Like any other family who loves the LORD, our family desires to collectively grow in Christ and get to know Him more. It seems that every new school year we set out to "do things differently" in order to attain this goal. Shawn and I believe that reading the Bible and praying are vital parts of an active Christian life and we want to help our children learn these necessary tools for thriving with Christ. We also believe that spending time together with our LORD and Savior will grow our relationship with each other and help us get to know each other more. So, we usually start the new year by saying, "O.K. let's try having family devotions after dinner" or "Maybe, choosing one or two nights a week to spend time in GOD's Word and prayer together is more doable". Whatever we say, we do mean, but as maybe you can relate to...schedules change, we get tired, forgetfulness creeps in....
It just doesn't happen!!!
As you can guess, the beginning of a new school year is upon us once again! But, this new year is different....this year WE ARE GOING TO DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY! Ha ha...well at least that is, once again, our goal!
What are we going to do, you may ask? Well, we are going to do what we have always desired and set out to do - we are going to do our best to grow in our relationship with Christ as a family!
Does this mean we are always going to have it together and spend perfect, quiet moments with GOD, same time, same place every day? Not quite. We do hope to know GOD more and in return align ourselves more to His will, but we realize that our Christian walk is a journey.
Some members of our family started this journey years ago,
some more recently, and for our youngest, she does not understand much about what a journey with Christ is!
So, yes, we recognize the need and benefits of time in GOD's Word and praying, but we also understand flexibility must be very much a part of our time together. What we are really interested in is our desire for Christ to increase (John 3:30). As father and mother, Shawn and I want to help instill in our children a passion for the LORD (Psalm 63:1).
Through an interesting article I read this morning entitled What is Godliness, Jerry Bridges teaches that what proceeds this great desire for the LORD is first, a fear or reverence for the Almighty, then a vast understanding and acceptance of His love for us. Bridges says that through this fear and love, devotion to GOD exists. He quotes, "This is devotion to GOD - the fear of GOD, which is an attitude of reverence and awe, veneration and honor toward him, coupled with an apprehension deep within our souls of the love of GOD for us, demonstrated preeminently in the atoning death of Christ." With these two attitudes, our thirst for GOD comes alive (https://bible.org/article/what-godliness).
So as we have our family "devotions", it is our prayer that the word devotion takes on a whole new meaning - one of hunger like displayed by the writer of Psalm 42 when he says in verses 1-2, "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O GOD, for the living GOD. When can I go and I meet with GOD?"
We have started meeting with GOD as a family after dinner (go figure!). We have started reading the book of Colossians, which is a short letter written by Paul and Timothy consisting of four chapters. We are excited to take the book verse by verse and tear it apart! May it be our dessert (since we are probably not having many of those - haha - see my future posts!) I look forward to start memorizing Scripture as well with the family! Right now, we are just setting our goals and doing our best to stick to them!
Part of the reason for starting this blog is to keep us accountable to our commitment to our study of Colossians and beyond. I look forward to sharing how our family adjusts to the change of meeting nightly after dinner to spend time with our Heavenly Father. More importantly, I look forward to seeing our desire for Christ increase as we grow in our fear (Philippians 2:12) of GOD and our appreciation of His love (John 3:16). May our study be centered around these two attitudes and may we persevere and not give up meeting together!
Please share with me below how your family spends time together getting to know our Heavenly Father. Any advice for us as we begin our new year to "do things differently"?
It just doesn't happen!!!
As you can guess, the beginning of a new school year is upon us once again! But, this new year is different....this year WE ARE GOING TO DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY! Ha ha...well at least that is, once again, our goal!
What are we going to do, you may ask? Well, we are going to do what we have always desired and set out to do - we are going to do our best to grow in our relationship with Christ as a family!
Does this mean we are always going to have it together and spend perfect, quiet moments with GOD, same time, same place every day? Not quite. We do hope to know GOD more and in return align ourselves more to His will, but we realize that our Christian walk is a journey.
Some members of our family started this journey years ago,
some more recently, and for our youngest, she does not understand much about what a journey with Christ is!
So, yes, we recognize the need and benefits of time in GOD's Word and praying, but we also understand flexibility must be very much a part of our time together. What we are really interested in is our desire for Christ to increase (John 3:30). As father and mother, Shawn and I want to help instill in our children a passion for the LORD (Psalm 63:1).
Through an interesting article I read this morning entitled What is Godliness, Jerry Bridges teaches that what proceeds this great desire for the LORD is first, a fear or reverence for the Almighty, then a vast understanding and acceptance of His love for us. Bridges says that through this fear and love, devotion to GOD exists. He quotes, "This is devotion to GOD - the fear of GOD, which is an attitude of reverence and awe, veneration and honor toward him, coupled with an apprehension deep within our souls of the love of GOD for us, demonstrated preeminently in the atoning death of Christ." With these two attitudes, our thirst for GOD comes alive (https://bible.org/article/what-godliness).
So as we have our family "devotions", it is our prayer that the word devotion takes on a whole new meaning - one of hunger like displayed by the writer of Psalm 42 when he says in verses 1-2, "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O GOD, for the living GOD. When can I go and I meet with GOD?"
We have started meeting with GOD as a family after dinner (go figure!). We have started reading the book of Colossians, which is a short letter written by Paul and Timothy consisting of four chapters. We are excited to take the book verse by verse and tear it apart! May it be our dessert (since we are probably not having many of those - haha - see my future posts!) I look forward to start memorizing Scripture as well with the family! Right now, we are just setting our goals and doing our best to stick to them!
Part of the reason for starting this blog is to keep us accountable to our commitment to our study of Colossians and beyond. I look forward to sharing how our family adjusts to the change of meeting nightly after dinner to spend time with our Heavenly Father. More importantly, I look forward to seeing our desire for Christ increase as we grow in our fear (Philippians 2:12) of GOD and our appreciation of His love (John 3:16). May our study be centered around these two attitudes and may we persevere and not give up meeting together!
Please share with me below how your family spends time together getting to know our Heavenly Father. Any advice for us as we begin our new year to "do things differently"?