Parents, Keep Reality Before Your Children: Buy Good Books

I'm not a fan of horror movies. At all. Unfortunately, the converse of what I'm recommending to you today - getting good kids books for your home - as a parent desiring to "keep reality before your children" provokes a response that approximates those horror movies produce in me: disgust, groans, eye rolls, and the general desire to look the other way. While it might not be that bad most of the time if you know the right places to look, a stroll down the aisle at Wally World or Target isn't (typically) going to get you a haul of "Christian" books that have any business being labeled that way. So for all the parents who have wondered why they've stocked the shelves with Left Behind: The Kids series or why they should trust the near death experience of a 3 year old to provide frontline fodder for their kids, here's a breath of fresh air: the books are out there. And they're getting easier to find. Hopefully this post helps direct you to some of them.

A number of months ago, I became convinced that as a dad, I had a responsibility to make sure that my kids were getting a steadier stream of truth through children's books than they were getting. If you're anything like us (and you very well might, because we're not like people who aren't like us and your family is probably like those who are like yours) you tend to accumulate books and toys for your kids quickly. Unexpectedly. In a way that seems like you had a subscription plan that delivered them to you while you were passed out somewhere. And most of the time, those books don't communicate a whole lot - or a whole lot that is true and hearty - about God and the gospel. That's what gripped me. As I looked at all the books that we had sitting around about how many animals you could count or stories about a mouse eating cookies, I felt strongly that I had a responsibility to my wife and children to make sure that they were "resourced" appropriately. I'm big on equipping as a priority in ministry and it was high time to make sure that my home was equipped to teach my little ones, even during play time, that life is about more than silly stories, nursery rhymes, or princesses.

At the end of the day, there's really nothing wrong with stories about princesses or ballerinas for little girls. It's the vacuum created of rich, true things when those other stories suck the air out of your home. A daily struggle ensues for every Christian parent, as we seek to lead our children to see the glory of God in the gospel, to see that life is not about getting more and more stuff, but loving God and loving people for His glory. And I don't want to tilt the struggle any more in the favor of worldliness and sin than it already is. So I decided to 'roid up my children's library with books that intentionally grounded my kids in the truth of God in ways that are entertaining, accessible, and biblically faithful - a really good mixture.

Ultimately, our family worship time is the place where the gloves come off and we, as a family, have our sparring matches against the encroaching values of worldliness and sin present in our own hearts, by praying, memorizing Scripture, going over a good, solid catechism (of the Spurgeon variety) questions, reading Scripture, singing praises to God, and talking about the Word of God. But it's not just there that my kids are learning truth. They need to exercise if they're going to be any good for the big events and that means I can't let them eat only dessert throughout the day and wonder why they're not caring about what we're doing during that important time. Their hearts are in our stewardship. And I'll tell you this: I'm certainly not going to let Dora the Explorer teach my kids more about life than godly men and women who have prayerfully sought to get some engaging and biblical content into our hands. So from one dad to other parents (or potential parents) - take your stand on what your kids books say about what you're trying to accomplish at home.

So You Want Some Examples, Eh?

That's my story. But here's where I want to really help you, if you're looking for it, get a solid start at putting together a decent set of books for your kids. All I'm going to say about the below books is that I don't think you can really go wrong if you add them to your home. They're all written in order to lead your kids to seeing God and Christian living rightly and biblically. Here's a list, with links to Westminster Theological Seminary's Bookstore website for you to look at. (WTS Bookstore has Amazon-ish prices, even better at times, as well as good, fast service. I give them a thumbs-up and encourage you to give them a look as an option for getting your books.) They also have a kids category for you to look through. Here are some top picks:

Pilgrim's Progress

Get Wisdom!: 23 Lessons for Children About Living for Jesus

Gospel Story Bible

The Barber Who Wanted to Pray

The Donkey Who Carried a King

The Prince's Poison Cup

and here's the link to FAQ's about their children's section. It gives a good perspective on why they stock the books they do and links to different categories of children's books. It's well worth the time to look through what's out there.

These are just a few examples. But they're good. And you'll find a lot more, as most everything at WTS Bookstore is "trustworthy" and not going to teach your kids to live as Christians without knowing their need for Christ (like, sadly, a number of well-intentioned children's books can). I do hope that, if you're a parent, you take a good look at what your choices about media and books are teaching your children about life - and if its reinforcing what you really desire them to learn. Let's strive together to serve our children well for their good and God's glory.

