet down or listen when I was trying to share something etc...and I broke!  "I just want us to spend some time with GOD! What the Hell!!! I yelled (haha I laugh even as I write that).  The moment those words came out I felt so embarrassed and it was so ironic linking the words hell together with God, how silly could I be!! What kind of picture was I giving them of God, a pissed mad Mama trying to force them into wanting to spend time with this "serious" God. No! That's not at all what I wanted!  I got up and somewhat sarcastically said, "I am going to my room to spend time with God, it's fine if you guys don't want to, I do."
As I was in the room I could just feel the grace of God all over me, He was so fine with my blow out, He wasn't shocked at all, yeah He didn't like my kids being yelled at either, but He knew my heart for them and He was letting me know I needed to lighten up on MYSELF, so I would give more slack to my kids as well.  I literally could feel the joy of the Lord pulsing through me as I began to laugh out loud, and I laughed and laughed and laughed.  I could feel walls of religious rules falling down, walls of false responsibility crumbling down, walls of fear of messing up my kids, walls of shame breaking down, and He just kept washing over me with this incredible unconditional love.  "Oh Lord, this is what I want my kids to experience, this is who You really are, Father help me to teach them about this!"  
I could just hear him whispering, "Patience, just give it time, you focus on getting filled up with My love, so you have something to give them."


(I will continue on this subject more. I feel like little bits at a time is better than too much, so that you have time to ponder these things and apply if you like before getting more information to add to all the information that we get these days. :))