If you read my productivity posts, you’ll know that one of my biggest things was making sure I had some quiet time every day. This has been so important as to how I structure my day. (If you currently are dying to enhance this skill yourself, check out this post which is a real part of my own journey.)
Then I read this post on digging deeper into the Word of God. I think it skipped over the getting started portion, but it definitely got me thinking about what I say all the time:
God knows EXACTLY the place He has called you to in this season. Don’t you think He KNOWS what’s in your heart to do?
Many of the moms I talk with are anywhere on the scale from putting a Bible app on their phone and hopefully looking at it, to hiding a devotion in the bathroom, to memorizing the Awana scriptures right along with their kids, to desiring to dig deeper.
And these thoughts have swirled around in my head for weeks and weeks.
Then for about the third week in a row, I found myself crying at family worship as we read my daughter’s The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name [This storybook Bible is written at a 4 year old comprehension level and has left me in TEARS on no less than four occasions. The simplicity and yet the depth and angle of each story has pointed out to me time and time again things in a way I would never have said it or thought it myself. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS STORYBOOK BIBLE.]
Then it hit me. Like a ton of bricks. Or like a children’s storybook Bible thumped on my skull:
This is where God has me. Here. Doing life like this.
There have been months where the only book my daughter wanted to read was a storybook Bible until she had it memorized. There have been nights where the only thing she wants to play with is her Bible Stories Quiet Book. There are days when she excitedly screams her memory verses and wants to call grandparents to say them over and over. And not one car ride goes by where we don’t have her kids’ songs on which are Bible stories or verses.
We are NOT the perfect family. We are just walking through and doing life each day – and some days are better than others.
What this has taught me is that I can learn and dig and see new things from what I am already doing.
I think so many moms look at a post on being in the Word and somewhere in their heart, hear the lie “You need to do MORE. You aren’t doing ENOUGH. You are failing.”
I’m not saying you can’t grow – that God isn’t growing you in this area right now. And I’m not saying that you need to do one more thing because you aren’t doing enough.
I have no doubt that you work really hard at being the best wife and mom you can be. That you work each and every day to teach your kids, and hopefully, teach them and model for them about the Love of God.
So if that is your right now, maybe you are learning more than you think.
I didn’t realize how much benefit I was getting from this storybook Bible.
Or from the quiet book and repeating the stories to my daughter.
Or from “accidentally” learning the memory work myself.
Or from having Bible songs swimming in my head all the time.
This is my right now. And God is growing depth from it.
Maybe that’s partly because I was looking for it and craving it. God’s ways and timing are really cool.
So mama, tired mama, with more things to do than time, and little people who always need you or food or both and you feel like you have nothing left to give – in what you are doing already in teaching your children about God, ask that He would grow it. In depth. In length. In width. In and outside of space and time.
He is growing and working in you. Maybe in ways you never expected. But they are there.
What do you think? How are you seeing God grow you in things you are doing with your children everyday? Share in the comments!
Proverbs 6: 21-23 Bind them continually on your heart; Tie them around your neck. When you walk about, they will guide you; When you sleep, they will watch over you; And when you awake, they will talk to you. For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light;
Leah:
I know you wrote this post for women, but this is something I need to hear as well.
There are three parts to my daily time with God: Prayer, worship, and Bible study. Of the three, the Bible study part is what needs improvement.
I’m working on it. The stuff you have put in this post is helpful and encouraging to me.
Jim
Jim-
Well, thank you, but it’s really just a part of my journey. Nothing new under the sun here, maybe just some different encouragement or at just the right time for (me) someone.
-Leah