To God Alone Be the Glory,
-Chris

Parents: Keep Reality Before Your Children: Cat-e-che-sis

Cat-e-chesis does NOT ensure lots of yawning for you, your kids, or your cats.

Let's cut to the chase: the word "catechism" (and its family of words "catechesis" and "catechize") is not popular in evangelicalism.  For most people, including myself, it rings of lifeless memorization and Wednesday night boredom.  Here in Wisconsin, a huge percentage of the population is Roman Catholic.  And, while I don't mean to needlessly offend anyone, Roman Catholicism has some pretty unhelpful stuff in tow, including a denial of the Gospel.  For my part, the tradition I grew up in, Lutheranism, maintains a good deal of the traditionalism but changes some of the theology.  But in all, assumptions are made about people being "Christian" because they've joined the church or been baptized.  And those assumptions are played out, sadly, in the realm of relating to kids - assuring them that their standing before God is equal to their standing in the church.  I realize that there's a small minority who may not reflect this, but to be fair, the vast majority do.  What's more, the official teaching of Catholicism and Lutheranism reflect an understanding that a child is saved by virtue of his relationship to the church and the act of baptism itself or the exercise of the faith of his parents in baptism.  This post isn't about Catholicism or Lutheranism, but our rejection of them has also affected our neglect of a really helpful tool, which is the topic for today: catechizing our children.

My relationship toward using a catechism with our kids is fairly spotty.  I never gave much thought to using it as a discipleship tool for my girls, though I have great respect for confessions and catechisms that are biblically faithful.  The idea just didn't seem particularly interesting to me in leading my home.  Before I go into anything about using a catechism, I want to relate to you a personal story that can hopefully pique your interest if you're looking for a way to get truth before your kids "systematically," which is really all a catechism does.  The story goes like this...

Early on in January of this year, someone from the Watchtower Society came by our home.  She was looking for the previous tenant, who clearly doesn't live here.  But I took some time to share the Gospel with her and she seemed genuinely interested and challenged.  The next week, she came back to the door with a man who clearly had no intention of hearing the Gospel, but trying to stamp out the truth with the false teaching of the JW's.  The conversation lasted much longer than it should have, but afterwards, something changed about our Lydia.  She no longer wanted to pray or say "God."  Rosalie and I were torn up about it.  We talked with her, prayed for her, and tried to understand what had happened.  However, just over a week ago, I printed out a copy of Charles Spurgeon's catechism to use as a family (which is essentially the Westminster Shorter Catechism with Baptistic distinctives and a little more and less at a few points).  When Lydia was 1 or 2, we taught her question 1, "What is the chief end of man?"  And at the end of a day that was particularly discouraging concerning the above, we sat down and I dusted off old question 1.  And that night, with my little girl on my lap, she answered question 1.  I wept for joy over our little one's freedom from whatever fear had held her for the past few months.  Since then, she's asking almost every day if we can do our catechism time.  Praise God for this change of heart in our daughter!

I share this with you both to speak of what God has done and to encourage you to consider how great a blessing the use of a catechism might be in your home.  Honestly, as much as I value the truth in the catechism, until recently I never gave much thought to the long-term impact of memorizing truth together as a family this way.  And a couple years ago, I never thought that the words I was repeating with my daughter about "man's chief end" would be the magnet point to draw her heart back.

Using a catechism does not have to be a mess of boredom.  It really doesn't.  And I'll share with you, in a second, how our family has embraced it.  But I want first of all to affirm this: a catechism is a condensed packaging of biblical truth intended to build a worldview in our minds and hearts.  It's foundation work.  While God's Word is itself our only certain foundation, a good catechism has taken the truth of God's Word and distilled it so that a good deal of truth can be communicated in a sentence or two.  Helpful is the best word, at the least, to describe the right use of a catechism.  It is not a substitute for Bible memory or for reading through the Bible with your family.  But it communicates the truth of the Bible in a way that is accurately and easily remembered.  It's the "Cliff Notes" of systematic theology.  And instead of tackling Grudem or Berkhof, a catechism is a great place to go as a family, because, frankly, my daughters aren't in a position to do much more than look at a page and think about how it could be best colored.  The catechism gives you a great advantage in training your children because you're learning it together and it has so helpfully done the work of parceling up truth into manageable packages.  So, what and how?

