Tell Your Children

Exodus 13:8, 14

“And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, This is done because of what the Lord did for me when I came up from Egypt” (V.8). “By strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (V.14).

What do you know about your parents’ faith story? What do you know about your grandparents’ journey with the Lord? Or more importantly, what stories of God’s deliverance have you told your children or perhaps even your grandchildren? Have they heard your salvation story, your personal testimony. Do they know about your journey with God?

Your children need to know how God has delivered you out of the “house of bondage.” They need to know that God answers prayer, affirmed by our own personal experiences of answered prayers. They need to know about bondage that we have been delivered from. They may see it in others as they grow up, but if they knew our story they would recognize it in others more quickly. The children of Christians struggle with sin and depression, or sometimes rebellion, because Christian parents usually do not share their personal struggles. They try to live in victory before their children, so when personal doubts, temptations, sins, and questions about God and His word come up they think something is horribly wrong with them, because Mom and Dad never had troubles like that.

A good rule is that when children see or sense that something is going wrong between their parents or between their parents and God, by all means let them see how you make things right. A couple of memories that have truly blessed me was seeing my parents crying, then hugging and sitting together talking about their struggle with each other. I don’t remember what they had argued about, but I very much remember how they fixed it. I also remember walking up on my father, who was sitting up on the stairway in the dark, crying. I heard him talking with God about a man who had been a dear friend. I remembered the fight, and I stood back in the darkness and watched how he fixed it. They became good friends again for the remainder of their lives.

I learned one can talk to God about any and everything. That through Jesus Christ you can find forgiveness and victory. I learned that my Christian faith was growing because of their journey with God. I knew that they had struggles, but that they depended upon God to carry them through and make things right again.

We don’t have a holiday designed for revealing our spiritual journey with God to our children. We need to create opportunities to tell our spiritual story to our children. If we do that with excitement and joy in the Lord, it will create other opportunities for our children to ask “What is this?” concerning something we are doing for the Lord, or how God has worked it out in life.

Psychologists tell us that children don’t remember much before 12 years of age, and most will be gone from the home by 18 or 20, so we have only about 8 to 10 years to have a significant impact upon our children. So much of our life our children know little about. Often, that is also when life is the greatest struggle for parents. We need to let our children see us deal with life. Take every opportunity to tell your story to your children.