So You Want Some Tips, Eh?

• A good catechism is (not that) hard to find.  In reality, it isn't that tough.  There are some helpful ones out there.  As a Reformed Baptist, I can't completely endorse Westminster or Heidelberg, though they both are extremely important in the history of the church.  We use Charles Spurgeon's catechism, which is essentially Westminster with the appropriate adjustments.  The language is "kind of" antiquated, but it preserves a sense of historicity at the same time, which we value in our home.  Spurgeon's is 82 questions long and the answers are meaty.  Here's a link to Spurgeon's Catechism.
• Don't sell your kids short.  Like Scripture memorization, you'd really be surprised to find out how much your kids can memorize.  And how old and out of shape our memories are (yikes!).  Because every family has a different dynamic, it's really important that you get a feel for where your little ones are at.  But here's the (kind-of) fun part: challenge them!  They may really enjoy tackling things that seem bigger than what they suppose is possible.
• Don't rush it.  I know it's tempting to want to have all 82 questions answered in as many days.  But unless you're living at a monastic retreat center with your family (and haven't been asked to leave because the kids disrupt the painful solitude), it's just not realistic to expect things to sink in right away.  I think this is particularly the case when your family culture has been missing these kind of elements over a longer period of time.  If you're just now realizing that handing over an XBox controller to your 10 year old for 3 hours a day over the past 3 years is not a good idea, don't expect him to immediately understand why you've pulled the plug and are sitting down to memorize something that's more than fifteen times older than he is.  God has been patient with you and you can be patient with your children.  Even if you've hit the ground running with a solid handle on family life, just remember where your kids are spiritually.  If your 6 year old hasn't made a profession of faith, then it's just not appropriate to expect that he'll be champing at the bit over these things.  So be patient and keep plugging away at it.
• Make it special.  I love the fact that our families have unique cultures.  We have friends who climb trees with their kids and run around outside all day.  We're kind of homebodies who like to cook and take walks and special trips to Target together.  Our families reflect who they are composed of.  And because of that, you have the opportunity to recognize what is special and valued (culturally) in your home and play off that in your family worship life.  Here is an example from our home: we do "special treats" as ways of spicing up the day.  So I'll randomly tell Lydia "I have a question for you..." and then get into a catechism question, letting her know that if she can answer it, we'll get a special treat at the store.  It doesn't always have to be that way, but that's something fun to attach to that time.  (Though I've also made clear that we give her the treat because we love her and want to be gracious to her, not because she's storing up merits!)  For the catechism itself (and I'm sorry to sound like I'm on Pinterest, which I'm not - though Rosalie is and she keeps me posted on what she finds), I formatted the questions in a decent font, put a page border up, and printed them out on nice cotton resume paper.  Then I glued those to some heavier stock paper.  I finished it off with some wood-pattern scrapbook paper reinforced with heavier stock for the covers and hole punched the edge.  And to offset the use of the term "scrapbook paper," I burned the edges of the paper to give it an "old" look and bound the edge with some ribbon.  Then I dedicated it on the inside.  So the catechism itself actually looks neat and it's something that we can hold on to and have some importance attached to its being made.  As well, I plan to have a special party when each of our kids has been able to memorize the whole thing, giving them a "diploma" and celebrating as a family.  It'll probably mean a night at a hotel, a nice meal, and some time fun swimming time in the hotel pool.  Maybe it'll be a picnic at the zoo.  But I want them to know that what they've been able to do, by the grace of God, matters a lot.  However you might choose to do it, you have an opportunity to hold out time spent over a catechism as something fun, special, and important and you have the freedom to pursue options that make it moreso to your family.  Not everyone would enjoy putting together a bound copy of the catechism and that's okay.  Just find something that can communicate to your family that this is special.
• Remember the heart.  One big difference between using a solid catechism and one that's off-target (like the Roman Catholic Catechism) is the content.  That's obvious - we don't want to teach our kids falsehood.  That's why we turn to a good, solid, biblical catechism.  But the danger, even in using an orthodox and truth-laden catechism, is the temptation to forget the heart and focus so much on making sure everything is being memorized to the letter.  Memorization is good.  But it's even better to go through the questions, read the Scripture "proofs" attached to each answer, and talk about what the truth means.  The verse that is included over our catechism is 2 Timothy 2:15 and we try to recite that every time we come to review the questions as a family.  It gives context and purpose and grounds it in God's Word.  So be careful that you don't get so caught up with little Billy memorizing so much and grasping so little.

So there are some thoughts about catechesis.  It's a word that's loaded with a lot of strange assumptions and rightfully so, at least around these parts.  But for the family hoping in Christ together, using a catechism can be a downright refreshing and enjoyable thing.  I can tell your from the experience I shared with you above, that it has definitely been used by God that way in our home.  And our goal in all of this is that we might keep the reality of Scripture before our little ones by serving them these condensed statements of truth that they can think about and not have to wander as they think about "What does the Bible say about...?"  Ultimately, it's a tool - and I think, a good one.  Lord willing, in a couple days we'll look at "reading time" with our little ones.

To God Alone Be the Glory,
-Chris

Parents: Keep Reality Before Your Children: Scripture Memory

I'll admit it.  Scripture memory is for me the flossing of spiritual disciplines.  It's something that I know is very good for me, will probably head off some problems down the road, is recommended by 10/10 godly men, and should be practiced regularly.  What's more, it's something that I tend to get excited about in spurts.  I'll get revved up about it because I've got a few extra minutes with my girls in the car while I wait for my wife to grab some things at the store and I'll grab my Bible and turn around and recap our memory passage that I hadn't touched for a week.  It ends up being the most easily excluded thing for me during our family worship time, oftentimes because a) I've forgotten to go over it or b) it's bedtime already. 

Candy floss sure seems to be more appealing than the waxed variety.

If you're like me (with flossing - and for the sake of your teeth, I kind of hope you follow through with it more often than I do), you can at least identify with how I relate to Scripture memory.  Unlike flossing, though, Scripture memory isn't painful - even if you haven't done it for a while.  Memorizing God's Word is intended to be a delight (Psalm 119:14, 16), a vaccine against sin (Psalm 119:9), and satisfy the yearning of our hearts after the Word (Psalm 119:20).  It provides us with material to recount the wondrous works of God to each other and to our children.  And even if we have a Bible on us all day, it really is the surest way to guarantee that your thoughts have something godly to turn to when you're tempted to sin or just check out and think about baseball.  At the end of the day, like any biblical discipline, you won't regret it.

Unfortunately, we sometimes like to think that we can bypass our minds and head straight to the heart.  While the heart is crucial, God didn't design us as purely emotional beings.  We were made with minds.  And just as we are to love God with all of our heart, we're to do the same with our minds.  Yet like our emotions, our thoughts need to come under the sway of God's Word.  So when you wonder why little Billy is chucking his Duplo blocks across the room, remember that his darkened heart is also informed by a darkened mind that seeks to suppress the truth he knows.  And while memorizing Scripture doesn't save someone, how will someone believe unless they're given biblical, gospel truth to believe?  It's a whole lot more reasonable to keep hammering Billy with truth than hammering him with behavior modification.  And it's a whole lot more biblical as well.

How does Scripture memory become a part of family life?  Let me suggest this: if anything is going to put you on a path to walking together as a family (or even as a church), it's making sure that we're thinking God's thoughts after Him together.  I'm not going to say it's a secret that I think a primary way of keeping our kids from jumping into the deep end of the culture pool is by loving them well and involving a regular time of family worship into the daily routine.  And a really big way of keeping reality before our kids is making sure that we don't privatize our time in God's Word so that the only time we're in it is in the morning, before they wake up.  As helpful as that time is for us personally - and it is crucial and should not be neglected - consider how your little boy is going to develop a heart to spend regular time in the Word.  We need to teach our kids and model for them a love for Scripture.  And a really sweet way of doing that is to together memorize the same passages and focus on going together to the treasure chest of Scripture.

You Want Some Tips, Eh?

Well, here you go.  For what they're worth - and I do hope they are of some help to you - give these ideas a thought (or two or three):

• Think about your family.  Because each family and each learning style is just a tad bit different, I'm not going to tell you that there is a "best" way to approach it.  But here are some things to consider: What is going on in my family life right now that could be spoken to specifically by the Word of God?  What stage of life do we find ourselves in?  What area of sin seems to be pronounced in our family life or in the lives of our little ones?  Is there a particular book of the Bible that you've been reading together?  Are there particular things about God that you want your little ones to be seeing right now?  Any of these questions will help you come to a conclusion that approaching such and such a passage and eating it up together will be especially relevant to your family.  For our part, we're working to memorize Ephesians.  It's a tremendous book that covers so many different aspects of Christian doctrine and living.  And I want my girls to have a solid foundation of truth in context.  So that's where we're at.  But you won't go wrong, so long as you get an idea about what would be helpful for your home.
• Get a plan.  Plans fail for lack of counsel.  They also fail when they don't even exist.  So instead of just thinking that it's a good idea to memorize Scripture, think about how you might best help yourself and your family to actually do it.  Is there a better time of day to recite it together?  Would five minutes over dinner be helpful?  What about breakfast?  Don't feel that your plan is concrete - but try some things out and see what works best.  As helpful as my turn around in the car parked at Walmart moments may be, it's not the best time to ensure we're committing God's Word to memory together - mostly because it's just irregular.
•  Don't expect too much - or too little.  We have a tendency to assume that we can't memorize a whole lot.  We chafe at the thought of memorizing a whole chapter, not to mention a whole book.  But it can be done.  Just don't expect it to happen overnight!  If you think about all the little songs and ditties and commercials that we can finish the words to, you might give yourself a little more courage to say "We can do this."  And with your little ones, recognize that their minds are on overdrive.  Us old folks are the ones whose memories aren't getting any better (that is, unless, we exercise them!), while our little ones have minds that God has designed to gather and retain so much of what they're seeing and hearing.  I am so encouraged when my Lydia stays right on track with me when we're saying our passage.  Even so, remember that we have our off days and so will our kids.  That's just how it goes.  For my part, I'd rather set a high bar and deal graciously when we don't meet it than assume that a four year old can't hold on to the word "beloved" because we don't use it in every day speech.
• Enjoy the time and encourage and affirm each other.  Words of affirmation and encouragement are a big deal to me.  If they're not there, I can start feeling bummed out.  They mean a lot when they're there.  So remember, you've got little ones who look to you (and a spouse, for that matter) who would be blessed to hear a "Well done" from mommy and daddy.  Sometimes, I'll repeat the verse until I get to a point where there's a "key" word and then stall out a bit and ask for help in finishing it, in the hope that Lydia will pick up on it and chime in.  So affirm the goodness of your child's memorization by showing that it even serves your memorization efforts.  And ultimately, enjoy the time together.  Find something that can express your pleasure in memorizing and reciting Scripture together and offer it to your family.  It was a delight for David to commit God's Word to heart and it should be for us in our homes, as well.

Again, I hope those tips can help you out a bit.  I want to leave you with some  resources that can hopefully be of good service to you.  With the advent of smartphones, we've got even more and nearer tools to do this.  So let's take advantage of them (or use the old pen and paper, if you like) and actively commit to memorizing Scripture.  It might be like floss for some of us now.  But it has much greater promise than any flossing ever will and it's part of a rich legacy to leave your children and for them to take on to college and into their own families.  May these few thoughts and resources help us to serve our families well by keeping the truth of God's Word before our children regularly.

• Fighter Verses (Desiring God): Pretty much the go-to site these days for Scripture memory, along with a number of tools to help you as a family or church to get memorizing together.  (If my memory serves me right, I remember visiting Bethlehem Baptist one weekend and having someone from the congregation or a group from the congregation getting up and reciting the verse(s) for the week.  It wasn't awkward or performance-like, but reflected the discipline of grace embraced by the church.  Great testimony for corporate - be it family and/or church - Scripture memorization.)
• Seeds Family Worship: Scripture set to some catchy tunes.  The albums are divided by theme.  We've got a number of their songs and they probably get stuck in my head more than they do in our girls.  The music glues it to your memory very well.
• Journibles: While not "technically" a memorization tool, I know that writing things out can help lock in what we're thinking about.  These journals are set up for you to write out the Scripture you're journaling through.  Giving one of these to each member of your family, depending on the road for memorization you're taking, could help things set up a bit more.

Well, there you be.  It's a small sample, but a start.  The Fighter Verses are so well developed at this point (with apps for your smartphone and everything) that it may very well be the best and only tool for you to look at.  Whatever the case, memorizing the Word together is key.  And from memorizing it, we should be encouraging each other to be doers of the Word as well.

Next up on the list of tools, to be tackled later this week, Lord willing: the big, scary word, "catechesis" (rest assured, we're not talking here about the Roman Catholic catechism - instead, I'll be featuring Charles Spurgeon's).

To God Alone Be the Glory,
-Chris

Parents: Keep Reality Before Your Children (Part II)

Our Vizio TV would seem to be conspicuously out of place in this picture.

A number of months back, I posted about "keeping reality" in front of our kids.  It's been just about a year since I posted that and, while being late isn't always better than never, in this case it is.  I hope.

So what was that post from the distant past about?  Essentially, it had to do with being aware of ways in which we might assume our kids aren't "catching" things.  Hey, Winnie the Pooh is great.  But if my littlest girl grows up thinking that she's missing her tail and will be really bummed out until she finds it, she's been influenced more than she should have been.  The thrust of that first post was largely in the negative: thinking about things that might be harmful.  And because each family has different convictions about what's appropriate for their children, I think it suffices to say: at least think about what might be influencing your children away from thinking God's thoughts after Him.

What I do want to focus on, though, is something I think is incredibly exciting and, I trust, a blessing for families young, old, or not yet started: how do we help our kids think about things in a God-centered way?  That's a big question and I'm not going to pretend you'll sever your boy's attachment to video games overnight.  And you're not going to remedy the princess obsession in three easy steps.  Parenting is designed by God to be a constant labor and it doesn't stop.  That might be scary for some of us and it might sound taxing.  But I'm convinced that, hard as it is, appealing to God for grace - sufficient, sustaining grace - our thinking about walking a harder path than DVRing Sesame Street and checking out can go from mental groans to excitement, anticipation, and thanksgiving.  Think about it like this: If we believe that we don't drum up our own resources to obey God's commands, but depend wholly on His grace, then that promise of grace extends to His commands to love and care for our children.  So, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" is, by the grace of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, more than something that we know we should do, but only feel it hanging over us.  It's a gracious command for those who are in Christ.  So with that - and the myriads of other examples and commands in the Scriptures that call parents to love their kids by keeping Scripture before them - I'd like to start looking at some ways we can do this.

Before getting to specifics, let me just say: this is some untamed territory for a lot of us.  For various reasons, this generation of Christians has not had a consistent, beacon-like example of "practical godliness" in the home.  We've become so focused on ourselves and seeing family life as something to be "defended," that we've lost our bearings about what we should be proactively doing.  And while I'm all for saying what families "aren't," the church needs to get back into the business of encouraging them to be something special, holy, and reflect the calling God has on them.  So, here's to going forward and setting a positive course for honoring God in our homes.  I'm really encouraged to see a reviving of this throughout the church, as families crave more of what is so special about being a family that seeks to glorify and enjoy God together.  Movies like Courageous are gently cattle-prodding dads to take responsibility for their families and walk in accountability with each other.  Young men are catching a fresh vision for cultivating "family worship time" in their homes throughout the week, helping to avoid the Sunday to Sunday disconnect that is so common with busy lives and demanding jobs.  Praise God for this trend!

It's my hope that the posts to come about serving our kids in the spirit of Deuteronomy 6 - to keep God's Word before them when we're sitting down together, when we're out walking in the woods or at the mall, taking a walk or going to bed - will help you to consider some really practical ways to shoot for this in your home.  And along with talking about these things, I want to give you some steps to try walking in as well, little goals to aim for, that might help you put things into practice that, over time, might grow to be one of the greatest blessings you enjoy together as a family and something that your kids will give thanks to God for when they're starting families of their own.  

Before closing, let me add a special note here for those whose kids are grown and gone and those who aren't able to have kids or who aren't married yet: you've got a church full of families who want to get things right.  And when we do things like child dedications, we're committing together, as the church, to serve these little ones together.  While you might have heartache over time lost or time not had, I'd encourage you to think about how you might serve the families around you.  Not just by babysitting.  That might help.  But say hi to the little guy who looks like he's having a rough day.  Ask him what he thought of the sermon.  Ask how you can pray for a family or invite them over for dinner.  Teach Sunday school.  There's a man at our church whose primary ministry is greeting people and teaching "the darlings," none of which are his own children - but he loves to teach these little ones and interact with them.  The lines aren't always as bold between young and old, married and single, families with kids and those without, as we might think.

Lord willing, in a day or two we'll tackle our first family tool: Scripture memory.

To God Alone Be the Glory,

-Chris

In Praise of Precious Little Girls

     I love being a dad.  And I love being a dad of two little girls.  Now, one reason I can love being a dad of two little girls is that my wife is the best mother I know and takes care of these little ones remarkably well.  God has made my wife to do this and she shows it in the patience, care, and steadiness she has with our Lydia and Susannah.  So before I talk about my little girls, let me offer praise to God for the best wife and mother I know, my sweet Rosalie.

     While I'm not Mr. Northwoods, I'm still a man who likes watching the NFL Draft, college basketball, and This Old House.  I appreciate Bob Uecker's ability to narrate a homerun.  But I very much love being able to care for two little ones whom I have no illusions of forcing into softball or basketball, even though they're genetically predisposed to be recruited by any girls volleyball or basketball coach with a tape measure.  There is great joy in embracing masculinity and femininity according to God's good design, a design that includes pretty dresses for little girls and lessons in leading for little boys.  And I have to say, as I watch my little girls grow up, my heart melts in love over them and to God for how He has designed them and in earnest hope of God giving their sinful hearts a saving interest in Christ.  As a dad, I can't imagine a sweeter, more solemn responsibility than caring for their souls and loving their mommy.  It's a joy.

     Part of that joy is the little things that reflect the little personalities that are developing before our eyes.  I wanted to share that this morning, in tribute to my eldest daughter, Lydia.  She makes me laugh and smile.  And sometimes she frustrates me, because her personality is much more like mine than my wife's.  (As an aside: Isn't that how it usually works?  Be careful, parents - a lot of times, the  things that frustrate you most in your kids are reflections of your own sin in them.)  And in honor of my little girl, who will be turning four in just under a month, I'd like to share two sweet stories about her that happened yesterday.

     While meeting with someone yesterday afternoon, my wife called to ask me to pick up something at the store on the way home.  In the midst of her request, she told me she had to go because Lydia cut her finger.  Lydia tends to take things like scrapes and memorialize them for days by telling others of her grievous injury.  So it concerned me that my little girl cut her finger.  When I got home, I found this picture on the refrigerator:

I'm a very sentimental guy.  And there's something about the drawings my little girls make - even little scribbles on scrap paper - that makes it very hard for me to do anything other than put them in a special drawer and smile at them.  So seeing what my little girl made for me - and how she cut her little finger - was really a precious thing.  The above picture is one in a series of the best pieces of art I've ever received, because the artist is so special to me.  That same affection is an echo of the great love and affection that God has for His children, whom He has purchased and adopted.  How great is His love for His people!

     The second story involves some clothes that my wife had drying on hangers and Lydia's imagination.  She's a very creative, bright little girl.  And apparently, she decided to pretend that she was in a fashion boutique somewhere (and this is where I have no idea how she came up with this).  The following is her one-sided conversation regarding the said clothes:

Lydia: "I went to the lady and I said, "How much to look fabuluous?"  And I couldn't believe it, she said, "Eight dollars.  Nine dollars for some moms, six dollars for other moms, but eight dollars for you.""

She then preceded to talk about how "fabulous" things would be and how great a deal it was, all in a really excited, bubbly way.  Wow.

All of this to say: I love my girls.  And while I lose my patience with them some times and need to discipline them for their good on a fairly regular basis, serving God's cause toward our children is a wonderful, enjoyable thing.  So parents: love your kids, frame their artwork, and write down their stories.  Read God's Word to them, train them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, and hate their sin.  In all of it, enjoy and glorify the God who gave them to you - for their good and yours.  And please, pray for the salvation of our little girls.

To God Alone Be the Glory,
-Chris